Underwater

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash 

I knew what the problem was and the problem was Eric wanted to spend his weekends underwater. I hated the water. Unless I could see everything around me, but even then I didn’t particularly enjoy being submerged. There were too many unknown objects and unknown species in the ocean. Although I loved watched the videos Eric shot while he was in his element, I had no problem sunbathing on the beach. 

The ocean was my worst nightmare and I had been scared of what could happen for the most of my life. I couldn’t help it. Growing up, most of my bedtime stories were about anonymous creatures living in the sea just waiting for me. Waiting to pull me under. At the time, my older brother thought these were good stories for me to fall asleep to. I was too scared to tell him about the recurring nightmares because I knew he would leave me before I was ready to let him go. I knew he was going off to college soon and I hadn’t been ready to be left home alone with my parents. 

Now that I was on my own, nightmares of the ocean and what it had done to my brother followed me wherever I went. We had never found his body and I knew the creatures had pulled him under because they had gotten tired of waiting for me. My brother’s death was my fault and my fault alone. I should have been the sacrifice.