I’m sleeping when it happened.

The spinning and tumbling, the darkness enclosing, and…what is that? Silence? Sort of silence, muffled screaming, and swishing, but there’s something else I can’t do. I can’t touch anything. Not the ground, not the car, not even the air. Then I realize I can’t breathe in, I can’t find up, I can’t see anything - I’m drowning.

To see a glimmer of red, to see anything, is directional. I pull the water back behind me, over and over again, doing anything to not let the water fill the hole of my desperate need. The red breaks up in shards of light, and it’s enough to reach for it, to find air, to find my life, my breath.

And in that moment of sweet relief that I can breathe, I grab onto something floating, to catch my weight so I can take a moment and get my thoughts straight. But wait, it’s my friend. I push him away, screaming, and trying to tread the chaotic water. He’s violently floating, up and down the current of quickening currents. Oh my God, she’s floating, and she’s floating too. The bodies of my friends catching the moonlight just enough for me to realize what’s happening. And they’re gone.

As I swim against the strong current, I realize what’s pushing me forward. Forward to where my friends have fallen. It pushes me off the edge of the world, and once again, I’m thrown into floating darkness. The water surrounds me, the air assaults me with it’s chilling fingers, and then I plunge back in the blackness. And there is no light to guide me.