The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Sending Out An S.O.S. 
by Kendra Hale

The bottle always washed ashore. Alex had spent so much time alone, abandoned, on this isle. She had lost track of the days, then the months. Every day had slowly become a run on into the next, a blur that saw little change.   So the case became the same with these bottles. The ones that always held the same seal, the same writing, the same message.

“I’m Coming For You.”

Since she had been left for dead on this island, Alex had adapted and staved off death. Six messages had been received in that time. Alex had taken each with a grain of salt as no one ever showed. She had spent days scouring the island for any sign of other humans, even a presence.

Creatures  of colors that animators only dreamed of bringing to the masses. But the only signs of human life were the ships and planes below the water’s surface, remnants of days when these mighty crafts were the pride of their captain or pilot’s eyes. Now they lay weathered and worn, covered in coral, claimed by the sea.

Alex guessed that to be a new home for the various sea life couldn’t be that sad of a fate. But any human life other than her was long gone.

Still the messages came. Alex struggled to not build hope that someone was not only aware of where she was, but was coming to save her. Could she really believe and give credence to the rising hopes of rescue?

Days stretched on into weeks and one after another, two more bottles appeared. Each sealed with the same care Alex had grown used to. But while one message was the same she had gotten time and time before… the second bottle held a new message.

“I’m near.”

The days became easier to take. Watching the horizon for any sign of rescue. Each day nothing happened. The days merged together so painfully slow.

On a night where Alex found herself talking to the Moon, a glittering light gleamed against the rocks. A bottle! As she opened the bottle to read the note, it was as if a shadow crossed over the Moon and the smell of smoke clung to the breeze.

A moment of joy hit her as Alex read the words.

“I’m Here.”

That joy twisted to confusion as Alex watched her world rotate. As her head made an impossible twist, she was looking behind her at a dark man, in his hand an ax…blood?

A chill hit her and suddenly she was looking at the Moon through a haze of water. As her vision began to pinhole and the darkness crept further in, she realized that she too had been claimed by the sea…her skull would house the fishes now.

Fiction © Copyright Kendra Hale
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from author Kendra Hale:

Just Emotions:
A Gothic Bite Magazine Anthology

A collection of poetry.

 Available on Amazon!