Hope In The Deep - A short story by Damien L Malcolm

Hope In The Deep

A short story by Damien L. Malcolm

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Also a part of my recently released ebook, The Tiny 1st Volume: A Short Collection of Short Stories
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This was it.

It had been two months since everything happened, and now Erica had finally worked up the courage to bring it to an end.

As she stood on the edge, looking down into the dark, swirling water below, it felt like everything was settled, complete. Her life had been tragically broken and confused for so long now, it was good to at last have peace.

Last February had been the turning point, when her world caved in around her. That night. She would never forget it. Her husband, Gavin, had taken their daughter, Lisa, to soccer practice after school, and waited with her until home time. He had the luxury of doing that sort of thing.

Being between jobs for the previous few months had allowed him a lot of time to form a closer relationship with Lisa. Closer than Erica ever had. Working her office job in the city and climbing the corporate ladder had sapped a lot from her relationships over the years, not least costing her the motherly bond she should have had with her only daughter.

Not that any of that mattered now. Lisa was gone, along with her father. She had only been thirteen years old when her life had been cut short.

Tears welled in Erica's eyes as she remembered her daughter's face, her hair, her smile. One lonely droplet left her eyelash and plummeted down into the darkness, caught in the wind billowing past under the old iron bridge beneath her feet.

That Thursday, Erica had been working late at the office, as usual. The soccer practice was rained out early. She was looking out the window of her high-rise office, seeing the black clouds rolling in from the west over the mountains, and wondering how her husband and daughter were going.

From the police reports, an animal ran onto the road right in front of them. While Gavin had done his best to avoid collision, the slick wet road offered no traction. Their car had left the road and fallen down the embankment. Both husband and child had died instantly on impact with the bottom of the ravine.

When Erica came home that evening to an empty house, she had not been worried at all. They may have gone to a friend's place on the way home from practice, and Gavin simply forgot to let her know. He was often doing things like that. They had been married sixteen years, and while she still loved him with every part of herself, sometimes the communication slipped. But then a phone call did come, and her universe shattered. All hope that she had ever possessed left her in a rush, leaving nothing but hollow emptiness.

Erica was a strong woman, or had been. In recent times she felt as if that strength had failed her. Along with everything else. She had been constantly sick, constantly drawn and tired. She found things difficult to remember since the night of the accident, but knew there must have been the crash investigation, the funeral, visits by caring family members and friends that probably went on for weeks. Went on until they thought she was ok and could manage on her own. She hadn't taken notice of any of it.

A wry smile crossed her lips, though, as the wind whipped blonde hair around her face.

Don't suppose they'd consider me “ok” now.

It had taken her this long, struggling to hold some sort of life together—unable to get out of bed every day—for her to realise it just wasn't meant to be. She had lost her job, there was less than a week until the bank foreclosed on their house, unpaid bills lingered on the kitchen counter and half of her so-called friends had turned their backs on her grief. Family may have still been there, but all Erica felt was lonely, lost and forgotten.

“Shouldn't she have started getting over it by now?” She had heard one of them say when they thought she was out of earshot. A woman who Erica thought was a friend.

Get over it? How was she ever going to get over losing the two people that made her truly complete, the only two people in the world that formed the other parts of her? The husband she had loved since high school, and the daughter they never thought they could have. After the cancer, she was told she couldn't get pregnant. Lisa had been a one-in-a-million miracle, and Gavin the man that helped that miracle come true. They were everything to her. What did people expect, she'd just forget them, brush off and move on?

“No,” Erica had said to herself, while staring at the dark ceiling above her bed in the middle of another sleepless night. “I will never get over losing my husband or our daughter. Never.”

She decided then that if her life couldn't have them in it, then she didn't need to be alive. Simple as that.

Once she had made the choice of what she was going to do, things became easier somehow. Abstract concepts would sometimes run through her mind. Hope. Future. Love. Laughter. These were just words to her now. Words with nothing but an echo of symbolism reaching out from a life she had lost. She could forget them.

Presently, as the cool midnight breeze rattled the framework of the bridge she stood on, Erica knew it was time to go. It would be quick, she knew. Just the impact of the water alone would most likely knock her unconscious, so with any luck she wouldn't have to feel the actual sensation of drowning. Not this time.

A lone truck rumbled past behind her, crossing the bridge into the city on some late-night delivery run. The sound jolted her, as if shaking her from a dream. Erica knew that if she was truly going to do this, it would have to be now. She steeled her nerves, tightened her grip on the metal ledge at her waist, leaned her upper-body out over the water and took a deep breath.

She let go.

The fall was somehow both terrifying, exhilarating and peaceful all at once. Like flying. It seemed to Erica to last for aeons, though in reality it was only a little over three seconds. The moment before she hit the water, Erica thought she saw an mirage of her husband looking up at her from the murky surface of the river. It was flushed away as she struck the surface, plunging instantly into the icy water.

The water was so cold it felt like frozen demons tearing at her skin. She could hardly move, and while she could see a little, all she could hear was the deep thumping of her own heart. The darkness deepened as she sank into the abyss; chilled shadowy water swirling, enveloping around her.

The cold and the oppressiveness, however, felt soothing to her somehow. It was as if her immediate surroundings were adapting to match the frequency and pitch of her own depressive sorrow. Erica welcomed it, the gentle falling, sinking. It was calming the way the blackness seemed to reach out and wrap around her, like a blanket, protecting her from the hurt and loss that waited above the surface. Waited to claim her sanity.

It wouldn't be long now. Somewhere inside, Erica could feel her lungs striving for breath, fighting so hard for that sweet oxygen that would keep her body alive. She closed her eyes and focused her mind against it. Soon the urge would start to hurt, she knew. For weeks now, she had been practising. Filling the bathtub and submersing her head in the water. While she had never been able to see it through to the end till now, it had given her the experience she needed; she knew what it felt like to drown, so she was fully prepared for what was to come.

It wouldn't take long now, and she would be with Gavin and Lisa again. Her heartbeat began to slow, and with her eyes still clamped shut she focused on every pulse, willing it to slow further, to just release her from life.

“Love, what are you doing?”

Erica abruptly opened her eyes. Her husband's voice had come through so clearly. But how...?

“I'm here, Erica, right beside you. What are you doing to yourself?”

She turned to the voice and saw what she thought could only be an hallucination. Gavin was there, floating beside her in the darkness, though not even really floating, and with a strange light behind him. She shook her head in confusion, releasing bubbles of air from her mouth as she moved.

“Don't panic, love. It's alright. You can talk to me.”

As she looked on, his image seemed to take on further clarity and become more solid. She hesitated for a moment before trying to put words together. She couldn't understand how, but the water was gone, the cold gone. There was just black void surrounding them, pure nothingness.

“H... How are you here? Am I dead?” The strained voice did not come from Erica's mouth, but from somewhere else. Perhaps only in her mind, she wasn't sure.

“No, not yet. I'm here to try to talk some sense into you, Erica. We've been watching you, you know. Lisa and I both have. You can't do this to yourself. There's so much more you have to live for.”

“To live for?” she echoed, starting to cry. “What could I possibly have to live for? You're gone. You and Lisa were all I had, and you're both gone." She was so overcome with grief and confusion, Erica could hardly get her words out. "There's nothing left now.”

“That is not true, love. I'm so sorry I had to leave you. But sometimes our path turns sharply when we're not prepared for it. Sometimes they're meant to end. Nobody is ready for that, not least those who are left behind. But I'm here now because I love you, and I don't want to see you waste your life like this. You mean too much to me.”

“But you're gone, Gavin! I can't mean anything to you, because you're not here any more. You're not with me!”

“I know, love. I'm so sorry."

Gavin paused. Erica cried. She cried the tears that had been stored up inside of her for two long months. Each sob racked her body in deep, heart-breaking sighs. She was angry at him for leaving, and angry at herself for feeling angry. She loved him so much that seeing him there through her tears like he was still alive, when she knew he was gone, just tore through her heart like a dagger. The pain felt as if it would never go away. But then, she didn't want it to go away because it meant she might lose sight of him, forget him somehow.
When Gavin's spirit spoke again his calm voice came with a tangible flood of hope and a warmth that Erica could feel flowing into her. It felt like the most loving hug she had ever experienced. Her sobs slowed as she felt his energy wrap around her.

"But you know, not every part of me is gone,” he whispered next to her ear. “I need you to stay alive, because someone needs to be around to raise our son.”

“What?” She pulled back, only to find the image of Gavin still sitting apart from her, like he had never moved. Energy poured from him, reaching for her. He was smiling lovingly at her.

“Haven't you felt it yet, Erica. He's inside you right now, growing.”

“But... how? I can't be...”

“You are, my love. We lost one child. Don't let us lose another. Please, Erica. You need to do this for me. I can't be with you now, so I'm going to need you to be strong for me and our son, ok? You need to make up for what I can't give him. He is going to need you. Can you do that for me?”

Erica was looking down at her belly and rubbing it gently in disbelief, “I.. I think so.”

“That's good Erica. I'm gonna go now, but I'll still be around for you. Always. I will never leave your side.”

“No, don't go! I still need you. You can't...”

“I have to, love. I have to. And you need to rise up and take a breath.”

Erica started to panic as Gavin's image began fading away. She couldn't cope with losing him for a second time. She tried to move toward him, but he seemed to gradually drift further away any time she moved. Suddenly, a bright light struck through, cutting between Erica and her husband's spirit. The wet cold reclaimed her senses, cruelly ripping her from the dream. She was back in the river. She cried out, but her voice was muffled in the water. She couldn't see Gavin at all now, but just as she was thought she would crumble apart completely, thought she had lost him again, his voice echoed in her head as if coming from a distance.

“I love you Erica. Be strong for me now. Take that breath, then just keep on breathing.”

“I love you to, Gavin. I will try. I miss you... so much...”

“Good girl. I miss you too. We both do. But I'll always be right beside you... Always... Take that breath, love.”

The light got brighter, as if shining directly on her from above. Erica looked toward it and was surprised to see she was only a metre or so below the surface, and what looked like the keel of a boat was in the water beside her. As she kicked her feet and rose, she couldn't help but let a smile cross her lips. The water had done exactly what she had wanted. It had taken her life. Her old life.

Hope had given her a new start.

If you would like to read another of my short stories, click here