Creative Melting Pot

All is peaceful until a crash of thunder startles you from your deep sleep.

Your eyes open to find an overcast sky instead of the blindingly white ceiling of the hospital. As you continue to stare, you also come to realize that you’re in a small row-boat rather than in that sterile bed with the scratchy blue sheets. Confusion nearly stirs you into action when the gentle hum of a mariner’s tune hits your ears. And all at once, it comes flooding back to you.

The Mariner.

Or Treasure Taker, as Ot- that man used to call him.

Whatever his name, he saved you from the horrors of reality. He said he could bring you to a better place. One far away from any grief, sadness, mysterious illnesses, bad tasting medicines, distant family members you’ve never even seen before crying because you’re dying and no one seems to know why but somehow you have to be the strong one about it.

Peace wraps around you like a warm blanket as the thought that you have to be close to that magical place soothes the seemingly permanent worry and doubt in your chest.

Your eyes flutter shut, and it isn’t until another wail of thunder rips through the silence that you wake up again. You open your eyes just in time for thick liquid to soak your entire entire body. You cough and sputter as you quickly sit yourself upright. The distinct aftertaste of salt makes you fear that the boat is at some risk of sinking, but as you look around, you’re relieved to find that no water has gotten into the row boat.

It quickly turns to fear when you also realize that you’re the only person on board.

You shiver as terror and water chill you to your very core. The sensible part of your brain knows panicking isn’t going to help you, but the other part that’s just a ten year old kid is scared and won’t listen. You grip the side of the row boat and let your body get tossed around like a rag-doll as the oversized drops create large ripples in the water.

Several minutes pass and, as the shock of repeatedly almost being tipped into the sea fades, you begin to notice something…odd about this rain other than the size and taste of the drops.

They’re all falling sporadically with no clear pattern between them.

In that moment, something in the very back of your mind tells you to look up. You do so just as you pass under a break in the clouds.

You expected a blue sky. It should have been a blue sky. But no.

Instead, thousands upon thousands of eyes of various sizes stare back at you. Several blink when they notice you staring, others turn their irises to something apparently more interesting in the distance. More thunder shatters the suffocating silence, and you briefly wonder if it’s actually the creature sobbing as a tear lands right on the nose of the row boat. You don’t struggle as you’re flipped into the ocean, but you also find no comfort in sinking.

Because somehow, in the very pit of your soul, you know there are just more eyes waiting in the depths. You’ll truly never be alone anymore, even in death, and it’s the single most terrifying realization you’ve ever had.