Crosscurrent moved through the maze of tide pools like a ghost haunting familiar ruins, pale paws finding purchase on stone slick with seawater. Salt crusted his muzzle where the ocean’s spray had dried, the taste of it lingering bitter on his tongue. He scarcely noticed; bitterness was the most familiar of flavors to him by now.
He lowered his head to study one of the gleaming pools, and caught his own reflection instead. The pearl blaze down his muzzle stood out amongst the shadowy blur of his face reflected in the dark water. His mother had called it beautiful once, just once. Before she’d…
Before.
A gull cried overhead, harsh and mocking, and he lifted his yellow eyes to follow its flight. It wheeled once, twice, then vanished into the bruised sky like everything else that had ever mattered. He was alone again with the tide pools and their dying light, alone with the salt wind that carved hollows in the cliff face and in his chest.
He would survive this. He knew he would. But survival, he was learning, was just another word for drowning slowly.
He lowered his head to study one of the gleaming pools, and caught his own reflection instead. The pearl blaze down his muzzle stood out amongst the shadowy blur of his face reflected in the dark water. His mother had called it beautiful once, just once. Before she’d…
Before.
A gull cried overhead, harsh and mocking, and he lifted his yellow eyes to follow its flight. It wheeled once, twice, then vanished into the bruised sky like everything else that had ever mattered. He was alone again with the tide pools and their dying light, alone with the salt wind that carved hollows in the cliff face and in his chest.
He would survive this. He knew he would. But survival, he was learning, was just another word for drowning slowly.
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