The Core
Category B: Highly Commended (2026) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Ruby Lee
Crouched near the ground, her gaze followed the lone beetle that scuttled along the dirt embankment near the rice field. The iridescent beetle shell stood out clearly from the clustered weed borders, its hard wing-covers catching the moonlight like a slab of polished metal. Dew bejewelled their sacred armour.
Watching the beetle, which almost always went unnoticed, felt outlandish and strangely close to nostalgic. The beetle toppled over, its legs twitching in the air out of helplessness. Half submerged in the storm’s remains, the beetle clicked, its spasms slowly spinning the beetle in the puddle. The hot tightness rose in her chest, scraping at her ribcage.
In return, her ribcage rattled back. Like roots being torn from the earth, branches of herself buried so deep they never reached the sun.
The memory convulsed, and a quiet wave of nostalgia washed over her, every physical sensation spilling over her body. Her feet firmly planted on the shoreline, where waves collapsed, a rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins. The seafoam gathering below her knees churned, the icy water numbing her legs.
She sharply inhaled the rigid, night air.
She spotted a figure, which from afar, looked like the younger version of herself, her fragile, shorter stature standing amid the crashing waves. Her back faced her, her eerie silhouette illuminated by the moonlight, lights splitting into colourful hues on her complexion.
Heaving her legs through the water, she approached her slowly, and she realised that the more she moved towards her, the distance between them seemed to multiply.
She seemed so close yet so far.
The dense core in her chest splintered, like an arm shooting through the gaps of her ribcage, piercing her flesh as it reached out. The sensation tore from within her, as her legs buckled. The ocean floor caved in, and her legs restlessly convulsed, attempting to stay afloat. Her head bobbed over the surface, as she tried to catch another glimpse at her younger self.
The tides increasingly rose, yet her mind was fixated on the beetle's glowing sheath, its surface bubbled with condensation.
The water levels rose and fell, ripples slicing the water surface.
As she thought about the beetle, she wished the younger, childish version of that beetle was hidden beneath its membrane, parts of its past preserved below its hard exterior. That it never truly “grew out of it”.
She raked her hands through the water, slowly moving closer to the child she never lost.
Every attempt to bury that version of herself managed to always resurface, inevitably clawing its way towards the foreshore.
Her pulse thundered.
The water surged upward, waves colliding with the sky until the darkness split apart. Every undulation she shoveled rushed behind her, bubbling into the atmosphere and pelting the sky with a blanket of iridescence.
Her legs synced with her rapid heartbeat, sprinting towards her back-turned younger self. Her breath heaved, stars smudged across her blurry vision.
She hurled herself toward the younger girl, flinging her arms around her and pulling her into an embrace.
The contact sparked a blinding, coruscating flame, the wild and insatiable fire enveloping their bodies like a ravaging beast.
Yet they ceased to burn.
The luminous flames engulfed them both, binding the two, completed figures together. The ignition peeled every layer of herself she tried to drown, endlessly unravelling until nothing remained except the truth of who she had always been.
The younger girl’s face lifted, her pink, swollen eyelids trembling before spilling over once more.
Every memory and every tear she wept belonged to them both. She had never abandoned that child.
She had never been one person, but many, stitched together from flesh and bone.
Every version of herself rested beneath the next, reliving her memories, crying her tears, living their lives. And at the centre of them all, remained the core.