Hi! This story was written for National Geographic and Planet or Plastic, helping to keep our oceans clean and marine life safe! I grew up on the coast of British Columbia, surrounded by the ocean. Trips to the shore were a daily part of my childhood, and a vital part of the culture here. I know how important it is to preserve our oceans, and the many animals that live there.
Be sure to enter the contest with a five-hundred-word story, and use the hashtag #PlanetOrPlastic here on Wattpad.
The hazing starts at five am.
It's cold on the beach, and the boys line up along the shore, chests white and speckled with gooseflesh under the neon light. They shift nervously, breath rising in the air. The vast expanse of water is cast into shadow by the mountain in the center, a twisted cliffside of crumpled plastic. Garbage mountain.
The sorority leaders pace in front, smoke rising over their heads, curling from white paper cigarettes.
"Into the water," barks one, "to garbage mountain Bring us a memento, and don't forget," he smiles, wide and nasty, "you have to go under."
The boys in line mutter. The ocean is forbidden, a swamp filled with dead fish and seagulls... and worse.
Someone at the front clears his throat. "What about sea witches?"
The leader sneers past his cigarette, smoke wreathing his head like a halo. "No one's heard from one in a century, idiot. They're all dead."
They approach the water slowly, stepping over plastic rings and seaweed, eyes wide and white in the darkness.
When they enter the ocean there are audible gasps. It's cold and murky, and worst of all, the water is thick. The darkness makes it impossible to see what they're swimming through.
Some go under right away, teeth gritted as they burst to the surface, shaking water from their hair. They strike out to the island in a line.
Halfway there the line gradually breaks, the unlucky ones falling behind.
The first boy reaches garbage mountain and stretches out, fingers scraping the plastic beneath the surface. He feels the shape of a water bottle and curls his fingers around it, tugging it from the base of the mountain. The plastic shifts. Tiny avalanches begin, crumpled bottles and coffee cups sliding down the pile. He pushes away with both feet, heart beating hard.
As he swims, he imagines the depth of the waters below, the corpses of witches littering the ocean floor. The boy has seen pictures, bodies twisted and sick from the chemical spill that drove them beneath the surface centuries ago.
Now the seas are filling too, the last available space for garbage. The witch bones are probably down there.
He swims faster.
On the other side the leaders stand under the electric lamps, sentries on the shore.
It happens without warning.
The first boy goes under. Vanishes silently, ripples echoing out in rings. The boy at the garbage pile only sees because he's looking right at him. He freezes, paddling to keep his head above the surface.
The second boy shouts, and then he's dragged sideways, arms thrashing against the water.
On shore, the sorority leaders stand frozen.
The boy feels something brush his thigh, slimy and slick. He drops the water bottle and plunges forward, swimming for the shore in fast, clumsy strokes.
Something locks around his ankle, and he screams as he's yanked under.
Darkness. Silence.
Fingers wrap around his legs. He can feel it, the sickness that pulses through them, the anger that twists them from the inside out.
Their pain crashes through him, and he opens his mouth to scream.
Dirty water presses in, filling his mouth. The poison floods his ears, his lungs, his nostrils. It fills every part as they drag him down and down, to the bottom of the ocean floor.
THE END.
