Slip
Most horror stories people recount from their university years take place first or second term. Perhaps they went out drinking and got lost in the city’s winding streets, their impaired minds guiding them deep into unknown alleyways and ivy-covered husks, leaving them totally disorientated. Or, inhibited by unfamiliarity, they attempted to find their class only to barge into the middle of a seminar with a renowned guest lecturer. It’s almost always something trivial like that — impactful in the moment, but not too serious. Something that causes a moment of embarrassment and laughter.
My story is a little different.
It was my final year, near the end of the Easter term. It was a good year, at first. I was surrounded by people I enjoyed spending time with. It wasn’t uncommon for a few of us to go out drinking on the weekends and end the night lazily chatting by the water.
Our routine faded when we arrived back for that final term. The atmosphere shifted. Our hands had curled, convulsively clinging to what we had. Those hands were now white-knuckled with unvoiced strain. Looking back now, nothing had the gravity we perceived. To our young minds, that time was all we had left in the known world — the last barrier between us and the uncharted waters. That specter of the unknown brought uncertainty. We never discussed it – the anxiety silently taking hold of me, of all of us – while we tried to hang on to those final moments of clarity.
I told myself I looked forward to stepping out into the world. I had secured a position with a mid-sized firm early in the year. My merry attitude slipped away as the fear crept over me, its cold breath brushing my neck even on the warmest of days. I knew what I was leaving behind, people and places that I feared could never be matched again.
That included my girlfriend. She and I both knew that things were coming to an end, but we never spoke of it. What had initially pushed us together had kept us close for nearly two years, but it wasn’t enough to sustain a relationship. It wasn’t enough to keep us from going in different directions.
There’s a certain type of sadness that comes with partners growing apart. I knew that there was nothing that I could do to salvage what was left. There were no fights that we could apologize for, no mistakes that could be righted, nothing temporary. No, this was definite — it was just a matter of time.
In retrospect, I simply should have done what I needed to do then, without further delay. If I had, perhaps I wouldn’t have a story to tell. But I couldn’t let go, even if I could see the unavoidable future.
As our final exam season approached, those weekend nights still came, but less frequently, and less well-attended. I had taken to drinking more frequently, particularly during the week. That’s when the habit started for me. I would often find myself sitting alone at our pub, glass in hand, ruminating about my future until closing time and praying for any way to change directions. I had so much before me, and yet, all I wanted was to hold on to what I had now. I yearned, desperately, to keep those dwindling days for an eternity.
One of those lonely nights, a Wednesday in the second half of May, that I left the pub far too late and far too drunk. Alcohol always offered numbness. Even if I fixated on my anxieties, they felt less overpowering.
It was warming up but still cool in the evenings. The slow breeze kept me from sinking fully into numbness. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had my mind been completely gone. Perhaps I could delude myself into believing a better story about that night.
The pub was ten minutes from a small “park.” It was little more than a seating area resting on a sliver of grass, but it was our park, hers and mine. It stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the water. We loved that view, together. Inebriated, it was double the walk, assuming one didn’t go astray. I managed to stumble forward, allowing instinct to guide me as my mind swam around, hardly able to focus.
I felt the breeze grow cooler as I approached. It jolted my senses as I slumped into a seat facing the dark expanse. My eyes wavered, unable to focus at first — not that there was much to focus on. The wind grounded me, at least as much as was possible with the alcohol. Soon, I found my vision fairly steady.
Just a sliver of the moon remained, hanging low in the sky off to my right. It faintly illuminated the water, which seemed otherwise indistinguishable in hue from the black horizon. The reflection rocked softly atop the waves audibly pushing forward but quashed by the unyielding rock down below. Those waves were steady but strong.
As the haze receded slightly, my mind settled on the same thoughts — fears, really — that had come to dominate my moments alone. Inevitabilities that taunted me as I stared into the darkness.
The first thought that came was her smile. Her lips pressed together, the edges curling upwards, faint wrinkles visible by her eyes whenever she saw me. That smile hadn’t vanished, but it faded with every passing day. Her embrace, ever warm, felt more reserved as she quietly withdrew. It stung only once her distance was no longer something that could be bridged.
Those chairs were a fine vantage point, but a dozen feet back from the shallow railing blocking the edge of the cliff. I wanted to be closer. The water called me. I knew that the water would slowly envelop all that stood before it. Perhaps it could clear my mind if I allowed it to wash over me.
I’m still not sure if I moved forward of my own volition. One moment, I sat. The next, I stared down at the thirty-foot drop.
The top bar fell just below my waist. I wrapped my hands around it and leaned forward. The metal pressed against me, my pants a poor guard against its cold touch. The water continued to push forward, the curls as it was rejected disturbing the even black surface. As I stared, my vision adjusted. The contrast between the almost empty sky and the water became clearer.
How could I end it with her? Wouldn’t that just force what I wanted to avoid? But how could I allow this to drag on, even as the end was so obvious?
I clung to something intangible. Hope, maybe. An irrational, childish belief that somehow there was a way out that wouldn’t involve pain. Maybe this wasn’t inevitable. I kept trying to turn away from the truth. I was too young then to steel myself and take the blows that no decision could avert.
It was at that moment, finally, that reality won out. Hope was defeated. I knew that there truly was no way to go but forward. Tears came as I leaned my torso past the railing.
Something broke the opaque surface, a sliver of contrast. I was unsure of whether the alcohol or the distance prevented me from identifying it.
It didn’t move with the water. It drifted, yes, but it did not bob up and down. It remained perfectly flat. I leaned out even further as though that would be enough for me to get a better look at the object. I was able to see where it ended and the water began. I could make out a distinct curvature on one end.
A shriek tore through the still air. I whipped around. The piercing noise disoriented me. I stumbled, fervently glancing around among the empty chairs and poorly lit streets in the distance. It sounded like it was right in front of me, right behind me, and right beside me, a cry of pure terror.
Just as suddenly, it was silent again but for the distant crashing of the waves against the rock below. Adrenaline sobered me. Not enough for me to move with any confidence before the scream came again. It was clearly behind me, out on the water.
I turned too fast and slipped.
My hands gripped the railing as both of my feet hung out in the empty air. I let out a scream of my own as I clung to the railing. I regained my composure enough to lower my body, pressing my knees against the stone and letting my head rest against the railing. This time, I didn’t even notice that the disembodied scream had stopped.
I rose, knees trembling but holding. My grip on the bar was far tighter than it had been before. I searched for the source of the sound. All I could identify was the same, unknown object I had seen before. However, it was now much closer. It had drifted into the sliver of moonlight on the water.
The shapes were easily discernible, but my mind was unable to place them. I traced the full outline, pausing as my eyes landed on a mass at one end. Jaws, hanging open, exposing a hollowness within just as black as the water. Faster, I retraced the complete outline. The head was the most obvious. It turned towards me and tilted slightly so the face rose out of the water save the tip of one ear. Its dark hair was matted, stuck against the skin, too short to cover the eyes. The moonlight was just enough for me to see his glassy stare, dark irises that would have returned my gaze had they not been empty.
My instincts worked faster than my jumbled mind. The realization didn’t hit me until my legs had carried me a few hundred metres from the cliff. I tore through the streets blindly, everything but that cold stare now shoved aside as I was pulled mechanically forwards.
-=-
The next morning, all that greeted me was a hangover. The last few minutes of that night had slipped away, or perhaps been buried, replaced solely by regret.
About a week later, he returned to me.
It was quiet when I awoke. My girlfriend sat at the edge of my bed, staring at her laptop, uncertainty on her face. As she read the article out loud, her expression shifted to sadness. Something cold crept over me. When she named the local man whose body had been discovered, his cold stare met my gaze. The police had not concluded whether it was an accident or a suicide. We never went back to our spot looking over the water, but I suspected that the railing would be taller if I saw it again.
We graduated a few months later. The inevitable did indeed come to pass. It was a pain sharper than any I had thought possible in the moment. With time, it has faded to just another moment that shaped me. We still call occasionally, now as old friends who managed to stay in touch despite the separation of our paths.
There are times when I’m frozen, gripped by the same fear I felt that night. It catches up to me, locking me in place, suspended in the inexorable water as I would have been if my hands hadn’t reacted faster than my inebriated brain. I hear the echo of that scream and feel my body tremble, begging for me to move, but I simply can’t.
I turned back to alcohol again and again, allowing myself to be enveloped in a haze in the hope of forgetting, this time for good. I kept trying to put distance between it and myself, to get away from the fear.
I’m not running anymore. I know he’s there forever.
But there is still one part of that story that I cannot ever return to. I did not read the article myself. I never looked at the obituary or checked the official date of death. I still don’t know if the screams I heard that night were real.
Somehow, I know what I would find if I were to read it now. It isn’t something I can explain. It isn’t something I want to. I know that those eyes were long vacant. I know that scream escaped far before I heard it.
About the Author
Kash Jain is a writer based in central Massachusetts. He writes fiction, mainly horror.