Fishing

The boy rubbed his hands, frozen finger numb from the biting cold of the arctic winter. His line was cast into a rare, un-iced patch of water. ‘The Gulf,’ he thought ‘The Gulf never freezes, so it is a good place to fish for northern salmon, and the occasional seal. He was snapped out of his daydreams to the sound of line-on-ice. He gasped as he tugged on the weighed pole. “Big fish!” He muttered to himself, planting his feet firmly onto the ground as he drew the fishing-pole’s tip past his pale, frozen face. The tip kept going, past his vanilla-blonde hair, hidden roughly by a bright red cap. It stopped a quarter-foot above his head.

His feet slowly dragged in the powdery snow as the unknown fish of immense size threatened to haul him into the icy waters. The boy knew that falling in meant almost certain death. A large shadow swam strongly, quickly, taking the line with it. The boy gasped in awe. He could he the dim light beneath the surface, followed by the fish.

“And angler-fish…” He had never seen one up close; they were revered in the settlement, after one of the children was saved from drowning several years back, when the temperature actually went above freezing. “Don’t be silly.” He chided himself. “It never gets above freezing in New York.” He laughed at the thought, the old, evacuated city, frozen under ice and teeming with disease from the War of the Plague, in 2100.

Even after 7 years, those genetically engineered anthrax viruses were still going strong. No one was allowed there anymore. He barely remembered the city anyway. He was only three when it had happened. The Evacuation. He still remembered the screams of his mother, her skin a violet-blue from the newest one dropped:  Blue Anthrax. He still remembered her face, screaming his name, telling him to run, run to safety. A tear froze as it dropped, clinking against the permafrost under the snow.

The sound brought him back to reality. He looked down, seeing the water only inches from his toes. Startled, he gave a sharp jerk, unbalancing himself, letting the fish take the final blow. It tugged with all its strength, wanting to be free of its captors. There was a dainty splash as the boy flew, headfirst, into the frigid water.

The coldness knocked the breath out of his tiny body as he flailed. His muscles exhausted as the vicious current dragged him away from the shoreline. He took a breath of water and felt the clutches of death. He closed his eyes, remembering his mother for the last time. ‘What was her last word? Run? No, that’s not it…’ Instantly; a memory seared itself into his mind:

“Rameul! Don’t forget! I love you!”

He only heard ‘Rameul’ before the memory was lost. Tiny bubbles streamed from his mouth as his unmoving body sank to the bottom. The angler saw the bubbles and frantically nudged the boy for any signs of life, but, alas, its efforts were in vain. The boy’s last thought had been the memory of his mother, his protector, before his heart had frozen over and stopped. Before his veins froze. Before his neurons stopped firing.

The boy had died before he reached the bottom. He wasn’t even 11.