(Archived) Poth Short Stories and One-Shots

Finding Yourself in Hot Water - Chapter 1

I'm finally coming down from being sick (the doctor thinks it was a sinus infection) and came up with a story fitting with the growing warmer weather (at least for the people living on the parts of Earth experiencing Spring/Summer). The story still feels kind of off, but not knowing how to improve it combined with wanting to get something out for you guys has me submitting this, enjoy~

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"Come on, we're burning daylight!" Palette shouted, thundered over the hot sandy beach with an orange and red beach ball tucked under his left arm while a giant red umbrella and a blue towel were tucked under the right. 

It was a wonder he hadn't hit anyone with the umbrella by accident considering how excited he was.

Reaching a clear spot in the sand, he unfurled the umbrella before turning around. Standing at the top of the hill overlooking the beach with a purple towel, beach bag, and picnic basket in tow, Goth gazed upon the ocean.

The small skeleton appeared to be lost in thought as if he were in a staring contest with an enemy. "GOTH!" Palette yelled, setting out his own towel, "are you just going to stand there or are you going to come down here?!"

Heaving a sigh, Goth made his way down the hill to the umbrella. Laying out his towel next to Palette's, he looked towards his companion and tried to suppress a blush.

The skeleton had already taken off his white shirt, leaving nothing but green and yellow swimming trunks in a zigzagging pattern as vibrant as the personality of the monster wearing them. Goth had opted for a more simple red pair with black trim. He also brought a white short-sleeve hoodie for some reason. 

Too much exposure... we're skeletons, for stars sake!

"Aren't you going to take your hoodie off?" Palette asked as he dug through the beach bag. 

"Urm...," Goth glanced sideways as his blush burned deeper onto his cheeks, "I wasn't actually planning to. It feels kind of weird when I'm not wearing a hood..."

Palette stopped digging to look at his friend. "What? But how do you plan on swimming...," he gasped in realization, "Wait, don't tell me you aren't going to swim? That's the whole point of coming to the beach!"

"Can't we just make sand castles and have our picnic instead?" the smaller offered hesitantly, reaching for the bag and pulling out the shovels and buckets they'd brought with them.

"We can do that stuff too, but swimming is pretty much a must-have at the beach," the taller skeleton replied, pointing his finger upward in a matter-of-fact way, "besides, it'd be really boring to go swimming by myself."

Goth's eye light fell on the water once more as he grimaced, his resistance waning. "... Alright...," no sooner were the words out of the smaller skeleton's mouth, the taller was grabbing his wrist and dashing towards the water.

The reaper child dug his feet into the sand, which only succeeded in slowing Palette down a bit but it was enough to catch his attention, causing him to turn back. Just for a second, something flashed across Goth's face before it was gone.

"Actually... I was wondering if we could play with the beach ball in the shallows instead?" Goth suggested shyly.

Palette thought for a few seconds before grinning, "Yeah, we can do that, let me go get it real quick!" He tore back up the beach as Goth sighed in relief.

Once retrieved, both skeletons took turns passing the ball back and forth to one another in a game to see who would drop it first.

They got so wrapped up in their game, neither noticed the change in water level as the tide came in. Ankle deep water stealthily turned into calf deep, turned into knee deep, turned into thigh deep, until the water was lapping at the Goth's lower ribs while the water came in just below Palette's hips.

Stretching up his right hand to catch the ball, Goth's eye light shrunk as his foot slipped on a downward slope. A mere second later, he was completely submerged.

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Word Count: 621