It felt like flying. The wind screeched in his ears as he fell. Goosebumps prickled up on his arms, his hair standing up from the cold, salty air. And then the world into a thousand tiny pieces.
Onlookers watched, horrified, from the sandy shore. A few had seen the dark haired boy step onto the cliff, presumably to look at the ocean as most hikers did. Then the few who had seen, gasped or cried out as he jumped. Soon a large group, tourists and locals alike called everyone they could think of, the Coast Guard, the police, the ambulance, their respective mothers. It was no use of course. Even with all the authorities searching they never found his body.
He felt them, the tide's cold fingers gripping his clothing, his hair, his skin. There were hundreds of them pushing and pulling him toward some unknown destination. He opened his eyes, he eyelids were heavy from the pressure of the water. It didn't make a difference, it was still darker than the space between the stars. His lungs were bursting and before he could stop himself he instinctively took a breath. He was startled to notice that it didn't hurt. The saltwater was heavier than the air he was used to and it tasted different. Not as salty as you would expect but humid, more so than the sea caves he had explored as a child.
He gradually noticed that the icy fingers have released him. He drifted no longer cold, just numb. The boy was dozing, almost asleep, when he was jolted awake by a blow to his head. He blinked himself awake and looked up at what woke him. It was a wall of rough gray stone dotted with dimly glowing lichen and a few bright fungi. There are holes riddling the walls, thousands of hiding places. He peered into one as he floated by, a grinning skull stared back at him, the surface covered with uneven emerald algae. He started to swim, trying to keep his mind off what might be down here. He grabbed onto a protruding ledge. It was a bit slippery but he clung like his life depended on it. He crawled down the wall and found a grotto just big enough to curl up in. He inched into it and collapsed, exhausted. His eyes closed and the sea fell away.
He dreamed of his life before. Before the ocean, before the jump. Of school, of people he couldn't remember and didn't want to and he dreamt of mundane things. The texture of soggy cereal, the sound of footsteps on linoleum, the smell of coffee, the tiny sound a refrigerator makes. All of those things people experience daily but never really notice.
When he woke the water was low. His grotto was only half full of water. The boy climbed out, noticing for the first time the loss of his shoes. Still numb he walked for a while, wading through the knee deep water. The water wasn't cold anymore, but he didn't notice - he couldn't feel it. He stepped on a jagged, broken seashell, it ripped through his skin as if it was paper. The flesh underneath the skin was the colour of the sea when it rains. The boy walked on, oblivious as sand worked it's way into his wound.
He came to the edge of the water and looked up. Directly in front of him was an old woman. She was sitting in a bright yellow folding chair with her feet firmly planted in the wet sand. Her hair was a beautiful silver colour, but that was all he could pinpoint about her.
"Hello." she greeted him casually like they were meeting in a supermarket.
"Am I dead?" he asked abruptly.
"Why is that always the first question they ask me?" she ranted "I'm sitting here, a being of limitless wisdom and all they want to know is their state of being! Like they wouldn't know if they even tried to find out!" she continued to rave about the stupidity of people jumping into oceans these days while the boy studied himself. He discovered that his skin was cold, wet and slightly blue. That his heart seemed to have stopped and the cut on his foot.
"I think I am dead" he said, interrupting the woman, if that's what she was "or maybe in some kind of limbo." he stared at the ground, sure he'd made a mistake. There was something about this woman that scared him.
"You're one of the bold ones aren't you?" she asked almost to herself. "You are in 'some kind of limbo' as you so aptly put it." she paused before continuing "But you don't have to stay that way."