Serenity’s cottage sat at the edge of the world, an ivory relic of a time long forgotten, nestled along the North Carolina shore. The house seemed to inhale and exhale with the wind, its wooden bones creaking in tune with the murmur of the sea. The late afternoon light, soft and dying, spilled across the floors in slanted beams, stretching long like the fingers of something unseen, something hungry. Through the windows, the ocean spread before her—expansive, endless, hypnotic in its luster. Yet, beneath the beauty, there was a sense of something darker, something that gnawed at the edges of the horizon.
The stillness here was suffocating. It was not the cottage, nor the sand, nor the waves crashing in their eternal rhythm. No, it was the absence—the deep, throbbing absence of life. The silence once a balm had grown sharp, an unbearable weight pressing against her chest. The nights stretched long, darker than they should be, the quiet pressing inward like a malicious force, consuming her thoughts, stealing her breath.
Her fingers traced the cool surface of the polished counter, but her mind was already far from the present, slipping through the endless labyrinth of her thoughts. The list. Always the list. A cruel compulsion to tidy, to fix, to fill the emptiness with the minutiae of chores. Organize the dresser, fold the laundry, rearrange the furniture—small, insignificant tasks that seemed to perpetuate the horror of her inertia. Serenity could not sit still. To cease moving was to succumb to something darker.
The cottage—this place she had once called home—needed her, as it always had. It demanded her care, her attention, her labor. She was bound to it as much as it was bound to her. The feeling of being watched by a thousand eyes lingered, hidden in every corner, every shadow.
A sip of water—she drank, but the sensation was wrong, a fire spreading across her throat as though she had been thirsty for a lifetime. Her body, desperate for sustenance, had been denied for so long that even the simplest act of drinking felt foreign, like a return to something she had long forgotten.
The house was immaculate, pristine—a hollow shell of perfection that mirrored the vast, empty silence. She, too, had become something brittle, fragile from years of wear and tear. She was no longer a woman but a shell of herself, broken by the weight of a life lived in quiet desperation.
The waves called to her, their rhythmic pull a mocking whisper. She looked out, and for the first time, the ocean seemed to answer a need deeper than she could name. Its voice, both familiar and foreign, promised an end to the ceaseless drone of her thoughts. A strange compulsion stirred within her—a force stronger than her will.
For once, she abandoned the list.
Her bare feet sank into the sand, each step a journey further from the safety of her cottage, away from the unyielding grip of the house’s quiet demands. The wind picked up, salty and harsh, brushing against her skin like the touch of an ancient, forgotten god. The ocean whispered her name with its cold breath, beckoning, drawing her closer.
She undid her coat, letting it fall to the ground, and then her shirt, her pants, until she stood exposed under the indifferent gaze of the night sky. Naked, unguarded, and yet for the first time, she felt something akin to freedom.
Self-care, she thought—though the words felt like something distant, like a half-remembered dream.
The ocean pulled at her, its rhythm steady and insistent, coaxing her deeper. The waves crashed at her ankles, her knees, the pull of the tide a low hum in her chest. The water was cold, unnervingly so, as though it had been waiting for her, as though it had known her long before she had ever come to know it.
She stepped deeper. The waves pulled at her, urging her to give herself to the night. Her breath slowed, and her pulse quieted. For the first time in years, she felt weightless. The pressure, the endless ticking of the clock, the ever-present demands—they fell away, fading into nothingness. Here, in the water’s embrace, she was free.
The ocean’s voice grew louder, swallowing her thoughts, and drowning them in its eternal call. She let it pull her further, deeper, until the water lapped at her shoulders, and her neck, and still, she did not resist. There was no fight left in her.
The cold was something savage, ancient. It wrapped around her like a lover’s embrace, suffocating, but oddly tender. Serenity sank, the weight of the world pressing her downward. The water consumed her, pulled her into its depths, and for the first time in her life, she did not resist.
She felt the world fall away, the noise, the clutter, the expectations—all of it disappeared, and in its place, there was only the stillness, a kind of brutal peace. She sank deeper, the ocean swallowing her whole. And for the first time, she was at peace.
The ocean, vast and unyielding, became her home. She was part of it now, a piece of something endless and eternal.
And in that peace, there was nothing left but silence.
Drowning– Catherine ‘Cassie’ Hall
