Owenn was five and lived with his abusive parents in a small house by the beach. Owenn spent most of his time swimming in the ocean because he didn’t trust his parents to take care of him. One day while he was playing on the beach, his mother called him back to the house. Owenn was frightened and ran into the ocean to enjoy his day away from the cramped hut on the beach. Owenn was an amazingly skilled swimmer for his age, but once he got about twenty feet in, a riptide swept him up and started to pull him deeper and farther into the ocean.

“Mama!” Owenn cried, his little arms paddling desperately against the powerful current, in his left hand he clutched a small tin shovel, which he had scraped on rocks until the tip was sharp, so that he could pretend to kill fish with it.
He began to tire about forty feet from the shore, his muscles aching and straining, his little fists clenched with effort. “Mama!” He cried again, swallowing salt water. He watches her step out of the house and look around for him, but it was clear that she didn’t know where he was. Or did she?
Owenn swallowed more seawater as he called again, and his head was momentarily pulled under the water. He stared at the algae floating in front of his face, his mouth wide open, trying to get air and filling his lungs with water. He thrusts all of his four slightly chubby limbs down, and his head resurfaces one last time. He glances frantically at the beach, choking on the salt filled water as the last thing that he sees is his mom turning to face towards him, and screaming as she realized that her adorable child was seconds from drowning.
Owenn’s head goes under once again, but he doesn’t resurface this time. His chest fills with filthy water and his body sinks, drifting deeper and deeper into the dark, murky water.

***

Coiled discretely around a rock on the ocean bottom, deep, deep within the abyss, deeper than anyone knows, the parasite rests. It’s body shivers as it senses the young boy floating past, it’s hair waving with the slight currents that push it around. A stronger current picks up and the boy’s head is slammed against the rock that the parasite is coiled around with a dull thud, disturbing the creature further.
It coils tighter around the rock for a moment, but then senses the blood coiling out of the cut on the boy’s temple. It shivers again and quakes with delight. Never before had it smelled such attractive blood.
Slowly uncoiling from the rock, it worms through the water towards the lifeless boy, and wrigles it’s head under the skin on it’s temple, chewing away the ligaments obstructing its path.
It vibrates again with ecstasy, then forces its way around and under the skull. It chews through the tissue in a spiral motion around the brain, it’s slim worm-like body coiling slowly around the boy’s cerebrum. Then it worms into the folds and creases of the brain, going to work on the cerebellum.
For several minutes the body remains motionless, continuing to drift along with the pushes and pulls of the dark ocean. Eventually small, curious fish and other parasites collect around it, attracted by the blood. Slowly, they move in.
Suddenly, a finger on the right hand twitches, then the body snaps into life, its limbs flailing through the water, brushing away many of the small creatures.
But some of them are encouraged by the movement and dart towards the cut on its temple.
The body’s mouth snaps open and it’s head swishes through the water, snapping its teeth closed on several of the miniscule predators.
The parasite chews into a group of neurons forming a memory, and the limbs snap to life once again as the body shots upwards, starting a long journey back to a certain beach, clutching a tin shovel in its pale fist. 

***

Camella steps onto the sand of the dark beach at the same time as every morning. Staring out at the horizon. Today the ocean calls to her, but she knows that there are dangerous riptides that could drown her at any time. The same ones that took her five year old from her two weeks ago. Recently she had been terrified of the ocean, as she had seen what it could do. But she took some extra sleeping medication last night and it was obviously still in her system. She stumbled towards the surf, her brain foggy and in her mind’s eye she saw Owenn’s head peeking out of the water where she had last seen him. But he looked so real…
Her feet reach the cool water gliding up the shore, and she smiles. She remembers Owenn calling to her as he was drawn away from shore. Owenn caused a lot of problems in her life, but he was still her son. And if she could’ve saved him, she would’ve.
Oh, what she would give to hold his little hands one more time.
She reached knee deep in the salt water and leapt forward onto her belly, then began paddling deeper. In her mind, she was swimming to save Owenn. As she swims groggily deeper and deeper, she thought she saw Owenn’s eyes staring up at her from the dark depths. But she shook her head and kept swimming. She had to save him before the ocean took him for good.

***

In Owenn’s brain, the parasite is latched onto a memory of a woman’s face, and it happened to recognize that woman above him. The body’s left hand still clutches the tin shovel of a past life, and the parasite wonders if this woman’s blood is just as good or better.
The body swims jerkily under the woman, watching her swim desperately out into the ocean. It slowly reaches its hand up…

***

Camella feels something brush her ankle. Soft and slimy. Believing it to be a fish, she continues swimming.
Suddenly, something latches onto her and stops her mid stroke. She screams as she feels something dig deep into her thigh.
Salt burns in her leg as she thrashes around in the water, trying to jerk free of the thing still gripping her ankle.
Whatever is in her leg twists and digs deeper. Blood turns the water around her red and she shrieks some more, swallowing salt water.
Suddenly the pain is lessened as whatever is stabbing her yanks out of her thigh, and she gasps with relief. Nothing is holding her ankle anymore either. Immediately she starts swimming back to shore, but just as she turns around, a riptide sweeps her up, and she is pulled farther out to sea.
Camella whimpers now. Knowing she’s doomed. She curls into a fetal position and floats farther and farther out, hugging her injured leg.
Too late, she realizes through the pain and medication that something brushed her leg again. An intense pain blossoms in her stomach, and she looks down in horror. The last thing that her living eyes see are a small, tin shovel, embedded in her stomach. And Owenn’s smiling little face.