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DO YOU KNOW WHAT DROWNING FEELS LIKE? Does it keep you awake at night? Fester in your mind like a tumour, or in your veins like a poison?
Or are you one of the lucky few?
If so, hold on to that. Drowning isn't fun, or entertaining, isn't even easy either. Your body thrashes, begging to break free from the breathless chains it is confided to, to gasp even when all that's around you is an ocean of ink-black tar.
Persephone Harrow first learnt the word 'drowning' at the delicate age of three. The day she got lost on a family holiday trip to the seaside at night, coming across her first ghost, a cold maiden, one that was determined to make her suffer the same fate befallen onto her. Determined to drown her, to poison her with a simple touch.
She'd almost died that day. If it wasn't for her Father, it would have been her ghost that haunted the coast at night.
Sometimes she liked to ponder on what it would've been like, what she would do as a ghost, what she would feel. Would she feel anything? And as time passed, she felt herself slipping further away from humanity and had grown too attached to the dead. Until she truly felt dead inside.
Of course, she wasn't always like this, she used to be that curious girl, desperate for answers and a purpose in life, the girl who spent weeks, months, and years trying to perfect her gifts. Her sight revealed all the gruesome residues of death, only instead of igniting fear in her, she felt like a miniature Sherlock Holmes. Her touch made even washing her hands a sensitive task, embracing how the world always seemed to hurt her whether unintentionally or not. Her listening was the best though, made everything around her seem like radio static, background noise as if she was attuned to a special station on the other side that begged for her attention.
Over time, it irritated her. She had no friends, and all her classmates thought her prudish and creepy because she found it difficult to smile.
But could you smile after everything you've seen? Every evil gaze from dark corners, every death loop a cry for help, every memory once cherished now a simplified word or phrase on a tombstone. Like that is how they remember you when you are gone, an attic full of junk and a coffin full of muddy bones.
The day Persephone Harrow turned thirteen was the best day of her life.
Finally escaping a home that would never feel like hers, and embracing her talents for what they were, a decent bargaining chip for decent wages. So she'd signed up with the first Agency she could get her hands on, and "Gravedigger" Nigel Sykes was glad of her.
The drowning feeling never went away, but it began to ease. Her memory was haunted, but her will remained unbroken. Determination coursed through her veins, and she would never accept defeat.
A ruthless but courageous soul.
Persephone Harrow never backed down from a challenge, and she swore by that oath until the day she received her Fourth-Grade. But Anthony Lockwood made it difficult for her to win, always beating her. Infuriating her to no end. Because, and she would never in a million years admit this, he really was that good. The best of the best, and it was enraging.
But she was better.
Because she refused to let her doubt drown her, for the venomous words of her colleagues and the entire population of London to poison her.
Although she wasn't the hero of her story, she wasn't the villain either. And no one knew that more than Anthony Lockwood.
He looked at her like a sailor would the stars. Because to him she was brighter than all of them, her own individual constellation, and he wanted to map her in his mind until he ran out of paper and ink, until the only thing left on his mind was her.
And he had her, held her in his arms. But he'd slipped, watched her fall, heard her run away from his embrace, and felt his arms grow cold from the absence of her, like everything else in his life. The loneliness tasted bitter on his tongue.
So he swallowed it like venom, allowing it to take over his body and let him accept his new nature. For if she wanted to remain cold and detached, then so would he. But at least he was more gentlemanly.
Over the course of their seventeen years of living, Persephone Harrow and Anthony Lockwood had suffered through too much and had to swim through stormy waves to the safety of the shore, only to end up on opposite sides of the water.
The two teenagers had discovered what drowning felt like, but they refused to sink to the bottom of the sea bed. They would simply, just keep swimming.
——— APOLLO SPEAKS ——— Ahh I love their dynamic! The loneliness is strong with these two, and they are just gonna be so damn adorable to write for. It's a little bit inspired by Dory and Stiles with the whole swimming and drowning metaphors, but made new solely for them, because they really do feel like they're lost at sea, separated from one another because of stupidity and pride. But George and Fern are gonna be the real matchmakers of this book let me tell you, they're not gonna let them live in the bullshit. I love them all so much it hurts 🥹😭.
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