The night is dark, illuminated only by a half-moon hanging low under steel-grey clouds.  The tall lithe woman with graceful step walks barefoot on her slow winding path down to the sea.  Her long black hair is loose and free, tugging back from its once lingering warmth.

She lifts the hem of her long blue dress, flowing soft as an elegant wave.  Once the colour of a light summer’s day, it is heavy and weighs her down.  The metal-frayed shoulder straps bite into her bare skin, now stained with the bruised purple of regret.

Her white toes peek out from beneath the dress at the downward steps.  The smallest slivers of moonlight glisten the eroded wooden path she must take, its unfinished light her only guide.

At the bottom she steps carefully onto the sea-jetty, smiling at the welcome touch of smooth sea-worn boards, undulating with the waters’ rhythms.  At the far end of the jetty, reaching into half-lit darkness, a large white and silver yacht dips and sways.

And she knows.  The closer she gets to it, the brighter it will shine.  When she boards the vessel its brilliance will dominate all.  But first she must reach it.  Only then will she be safe from the black and bottomless ocean that taunts her towards its surface.

She keeps the hem of her dress lifted and eyes the centre of her path as it rises and falls.  She glances over at the dark sea, watching as it swells with hundreds of tiny lights dancing across its inky surface. They light up into mini-peaks and the shapes of forgotten faces.

Come in, they seem to say, the water’s fine.

She stops and looks up at the gleaming yacht with a twinge of doubt.  If she gets too close to it and stares for too long, will it blind her to the things she doesn’t want to see?  Or will the harsh light penetrate her skin, seeking the hidden places where her darkest secrets dwell?

Her path to the yacht looks clear.  There is no gate to block her entry, no electrified fence to climb, no security guard to detain her, in fact, nothing whatsoever to stop her from walking the full length of this sea-jetty and going aboard.

Yet her mind is troubled by the thought that, this is too easy.

Nothing is given this easily, unless it’s going to be taken away.

Or you’re walking to your own sacrifice.

She chose to walk the path of sacrifice before she knew what sacrifice was.  She accepted giving everything for those who would never know who she was or what she had done.  To those who know her, either personally or by reputation, her unshakeable faith and belief in the calling was legendary.

Or it used to be.

I used to believe –

That if she were ever in trouble, real trouble, they would come for her.  So when she was taken and held prisoner, a chained captive in a damp subterranean cell, she believed.  She endured endless interrogation, without mercy or relief, and still she kept the faith.

But when her captivity passed one hundred days, her belief began to drip away as did the water down her cell wall.  Each passing day every drop conspired with the rest to channel a stream of fear through her belief.  It confirmed the real truth; she was alone, and the only person who could save her, was herself.

And so finally, she did, but the cost was her faith.

“Don’t you remember?” asks the voice of her reason.  “Why it’s worth sacrificing what most people take for granted?”

I remember.  And I used to believe the sacrifice was worth it.  But this path demands I give up everything; my self, my body … and parts of my soul, with those I love.

“It’s always been that way.  And always will be.”

I know.  But sometimes, it’s too much.

She looks down at the wooden boards, each one lashed to the next as they work together to keep her above the dark water.  With no reprieve from their task until eventually, over time and usage, they fall apart.  Then they’re replaced and discarded with ungrateful ease, their former service forgotten.

She stares into the depths of the black-water and sees nothing but her own face rippling on the surface.  Underneath the sea-jetty, dark waves swell up and push between the wooden boards to wash over her toes.  It’s warm and soothing to her feet, but gone as fast as it came and she shivers, her wet skin chilling in the cool night air.

What if I let go of this path?

What if I embrace the sea’s blank nothingness and choose the warm waters of eternal peace?

“Except it’s not full of nothing, is it?” the voice of her reason answers.  “You know what the sea is full of and how they got there.”

She stares out across the vast expanse of the ocean, unwilling to admit the real truth either to her reason, or to herself.  While the surface of the sea might imitate a gateway to peace and warmth, the faces beneath are anything but.  Their swirling souls, unhappy in their untimely end, create black mist across the surface which is gathering now towards an unnatural point.

At the centre of which and rising up from the ocean’s surface, a large dark man-shape starts moving at speed across the surface of the sea, oozing a grey sleek oil-shadow in its wake.  It spreads ever outwards, giving the ocean a thick, slimy layer of gloom and suffocating every light in its path as it heads for the white and silver yacht.

It reaches the sea-jetty and surges over its wooden lip, swelling up and beyond until its mass merges with the dark and heavy-hung clouds above.  They unite to form a vast bulging storm-cloud, blocking her view of the yacht and its light, sinking her into near darkness.

There are no lights dancing on the ocean, nor stars in the sky.

There is only the half-light of the moon to guide her.

She has never felt so alone as she does right now.

From the base of the darkening storm-cloud, a thick layer of black mist begins to slither over the surface of the sea-jetty.  It creeps across her only path to the yacht, covering each of the wooden boards, one by one.  She watches it draw closer, knowing it intends to reach her, to touch her.

She tries to back away, but her legs refuse to move and she is off balance against the motion of the sea.  She tries to keep from falling, to move her legs, her feet, but they’re fastened to the jetty by a force stronger than her.

The sickening black mist surges towards her inch-by-inch.  It is almost upon her, with nothing to stop it or stand in its way.  She watches in horror as it reaches her, as the cold thin darkness slides over her toes and begins slithering up her feet.

Then a warm sensation washes over her and she is steady once more; no longer battling the sea, but moving in time with its rhythms.  She looks down at the soft touch of the black mist as it swirls around her ankles; this is her connection to the giant living darkness of the sea beneath her.  To the storm-cloud hanging heavy in the sky.

She watches it billowing up and out, darkening into a bulbous weight that looks too dense to stay up for long.  Soon it will be full black.  Soon it will cover the half-moon and take the only light from her sky.

From the darkest depths of the bulging mass, at the furthest end of the sea-jetty, a man emerges into the half-light.  The moon’s fragile glow reveals one side of his tall, powerful physique and a single eye, gleaming at her through the darkness.  She blinks in the diminished light, staring in disbelief.

It cannot be him.

This cannot be the man she has grieved for, longed for.  The man she has whispered to in the darkness of her mind.  In private.

Only ever in private.

“How can you be here?” she finally asks.

Her hands clench into fists, grabbing at the long blue dress that once came from him.  She grips the heavy folds tight, then lets it go, grips it tight, then lets it go, over and over.

“I am here because of you,” he says.

His voice is deep and familiar, like a rough hand sensuously caressing the back of her soft neck, bristling her skin into tiny pin-pricks of pleasure.

“I don’t understand,” she says, aware her breathing has quickened.

“You want me here,” he says.

“I do?”

“Of course.”

She starts to release the dress from her fists and allows her hands to relax, just a little.

They came together over the battlefield.  She pretended to love him, to accept him for all that he was, as a tactical mission ploy, with no regrets in the aftermath.  She stares at his coarse, stubble-bearded face and the blood races through her as it did the first time he touched her.

Smiling he begins to walk towards her along the sea-jetty.  As if by his command, the black mist divides in the centre of his path, in front of his large bare feet.  She watches and waits as he comes towards her, striding in slow-motion, tall and confident as he walks down the long wooden path.

His white linen suit flaps around him in sea breezes, almost transparent, even in the dwindling light of the half-moon.  His strong, muscular body moves beneath the lightweight material and she remembers how he felt to her touch, smiling at the memory as he comes closer and awakening the low-down throb of her desire.

And then she sees it.

Something is wrong.

A small dark circle appears at the centre of his broad chest.  She watches in horror as it grows and spreads thick wetness across the clear white fabric.  The saturating patch moves out from where his heart once beat, spreading too fast, draining the colour from his face and limbs and turning once white linen to dripping blood-red.

He falters mid-stride and stops, looking down at the wetness of his darkening suit.  He seems confused by the sudden loss of his own life-blood, at the thick red drops as they form on his trouser ends and plop onto the wooden boards.

He looks up at her and tries to walk again, struggling to pick his feet up from bloody footprints, too loud in their wet stickiness as he staggers towards her.

She cannot move.

Nor can she stop staring at this blooded man coming with slow, dreadful certainty.  She feels the familiar touch of cold steel in her hand and looks down to see a sharp surgical knife glinting outwards, its handle sticky, blade dripping red.

What did I do?

His eyes search hers for answers.  Finding none, he falls forward, collapsing to his knees on the sea-jetty.  He lands hard on solid wood his death echoing back to her.  She stares in useless terror as the blood continues to drain out of him, spreading over the wooden boards and into the inky black ocean.

She throws her knife down, desperate to be rid of the instrument of his death, but it wedges with firm defiance in the wooden path, taunting her as the weapon she used to kill the man she pretended to love.

I did love him.

She looks down at the lifeless man whose warm body she once caressed with her own and watches him do something he never did the last time; twitch his long-dead muscles and start to move again.  He tries to lift himself up from the sea-jetty, but his own blood prevents it.

She hears a horrid tearing sound as he separates himself from the blood-sticking boards beneath.  He struggles to his knees and begins to crawl towards her, this pale-faced, hollow vessel with blue lips stretched wide in a death-grin of blooded teeth.

In a voice that is no longer deep and familiar, but guttural and inhuman, he speaks again.

“I am here because of you.”

She shivers at hearing this.

“I am here,” he growls, “because you put me here.”

She watches revolting dark blood ooze from his grinning mouth, dribble down his chin and drop onto the sea-jetty.  Still she cannot get away from this white shell of a man, dripping in the clothes of his own blood and now she wants to run.  The smooth dark waves rise up between the boards and lap at her feet, taunting her they can come and go, but she is forced to remain still.

Why can’t I move?

“I can tell you why,” the voice of her reason says.  “Do you want to know?”

“Yes,” she croaks.

The hollowed out man on all-fours stops at her feet and reaches out one white hand towards her.  She watches with cold horror as his icy fingers touch her foot and her entire body shudders with revulsion.

“Do you really want to know?”

“I really want to know,” she says, still trying to pull herself free as she watches him slide the white-cold hand up her foot.  He curls each finger, one by one, around her ankle until his vice-like clamp is solid and unyielding, like an ice-sculpture frozen in place.

“You don’t want to run away.  Not really.  You want him to take you down into the darkness like he did before.  You want him to keep you there.”

He starts to slide off the sea-jetty, to return his bloodless body to the waiting black-water.  He pulls on her ankle with a strong hard jerk and her feet finally come free of the wooden boards.  She sits down hard and stares in horror at the man who always had such a hold on her.  Now he’ll never let her go.

“You want to know what it’s like.  Is it warm, in the darkness?  Is it peaceful?”

He grins at her then and she sees his animal, the beast beneath the surface, the one she ignored so she could believe it was the man she had loved, not the darkness within him.  His grip on her ankle reasserts itself, tightens.  He begins to drag her with slow, inescapable progress towards the slime-covered black-water.

No, I never wanted this … this dark monster.

She flips over onto her belly, wrenching her ankle inside its socket.  Her nerves shriek out, racing up her body to her panicked mind, but she refuses to give her fear a voice.  If she starts to scream now, in this place, at this time.  She shakes her head.  No.  No.

She scrabbles at the wooden boards for help, but they are sea-worn smooth and her fingers grasp at nothing.  The back of her hand brushes cold surgical steel, but it’s gone before she recognises the knife.

Her belly scrapes the jetty’s wooden lip as she is pulled towards the dark-water.  Next it will scrape her chest, then her arms and finally she will be pulled under.  She looks over at the face of her dark lover, grinning up at her from the black-water.  He grabs her other ankle, turns his hands to get a better grip, then pulls her faster through the foul-smelling surface.

She feels the wooden lip coming quicker than she thought and grabs for it.  She finds a good finger hold and seizes it.  She stops short of her head being pulled under, but the rest of her body is now submerged in dark-water up to her neck.

The stench of slime just beneath her chin makes her gag.  She looks up at her knuckles, desperately turning white with the effort of holding on and determines she must not be pulled down through the foul-smelling greyness into the dark sea below.

“You blame yourself for his death.”

Part of her wants the empty depths of the swallowing sea, where there are none to remember her betrayal of this man, of her choice to sacrifice his life for the sake of her calling.  She alone had chosen to target and seduce him, use him and then kill him.

“The simple truth is this,” states the voice of her reason.  “You want to die.”

The darkest part of her wants to be released from this endless fight between who she thinks she is and who she really is; to embrace the final peace of silent oblivion.  Her cold fingertips are already tiring from the effort of gripping the wooden lip, her hands are painfully numb and the rest of her body is being warmed by the ripples of the black-water.

A sudden brilliance of light shines down on her and she closes her eyes, turning to face the source and receive its warm glow.  The storm-cloud blocking the white and silver yacht has slithered back into the black-water where it belongs, freeing its captive to gleam once more.

She feels temporary strength returning to her cold fingers and numb hands and she pulls hard on the lip of the wooden jetty.  Her legs kick out, fighting to dislodge the hands gripping her ankles, the warmth of the waves and the heavy folds of her dress.

She kicks hard, but his ice-cold hold on her is solid and unyielding.  Her finger joints scream in protest as she tries to flex them and look for something new to grab onto, but there is nothing.  She cannot pull herself up, only stay where she is, or sink deeper.

The knife, her only chance, is too far out of reach.  Her legs continue to kick out, but they are tiring now and the warm black-water is caressing her back.  It soothes the ache in her shoulders from holding on so long and her kicks are getting slower.

What’s so wrong with giving up anyway?

Haven’t I done enough for this lifetime?

Isn’t it time for me to let go?

Without waiting for a reply from the voice of her reason, she relaxes her grip for a single second.  As if sensing her moment of weakness, he quickly pulls on both ankles at once and she begins to sink with slow relief into the warm black-water’s embrace.

The strong white hands that were gripping her ankles let go and pull her down by her dress instead.  She looks down at her beautiful dress, once a bright symbol of their love.  Now it is streaked with heavy purple bloodstains from this man she betrayed and killed.

He grabs handfuls of her dress and pulls it deeper, dragging her down with it.  She looks for the man’s face and sees the animal waiting for her.  Then beneath him, the many faces of the others.  The others who died at her hand.  Waiting.  Wanting.

No.  Not like this.  Never like this.

Terror propels her into action and she starts scraping at the shoulder straps of her dress.  She scratches at her skin, turning it red raw and bloody as she works to get her fingertips underneath the tight metal-frayed straps.  They released so easily their first night together, when this creature clawing at her was still a man.

But that man is gone now.  There is only the monster pulling her deeper.  Soon his cold white hands will find her beneath the dress and keep her in the deep dark sea forever.  She pulls harder and is startled as the straps suddenly give way, releasing her from captivity.

Buoyant with new freedom she kicks hard and pushes up towards the ocean’s surface.  She looks back down to see if her monster-lover will rise again, but there is only a dark shape beneath her.  She races to emerge from the black-water and reaches up for the jetty’s edge.

She grabs on with both hands and heaves the top half of her naked body out of the ocean, collapsing onto the wooden boards.  The foulest layer of slime still clings to her skin as her feet dangle over the edge, dripping with the warmth of the black-water.  She rests there, breathing hard, stopping just for a moment, just to regain a little more of her strength.

She takes another breath before preparing to pull the rest of her body out, but a dead white hand reaches up out of the dark sea and grabs her ankle again.  He pulls hard and starts to haul her back down towards him, scraping her thighs on the wooden lip as she is dragged backwards.

“Reach for it,” commands the voice of her reason.

“What?”

“NOW!”

She thrusts a hand across the sea-jetty, not looking but trusting it will be there.  She recognises the cold steel of her knife and grabs hold of it.  Relief turns to pain as she tightens her hand around the razer-sharp blade, slicing into her two smallest fingers.  She can feel the quickening of her heart-beat in every pulse as she watches the blood spurt out of her hand and onto the wooden boards.

Regardless she pulls harder, dislodging the knife from its place in the boards, her almost-severed fingers hanging on by chunks of skin and muscle.  She transfers the knife to her other hand, then turns and allows herself to be pulled back into the dark sea.  The black-water soft against her damaged body becoming warmer the deeper she sinks.

She finally comes face-to-face with the man she killed.  He grips her upper arms and presses tight, almost crushing them into her shoulders.  She feels their bodies moving together with the waves, ebbing and flowing at the will of the tide as it pulls them away from the safe-harbour and out to sea.

How do you fight the tide once it has you?

She looks into the face of the man she loved, but he is not there, only the blank grinning animal she was sent to hunt, capture and betray.  It is a face of pure hatred.  This monster wants revenge.  She can feel them sinking together into the darkest depths of the ocean as they are pulled towards their inevitable fate.

This is it then.

This creature wants to drag her down to the darkest part of the ocean, but it doesn’t just want to kill her.  That would be too easy.  It wants to take its time with her, to take control of the knife she used on him, the man she took from the world above and forced into this realm below.  It wants to slice her up little by little and strip every part of her, as it eats her.

It could start with my fingers; they’re hardly there.

“You have to kill it.”

It’s already dead.  How do you kill something that’s already dead?  Something that hated you so much it survived beyond its own death?

“What’s stronger than hate?”

She looks at the creature then, into the face of its hate and forces herself to remember the man she loved.  The man who showed her deep inside his world, danced with her in the moonlight and gave her his jumper because she was cold.  She smiles and leans in, planting a small kiss on each side of the hideous face.

The monsters face ripples and she sees a battle raging within him, between man and beast.  She sees confusion in the man’s face, just like the day he uncovered her betrayal.  She sees fury in the creature’s face, fighting for control as its claw-hands grip her tighter.

Then it transforms back into the face of the man, the one she grieved for through the long nights, wearing the jumper he gave her, pretending to sleep.  The man she shouldn’t have loved, but did.  The man for whom she beat and tortured other people, even a member of her own team.

Perhaps the monster was always there, inside of him, I just didn’t want to see it.

His grip on her arms loosens and she sees the man looking at her, examining her features as if seeing them for the first time.  They begin to rise to the surface of the ocean together, looking into each other’s eyes.  The coolness of the water barely registers on her skin, but she is grateful for the air that he no longer needs.

His hands slide up her shoulders and she smiles at the gentleness of his rough touch, at the familiarity of his fingers caressing her broken skin.  As his fingertips move gently up her neck and light on her cheeks, a smile begins to form on his face and he closes his eyes, expecting her lover’s kiss.

“Just as you knew he would.”

She takes one last look at his face, drawing in every detail to remember him like this.  The beautiful fullness of his lips she kissed so many times and meant it.  She smiles back at him, but it starts to falter and quiver with fresh grief and is surprised to find herself close to tears.  She places a light kiss on his lips then brings her knife up and cuts deep across his throat.

Blood pours out of his yawning neck as his head falls back in a gruesome gape of surprise.  His eyes open and he looks at her, questioning her betrayal, but she ignores their plea and cuts into his neck again, deeper this time, right back to the place where there is bone.  His head lolls back to reveal dead flesh and release a large cloud of suffocating darkness.

Then his grip on her is gone, and she is free.  The knife falls from her hand and she watches it disappear into the black ocean beneath her along with her twice-dead lover.  Her legs kick out and disturb the bloody water all around her, churning a dark swirl to cover his sinking corpse.

The sea-jetty is so small and far away, but the ocean’s surface is clear across to it; no layer of thick and foul-smelling slime is in the way to choke her as she starts to swim towards the safe-harbour.  Her arms reach forward to draw the water back and at once she is aware of her two fingers hanging loose.  They push and pull with the resistance of the waves and feel as if they may snap off at any moment.

Maybe it would have been better to lose them altogether.

She feels the black-water pressing against her, whispering warmth to coax her back to its depths, forcing her to make slow and sluggish progress through painful strokes, each one a labour to her complaining limbs.

Her long dark hair trails behind her, ripe to be grabbed and pulled back under.  At any moment she expects to feel the cold grip of white fingers on her ankle again, or the sudden stab of a stainless steel knife, before dragging her down to the ocean’s depths one final time, to entwine with her headless lover forever.

Perhaps that would be justice.  For betraying a man in life and in death.  For killing him twice when his defences were down.

“He would have killed you.”

The wooden sea-jetty blurs in front of her as warm tears escape from her eyes at last.

“You defended yourself.”

She doesn’t reply, but keeps kicking with weak legs, pulling with aching arms, through sea-water that feels a degree cooler with every stroke.

“Twice.”

She dips her head under the cold water, washing the grief from her face and the blurriness from her eyes.  She thinks she feels a hand on her leg and the thought sends adrenaline racing through her body.

Is it him?

She reaches a hand down and runs it along the length of her leg.  Both legs.  But there is nothing there.  She looks down into the ocean, afraid of seeing him rise up beneath her, but the water is clear and empty.  She scans it a couple of times, but only sees her legs working beneath to keep her afloat.

It is enough to quieten her fear.

For now.

She kicks harder towards the jetty, new energy surging as she grabs hold of her need to get out of the water and away from him.  She cuts through the cold pure water with strong determined strokes and, before her mind can weary again, she is reaching for the sea-jetty.

Her hands grab the wooden lip and she pulls herself up and out in one easy movement, not stopping until she is safe on land and away from the water’s edge.  She collapses in the middle of the warm wooden boards and turns her head to look out over the smooth surface of the ocean for any movement.  For any sign of her dark lover returning.

Is this a Dream or a Nightmare?

“Exactly.”

She gives up trying to understand and focuses on breathing deep; to slow her racing heart and calm her chaotic mind.  She feels a warm trickle on her belly and looks down at fresh blood pumping out from her injured fingers.

Clear water from the ocean surges up between the wooden boards and creates mini cold waves to break over her.  Its harsh sting slaps her naked shivering skin into hardened goosebumps.  She carefully holds her damaged hand close to her chest and stands up, steadying her legs before she looks back down into the deep water.

The sea is no longer black, it is clear into the depths and she can see his face.  His head is still attached to the carcass beneath it, though she doesn’t care to know by how much.  He looks at her with something like reproach.  You killed me twice, he seems to say, but without the voice to do so.

Instead, she sees his clenched fist rising up, forefinger raised.  It points to his head, to his temple, and she feels her own hand lifting to mirror his.  She points a finger to the place at her temple where she tore a hole and bled for him.  A warm trickle starts there and she touches it to see fresh blood on her fingers.

I have my scars.  The deepest ones came from those I loved.

She shakes the blood off, then carefully cups her mangled hand to her heart.  So many faces are looking up at her from the ocean now, mingling together, silently screaming their last, as they were sacrificed to her calling.  She acknowledges them with a small respectful nod, then turns and walks away to the large white and silver yacht.

The brightening light almost shimmers to white on her pale skin, stark in contrast with the long red streaks of blood running down her naked body, trickling down her stomach and from her temple, flowing warm down the side of her face.

Her long black hair is stuck to her back and shoulders, dripping wet down her skin with cold drops that make her shiver.  Seawater mixed with the blood from her hair and small puddles form on the wooden sea-jetty behind her, like some terrible watercolour reminder of what she has done, but she doesn’t look back.

She winces a little at the yacht’s glaring light and releases her mangled fingers so she can put a hand up to shield her eyes from white blindness.  She steps up and onto the vessel’s wide, firm gangplank; solid and unswerving under her feet, she walks without stopping to the top.

Finally on board, she turns and leans heavily on the nearest silver rail, light and smooth, yet solid enough to help bear the burden.  With her back to the yacht, leaning against it, she breathes in deep.  The yacht’s dazzling silver-light beams out from everywhere, warming her naked body and reminding her she has been liberated from all the dark secrets she tried to keep hidden.

She looks out over the ocean’s vast expanse as it glistens with thousands of tiny moon-tinted lights, dancing out to the horizon and beyond.  The stars are brighter in her sky now; each one takes a turn to gleam with unique light before diminishing and allowing the next star its chance to shine.

Tiredness washes through her and she leans back against the warmth of the silver yacht, like a welcome radiator after the coldest of journeys home.  The brilliant white and silver light is all around her, like a halo for her body, but it isn’t just soothing her weary limbs and tired soul, it’s healing every part of her.

She looks down at her mangled hand, but it doesn’t look so hideous now.  Her fingers are no longer hanging by a thread, they are knitting back onto her hand.  Filaments of silver-light have joined the almost-separated parts together, like an otherworld seamstress working with skilful speed to mend what was broken.

The cut was smooth, as was the blade that made it and she watches the warm, healing silver-light turn her dark, blood-red gaping wounds into healthy pink skin.  She stares at her fingers; they have healed like new, as if it they were never severed.

Her scratched and red-raw shoulder skin is smooth and untouched.  She reaches up to her head, to the place where a small river of blood was flowing before, but the skin is dry and unbroken.  Only her scar remains.

And she knows.  That this is where she is meant to be, this is what she was made to do, and she will not be letting go of that.

At least not yet.