The Last Wave

April 2, 2018

by Mortimer

3 min read

Story Premise 3 min read (429 words)

"In the autumn of 2016, our engineering college in Chennai was buzzing with the upcoming inter-college football tournament. My friend, Arjun, a talented midfielder, was selected to represent our college in a tournament held in the coastal town of Kanyakumari. The team of eight, including Arjun, set off in a van, their spirits high. After […]"

In the autumn of 2016, our engineering college in Chennai was buzzing with the upcoming inter-college football tournament. My friend, Arjun, a talented midfielder, was selected to represent our college in a tournament held in the coastal town of Kanyakumari. The team of eight, including Arjun, set off in a van, their spirits high.

After the matches, with a day to spare, they decided to visit the famous Thirparappu Falls, despite the locals warning them about the strong currents due to the monsoon rains. Ignoring the warnings, Arjun and two others waded into the water. A sudden surge swept them away. The other two managed to grab onto rocks, but Arjun was pulled under. His body was recovered hours later near a downstream dam.

The news hit us hard. Arjun was vibrant, full of life. We spent sleepless nights, hoping for a miracle that never came. The college was draped in mourning.

About a week after the funeral, I had a peculiar dream. I was in our hostel room, the familiar smell of dampness and old books filling the air. Arjun was sitting on his bed, his hair still damp, wearing his football jersey. He looked peaceful, a faint smile on his lips.

‘Hey, Ravi,’ he said, his voice warm. ‘I wanted to say goodbye properly.’

I wasn’t scared. I felt a strange calm. ‘Where have you been?’ I asked, the words feeling inadequate.

He shrugged, his gaze distant. ‘It’s complicated. But I wanted you to know I’m okay.’

‘Is it… are you…’ I stumbled.

He nodded slowly. ‘I didn’t get to finish that conversation about the match we were supposed to watch.’ He laughed softly, a sound that echoed in the empty room.

We talked about trivial things, football, the upcoming exams, our shared love for the ocean. The dream felt so real, I could almost touch him. When I woke, the clock showed 6:05 AM. A strange clarity settled over me.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t just a dream. Perhaps it was my astral body wandering, meeting his spirit. Or perhaps, in the depth of my grief, my mind had constructed a farewell.

But the dream left a profound peace within me. I believe Arjun found his peace, and he wanted me to know. The waves that took him may have been cruel, but in that fleeting moment, he was free.

I never told anyone the details, but whenever I see the sea, I think of him. And I know, somewhere beyond the horizon, he is still playing, forever young.

Related Horror Movies to Watch

Invasion of the Not Quite Dead

2023

Heavy Makeup

2015

God

2002

Horror of the Bitsevskiy park

2021

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The Last Light in the Fog

The fog rolled in off the harbor like a grey blanket, muffling the world beyond our porch. My old collie, Mira, sat beside me, her eyes fixed on the shifting mist as if she could see through it. I had just turned seven when Dad brought her home, a wriggling bundle of fur that fit […]

The Anchor of Autumn Lane

The Sunday after my granddaughter, Elara, left, I climbed the creaking stairs to her room. She’d stayed with us every other Saturday, and lately, the house seemed to stir before she arrived—a chill in the kitchen, a creak in the hallway, a whisper of movement in the walls. That morning, the silence felt different, thicker. […]

The Static Throne

The basement of the old farmhouse in Millbrook, Vermont, smelled of damp earth and rusted iron. Our team, the Green Hollow Paranormal Society, had been hired by a woman named Edith who claimed the house was ‘breathing’ at night. It was our second visit, and the first had turned up nothing but cold spots and […]

The Empty Hall Monitor

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve felt like there was a thin veil between me and the world of the dead. It’s not something I talk about. My house creaks at night, and sometimes I see a flicker of a shape in the corner of my eye. I chalked it up to an overactive […]

The Hollow Pattern

I was seven when the pattern on my wallpaper began to move. It wasn’t a trick of the light, though my mother swore it was. We lived in a tidy brick house on the edge of Maple Hollow, a town so quiet that the loudest sound was the hum of the refrigerator at midnight. My […]

The Man Who Walked Through the Hood

I never believed in ghosts, not really. Not until that night on the old mountain road, the one that snakes through the pines like a black serpent. It was late autumn, and the air had that sharp, metallic bite that comes just before the first snowfall. I was driving home from my shift at the […]

The Arithmetic of Silence

The old farmhouse on Mulberry Lane had gone quiet for months, and I had almost convinced myself that whatever had been toying with us had finally grown bored. Ever since the incident with the missing garden shears last autumn, things had settled into an uneasy calm. Margaret, my wife, would sometimes mention feeling watched in […]

The Fan’s Cold Breath

Three years have passed since the night our world tilted on its axis. It wasn’t the fall that broke us, but the silence that followed. Our home, once a vessel of laughter and off-key melodies, became a mausoleum of memory. My father stopped humming, my sister stopped singing, and I stopped believing in the simple […]

Little Girl And Toy Box

This happened about 3 years ago. It was the weekend and I had driven over to my friend Al’s house to hang out for a bit. We lived pretty close to each other, and were at each other’s houses often. Al told me that he was going to have some relatives that were going to […]

The Photograph in the Attic

When I was eight, I spent a weekend at my best friend’s house, a sprawling Victorian with creaky floorboards and a musty attic that no one ever visited. I woke up at six in the morning, the summer sun already bleeding through the lace curtains. I wasn’t sure why I was awake, but as my […]

The Chalk Arithmetic

When Elaine first moved into the ground-floor flat on Mistletoe Lane, she told herself the peeling paint and the damp smell were character. The landlord had shown her the place on a grey Tuesday, and she’d signed the lease without hesitation, desperate for somewhere cheap after the divorce. Her daughter, Mira, twelve and solemn, had […]

The Weeping Garden

The day we moved into the creaking farmhouse on the edge of the mist-choked valley, I knew something was wrong. The air was thick with the smell of wet earth and decay, and the garden, overrun with thorny weeds and a single, gnarled apple tree, felt like a graveyard. As my mother fumbled with the […]