sounds of a whale → junhao

十

"A man on the sea!"

the screams were closer, and, obviously, clearer. the young man wished he could answer them but his throat was hurting him too much. he felt the shadow of the hull over them, cooling the air, and he almost drew brutally when he felt suddenly the back of the whale stopping to support him. a net grabbed his body, he went out of the water and his body suddenly felt heavier, even in his half coma. a voice told him he was safe, that he could let go now, that everything would be fine, that he was among his people, but for a reason the young man suddenly felt the need to speak, to open his eyes, to make sure of something.

"She.. she saved me..."

nobody heard him. his eyelid were so heavy that it was like they would never be able to be open fully, and still, he put a huge effort to do it. his scream tear his throat, probably already damaged, as he distinguished the spears, the harpoons and the water turning crimson red. The ropes of the net were pulling off the dead skin of his face as he was pressing it, moved by a crazy energy that could only be the one from despair, while the blood of the whale was watering the men.

"SHE SAVED ME!"

and his heart was shred, knowing it was too late. she had always known that he could not breathe like her, that his skin would never resist to the salt that was her world, still, she had carried him until the end, following her instinct: it was not their differences that she had understood. It was him who had never understood how similar they were, no matter what was their natural environment.

the young fisherman died a bit at the same time as the whale was slaughtered.

his throat torn apart by the screams and sobs never carried another word, another note, another sound when his feet got back on the land and the stones of the port, leaving his voice as she could never sing again in this life.