The water
was blue
in the light
of the setting sun.
No,
not blue,
aquamarine
With thousands
of tiny diamonds
sparkling on the surface
of the clear,
aquamarine water.
The sand
is warm
but not too warm.
Just warm enough
that for one second,
if you close your eyes,
You can feel
like you're somewhere
in paradise.
He comes up
behind her.
His arms
encircle her waist.
She leans back contentedly.
This moment
is a slice
of paradise.
They are away
from all the plagues
the war has given birth to.
Here,
they can relax
and be free.
Or can they?
It does not start
with a huge rampage.
For once,
the enemy uses the cunning
they are supposed
to possess.
Slowly,
but surely,
the sky
of their paradise
begins to darken.
The enemy
does not give
warning.
They attack the beach
without mercy,
setting panic
upon the crowd.
A flash of green light.
The scream of a mother
as her child drops lifeless
onto the warm,
but not too warm,
sand.
The man and the woman
stand up.
Their world
is already
a swirl of instincts
and battle strategy.
A flash of sickly yellow,
not the yellow
lighting up
the aquamarine sea.
A blood-curdling shriek.
The woman falls,
her shrieks
of indescribable agony
cutting like knives
through the panic.
It stops,
for a second.
Then,
the panic resumes
more chaotic than ever.
A flash of red
and the enemy is unconscious
for now.
The woman's screams stop,
but she is still
on the sand.
The man
hovers over her protectively.
Colors fly
out of the stick in his hand
at alarming rates.
The woman,
with shaking hands,
gropes along the surf,
for the stick to match his own.
More of the enemy falls.
Their bodies
hit the sand
where the woman lay
just moments before
with sickening thuds.
The man is not deterred.
The woman
has found her stick,
but her hands
still shake.
The colors
coming out of her stick
are dull and flat.
Each red light
makes the enemy
drop for only
a few seconds.
The man
looks over to
the woman.
There is an understanding
in both of their eyes.
The lights that come out of the man's stick
are no longer red,
But the same
sickly green
as those of the enemy.
After that, the enemy stays down.
The woman's lights
are still red.
Her arm
flies out,
and meets nothing but air.
An animal
bursts out
of the woman's stick.
It shines like the moon,
made up of nothing,
but vapor.
The woman's legs tremble
and she is down on the sand
once more.
The man covers her
like this is nothing new.
The woman's animal
gallops across the water.
Her eyes are heavy.
She cannot move,
she cannot defend herself.
But she is too broken to care.
Her thoughts swirl around her head
like a bag in the wind.
The world goes double,
now triple.
She does not see the allies arrive.
The last thing she sees
is the water,
the sun
shining over its blue depths.
Not blue,
she reminds herself,
aquamarine.
