Hatched

Chapter Two

Author's note: I wanted to show how the main character is broken but healing, strong but struggling. I don't really like how I've portrayed her in this chapter, but I really don't want to rewrite it so let me know if you guys think this will cut it or not. It just takes so long to write this in the first place, and I have two kids and a husband, with a full time job...enough said. I really need feedback and I need followers! My main goal in life is to become published.

June 29th, 2021

0630 hours

Robyn breathed in the salty air as it whipped around her honey colored hair. She loved the sea, the unchanging nature of it, and the dependability of the powerful waves that shaped the landscape of the shore. The way they lapped at the malleable sand and formed it; a beautifully natural joining of the rising tide and salty dunes. The shore changing in response to the gentle, yet effectual, caress of the water was beautiful to her. She admired how different yet similar the landscape seemed from day to day. The resounding roar of the formidable ocean was what drew her to become a marine biologist.

There wasn't a lot of money involved in the profession, but the joy she felt when surrounded by the crashing waves and wanton gull cries far exceeded any monetary gains. For her, the sea was life, her way of life. The last few years she had spent studying the waves, the water, and the warm coarse sand. She even had a small ocean plot with a decent sized beach house. She envied the ocean's indifferent, unchanging, and steady nature. She found there was never a lack of wonder to investigate. It soothed her and at the same time sparked fire in her heart.

Galveston wasn't necessarily a beautiful beach. Upon graduation she had several offers, including a few from Florida, Maine and California. The hardest one to turn down was an offer in Spain, but she felt drawn to the beach she called home. She didn't necessarily regret not traveling; her heart was content here. Maybe one day, when she wasn't in debt, she would consider expanding her portfolio to include more exotic destinations.

The funeral costs had been outrageous, and she had never gotten to stand in front of God and everyone else in that off-white dress and say her vows. That horrific setback had drained her savings account, and the resulting financial inhibitions prevented her from truly pursuing her dreams, but when she was out on the dunes with the sun on her face, she almost forgot those woes.

Exceptionally gorgeous days like this brought back harsh memories of laughter, half empty bottles of wine and sunset beach picnics. Not to mention nights of passionate love making on the deserted shore, candles perched precariously on the sand, dripping wax down their depleting lengths. Flashbacks of sunning happily in the cheerful rays, her dad lounging just a walking distance away, resolutely urging on the strong, tanned man who wooed his only daughter, plagued her waking hours.

In between these beautiful reveries came the horrific nightmares of metal colliding and rain pouring down on limp figures in the crumpled vehicles. Afterward always came the insolent fire, licking up the sides of the mangled cars teasingly, and every passing second she knew they'd make it out. They had time-until the earth shaking explosion that left her alone, without family, and devoid of love.