Vanilla

Chapter Twenty-Four

Dedicated to gingermysnap for the lovely message she left on my board the other day.

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            The water had a personality. It wasn’t just a large mass of liquid, but a ferocious, personified monster. Its twisted watery claws wrapped around the contours of my body, their grip fluid and yet eerily vice-like. I struggled desperately against its hold, but the moving force was overpowering; my flailing limbs had close to no effect on the current dragging me backward.

            My head plunged beneath the surface, the movement too sudden to allow time for a desperate breath. Bubbles erupted from my open mouth as the salt stung my eyes, their rapid back-and-forth movement a despairing attempt to gain some sense of direction. But the water was much too uniform; it held no distinguishable features, nothing to assist in determining which way was up and which down. For all I knew, I could’ve already been spun around and turned on my head three times over.

            I thrashed hopelessly, but my balance was lacking even inland, let alone amongst the swirling torrent of the incoming waves. No matter how hard I tried, my furious kicking failed to propel me upwards, leaving me powerless against the ocean.

            That was it. I’d drown here. A stupid drunken decision, enough to kill.

            It wouldn’t have been the first time.

            I was on the brink of consciousness, floundering on the border between awareness and ignorance, when I felt the arms encircle my waist. Initially, they seemed just another extension of the water’s deadly current, yet another force to drag me in the wrong direction. There were a few seconds of delay before I noticed the stark differences between the two: the way these felt significantly less fluid, their strength and stability a perfect imitation of muscle.

            Just when I’d come to accept the fact that it was all over, I felt myself being yanked upward, and my hazy head broke the surface of the water.

            My burning lungs felt the oxygen first, gulping huge doses to make up for what they’d lost. Drifting between various states of consciousness, I became aware of the stronger force as it moved me along. I vaguely noticed a pressure on my stomach; it felt as if I’d been hooked over somebody’s shoulder. The only water I could feel now was lapping at my ankles, its level retreating further with every step forward.

            Then, suddenly, it had disappeared; even the tip of my toes had been removed from the water, finding themselves instead amongst bitingly cold air. Miraculously, the monster had retreated.

            Either that, or I’d been rescued.

            My back met a hard, rocky surface as I slipped further away from consciousness; there were other things going on around me, I was sure, but I couldn’t work them out. It was as if my whole body had been sucked of its entire energy supply, a lifeless shell left behind in its place. I was alive, I knew, but by how narrowly I wasn’t sure.

            Drifting. That was the only way to describe it, the only word suitable for my state of mind. Not conscious enough to hold awareness of my surroundings, to interact with them in the way I was supposed to, yet somehow not quite gone. Present enough to reassure myself I was still alive.

            I hadn’t drowned. I was alive.

            “Flo! Oh God, please tell me you can hear me. Please, Flo. Wake up.”