The Unforgiving Moon

9.

My hand was the first thing to breach the water's surface. The rest of me soon followed, crashing against the fluid being that encircled me, but no longer dragged me down.

My lungs couldn't wait to fill with air—and as soon as my face rifted the water apart, I instinctively drew the biggest breath I had ever breathed.

My hair was clamped to my face, and my vision was blurry. I saw next to nothing, white coloring the edges of my view, but the bright green of the Temple's moss guided me to the shore.

My arms were straining for those few strokes I did, my entire body burning and drained. But I was eager to get out of this prison, to leave this lake before it would change its mind and reclaim my life either way.

No, stay, a part of me begged. But the other part was fighting—pushing me, forcing me to get to the dry land, to safety. Though the deepest part of me knew that no safety would be awaiting me out of this water.

Please don't leave. But the water around me felt light, uninviting, uneasy. I had to get out.

It took the last bit of strength I had in me to grasp the shore, to find a steady hold in the slippery moss, and then to hoist myself up.

As soon as my legs were free from the water, my lungs seemed to remember they had inhaled too early, and the water was forced out of my body. I coughed and coughed and coughed, I thought I would choke. What an ironic way to go, that would be.

But once my lungs seemed to have emptied—though the burning feeling still remained, I managed to crawl forward. Only a little bit—just enough to get my feet out of the deathly waters as well, before my trembling arms gave out under me and I collapsed entirely on the soft green padding.

The painful irony that I found rescue in green stung and wrung my heart, but the pain was fleeting. I had no energy to waste, I had no energy at all.

My eyes waddled close as those white edges slowly turned black, and the green made room for endless darkness, too.

My throat was sore, burning and aching, my lungs were shrinking and blazing, my head was throbbing, my legs were gnawing, everything felt heavy, and wrong, and tiring, and draining.

My heart was racing against itself, as if it was reassuring itself that it was still beating, that I had not died.

But I had. I had drowned. I had seen my parents. I had met Sariranyasa, the Goddess of Life and Death herself. I had died. I was dead.

Yet, here I was. As miserable as I was before, only more hurting than I had been. I was still alone, if not more so, and I was still here.

Death itself had rejected me.

How cruel that even my own life had been taken away from me—or the choice not to live it. I was trapped, and stuck, and imprisoned in this shell of a person I once was, in this carapace life of horridness, filled with nothing but death and destruction. I was stuck and there was no way out, and no way through, and no way around.

I felt my lips trembling as silent tears escaped my eyes. I did not want to be here. I wanted to follow my parents—wherever they were going. I wanted to see Lotta again, I wanted to drink with Vince, I wanted to train with Feytan.

But I could do none of that here. I could do none of that ever again, because I couldn't leave here.

And here was everywhere.

So where does one go when trapped in a boundless prison?

Even nowhere wasn't an option. Nowhere didn't exist. Or it did, but I wasn't allowed in it. Nowhere was carefully designed to keep me out, and everywhere was tailored to entrap me and torture me and lock me away under the facade of freedom and life.