It’s just water, they all shout.

It’s going to be fun, they all laugh.

You’re being silly, they all snarl.

They’re going about their day, getting undressed into costumes and preparing to jump into the depths of the unknown. All of them were careless, running wild across the cliff tops and launch themselves into the pit of darkness that roared beneath.

As I watched the last of them stumble up to the edge, my breath hitched in my throat. I couldn’t fathom my next move, but everything within me was screaming against it. My body temperature may have been standard, but I was deathly cold inside.

The world went dark and cold, the screeching of waves erupted in the distance. My body froze and every limb went numb. I couldn’t face it yet I couldn’t run away.

I could hear the whispers from the clashing of waves; ‘we won’t hurt you’ it sings, licking the cliffs, ‘we want to have fun!’

The voice is haunting me, dancing around me whilst it chants for me to enter its body. I don’t have time to think or fight against its begging, it’s a constant ache in my brain that never gives up.

I begin to snap back into reality, looking around frantically in hope that everyone had passed the need to swim. I heard laughter from the bottom, everyones clothes still pilled up on the side of the cliff.

“You alright, Danny?” Leah pats my back, followed by Imogen. They were smiling innocently, unaffected by the dangerous war below. “Come on, jump with us!”

They beckoned me forward, stripping from the clothing to reveal bikinis. Bare skin exposed, ready to brace themselves against the clash with the water. They seemed so carefree, as if their brain hadn’t registered the absolute danger which was about to swallow them whole.

Imogen was talking about something with Leah, but I couldn’t focus. All that ran round my head was what would happen once I go into the water. Before I could come back to the present, Imogen had helped me remove my top. I was bare and defenceless from the world below.

Each of them held my hands, one on each side. This was it, my life was ending. I was about to plummet to the end of my world and never come back up. Every worry was at the front of my head, every story of kids drowning and disappearing from these cliffs.

It was all about to be over, every happy memory. Sweat drenched my forehead, dripping from my chin to my chest.

“Let’s go.” Imogen shouted, laughing.

We were a few steps from the cliffs edge, both of them ready to run. I couldn’t breathe properly, panic submerged my whole body.

Leah smiled at me one last time, beginning her jog to the cliff. She screams the words ‘summer’ and jumps from the edge. Imogen follows and, reluctantly, so do I.

It’s over.