Nadine Salsabila Putri
XI-I
Rahayu Purwaningsih, S.Pd
Noiz is drowning.

 The sand under his feet are cold, and the water in his ears muffles even the tiniest of sounds. 

Down here, everything is quiet. There are no loud voices or angry hands or bloody noses. There is nothing. He is nothing. He should go back to the surface, but he’s tired. He’s tired. He’s so tired.

Noiz was used to death.

The first time Noiz Emrys had experienced death was devastating, but at the same time, it was the first time he had ever felt so alive before. 

It was the first time he had felt so free, that he could see the beyond the dim lit sky, where the soft blue barely peaking above the horizon was trampled by the stars. His body was littered with bruises; large patterns of blue, purple, red and green crammed unto his skin.

The sky had always felt so peaceful.

Noiz had always been dead, but he was also always been alive. 

And yet, there’s only so many times that someone can die before it sticks.

Noiz had only remember that he was walking, and the sea ties him down, chaining his legs, continuing to pull them deeper into the endless pit of the abyss, extending it’s warmth to him.

The light pierces through the clouds towards the sea and it’s surrounding shadow, mirrors that of the rays of light underwater.

At some point too, he does not remember anymore. The memories he had shared danced within the intervals of the faraway waves, but those had disappeared as he drowned into this sea that has no memory.

This sea where everything exists ephermally. 

Where there is no past nor any future.

He does not feel anything, numb to the feeling of his lungs running out of oxygen. Numb to feeling. 

 Noiz was numb, because the rage that had filled his being had been enough, maybe because it had been eating him from the inside for far too long, it snapped him into pieces, broken beyond repair. So he does not feel.

The cold water had mixed with the blood from his wounds, tainting the clear sea water with red.

Noiz hated the color red.

But red is such an awful color that suited him more than he appreciated. It was the pigment of his mother's eyes, the woman that had pushed him into the abyss since the beginning of his life; the color of the curtains, drawn tightly together so that nobody can see his body curled up in a pool of red, and the color of blood, the very same liquid that runs through his veins that was tainting the purity of the blue that was the ocean’s water.

Why did you walk towards the sea, Noiz?

There was no answer.

Silence.

It was quiet. Deafening.

The roar of the ocean filled his ears until he heard nothing, the taste of salt was gone and the burn of it left his throat. 

He felt nothing.

He heard nothing.

The thing that calmed him the most had been his demise, and he wouldn't have had it any other way.

With his eyes closed and body underwater, the world felt so peaceful. So lifeless. The sound was muffled, the waves not travelling well through the water and all Noiz was able to fully make out was the ringing that came from inside his own head.

The darkness was comforting, like a cup of tea on a stormy autumn day. The smell of soup after coming home from school. Or a pat on his shoulder, telling him he had done his best, he deserved to rest now.

Why were you walking towards the sea?

His thoughts were drowned out as sinks farther, farther, and farther. 

Until he was no more, until he was nothing more than a lost memory that is.

Noiz thinks, that there is a common misconception that people cry for help when they drown. 

But he believes, that it couldn't be farther from the truth.