Status: take what you want from this story. the characters are for you to decide who is who.

Human After All

blood thirsty fish

She's in ankle deep, not daring to go out any farther because her favorite movie is Jaws. Although she's terrified of the ocean, she loves it and has wanted to live by it her whole life. She lays down, back being prodded at several spots by rocks smoothed by the waves, water just barely covering her face. As the waves come and go, they cover and uncover her nose, and between them she inhales the thick air. When she first started this ritual of being in the ocean without really being in the ocean, she'd breathe a second too late or too soon and the salty water would sting her throat and her lungs felt as if they were on fire. She'd cough but that only made more flood her mouth, so she'd have to sit up; interrupting her ritual momentarily.
This made her mad. It made her angry that she couldn't even be in inches of water.
Sometimes she'd stand on the beach where the waves only lapped at her toes, she'd take a few deep breathes and close her eyes, then she'd set off towards the water running. She though that maybe if she could force herself out far enough into the ocean and see that no giant shark would devour her, then she'd overcome her fear. But by the time she'd be knee deep and could no longer see her feet, her heart would race and a lump would rise high in her throat. She'd run back to the designated safe area of ankle deep water where she could see if any blood-thirsty sharks were swimming towards her.
After she lays there for a minute or so, she sits up, and she tastes it. Salt. Salt is everywhere. It's burns her chewed up lips and she feels her hair heavy with the mineral. She looks straight into the Sun with her eyes closed, but she can still see the orange ball behind her eyelids. Everyone always says not to look at the Sun, but she remembers when she was a kid on the swings and all the kids stared at it behind closed eyes. So when they opened their eyes, colored dots would be all over. And they'd try and turn their heads and look right at them, but with every turn they ran father away until they eventually faded away.
Her eyes are burning because the salt and water seems to make the Sun beat even hotter, but she whispers inside her head fifteen more seconds and she begins a countdown. One-thousand-fifteen, one-thousand-fourteen, one-thousand thir... A stray bead of salt water finds its way into a crease around her eye. Slowly, it makes it's way into her eye which feels like it's fixing to rot inside her socket and she opens her eyes as she reaches zero.
When she looked at the Sun, she saw your picture clearly. To this day she swears it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, that picture of you burned into her eye sockets. And she says it was as beautiful as when she snuck out of your bed at 5 a.m and left the state while your hand strayed to the ghost of her on that bed.