• "We're going to the sea." My father said that day in a hollow voice, blank eyes staring longingly towards the distance.

    "Excuse me?" I wasn't sure I heard right. Father was the rational type of guy, and always one for explanations before questions came.

    "The ocean," he smiled at his bare feet while he dug his toes into the carpet, still not looking at me, "Its calling us by name." And then he walked out the door, leaving it wide open. I threw on a jacket and chose to follow.

    I was immediately frightened.

    When we went outside, the entire surburban area had engaged in this zombie-like pilgrimage. Creatures of all kinds flew, crawled, scurried, and stumbled towards a far-off coast that they instinctively knew the direction of. I saw my neighbors, clad in pajamas, walk among the myriads of birds, rodents, even some zoo animals. I blindly sought to march with them, as they climbed backyard fences, and scaled sand dunes on their way to the beach.

    I tried to stick close to my family, but it appeared as if nothing but the distant ocean existed for them. And so they shoved past me, visibly salivating in their thirst. They didn't eat or drink or stop for anything. They crapped where they shambled, so to speak, and proceeded to get skinnier and skinnier.

    It was terrifying, when we finally made it to their preplanned destination. All walks of life, from their long journey, were skeletal when they crawled past the pounding shoreline. They gulped and gulped the salt water in their greed until their stomaches were heavy with it and their sheer weight dragged them to the sea floor. The satisfied look on my sister's face as she drowned haunts me.

    Father had told me never to drink sea water, that it causes sickness. But now I don't know what to think anymore.

    Last night, I spent hours trying to keep track of how many animals and people plunged into the sea's depths, but I lost count quickly. Even in my troubled dreams, I was still attempting to keep track. Eventually, sometime through the night, the eastern coast had grown quiet and all life had ceased. Not even seagulls call out now.

    So now i'm here, writing in this journal I found in some beach house, hoping someone who doesn't have the 'sea sickness'- I came up with it on the long walk- will find it. For them, I have something to say. You know how everyone evolved from the being fish in the sea? Well.. didn't you ever wonder that perhaps our time on land was borrowed and we're being called back?

    Think about that bomb for a bit, while I go get something to drink. My throat's been parched ever since my feet hit sand.