He had felt he was fierce and powerful and clever, now he was confronted with an authority he’d never known existed, a higher sense of authority. The figure he stared at on the shore was not a human of human law; it was a predator of predators like him. He’d always been proud he was atop the food chain, and now to sense this sudden change of balance made him insanely jealous, he admired, lusted for the power this being exuded as he realized his chances for existence were quickly coming to an end.

The waves kept crashing and the sea breeze screamed by me, but for me there was only inner stillness. I saw him walk towards the shore, keeping distance between us. I could tell his plan was to find the knife, I had cut myself with. When we were both parallel to the ocean he made a run for it, he seemed overly excited, maybe scared. As he was scrambling on the sand, by the water looking for his blade, I took one firm step. This made him jump up and start running again, only this time towards the ocean, as if water would deter me. I took a few more steps and he frantically swam deeper. At one point, I lost him in between the waves and the darkness, but then I noticed, this individual, did not know how to swim or was not doing a good job at it. Within minutes, his splattering stopped and he ceased to pop up to the surface. He’d drowned. I quickly returned to the figure by the shadows, it was a skinny, young man, he was coughing blood and had many stab wounds all over his torso and a few around his face. He weakly whispered: “We were supposed to have a blind date, he had told me he was HIV positive also, but when we met he told me he was in this world to rid it of disease like me” I asked him where was the knife and he pointed towards the direction where I had originally gashed my foot, shortly after that, he shared his last breadth with me.