There was no reprieve...no air.
The emerald depth of the water crowded me, closing in tighter and tighter—crushing me like a tin can beneath its gentle waves.
This ducking lasted longer, or maybe I was destroyed already. Perhaps it was shorter, but I’d run out of reserves to hold on.
I wanted to stop fighting.
I wanted to succumb.
How weak I was.
How fragile.
How broken.
My fighting gave way to twitches. My muscles fought on their own, demanding oxygen I didn’t have to give.
My hair hovered around me like it was alive, swaying like seaweed, promising an easy existence if I just followed its gentle dance and give in.
Just...give in.
Give in to the gentle lullaby of sleep.
If I died, I won.
The Hawks would lose as I would be free...
My struggling ceased and I hung there as if I was no longer bones and breath, but weightless freedom. My shift billowed like wings around me, sending me deeper into the abyss.
It was quiet down here. Quiet and calm and...drifting.
I drifted...
I faded...
Then the weight began again, folding my chin against my collar, tugging me from the deep. Pounding, pounding pressure as I was wrenched from my emerald tomb and hurled into the clouds again.
Gravity was now my foe, making everything so eternally heavy. My chest was an elephant. My head a bowling ball.
And I was weak.
So weak.
Air trickled down my throat, mixing with water I’d drank, making me retch. As each mouthful registered, my brain awoke, kicking me into survival. I moaned and begged and devoured every drop of oxygen I could.
I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t look behind me.
All I saw was blackness. But something granted me inhuman strength to twist in my bindings and look, just once, behind.
The clouds were dark and threatening, shadowing the Hawks in sombre gloom.
Jethro’s golden eyes burned me from the banks, superseding all distance, glowing like amber or sunlight—or paradise.
Paradise...
I would like to go to paradise.
But then I looked at Cut, Kes, and Daniel.
