To the Bone

Preface

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Blue. That's the last thing I saw before I died. Thick, encompassing blue.  It enveloped me, surrounded me on all sides and dragged me down. It's jarring, to go from being able to breathe, to having it all taken from you in half a second. I was floating away, no sense of direction and without any safety to keep me tied down to the earth as I thrashed hard enough to cause the stagnant water to churn with foam, the taste of it invading my mouth. It's disorienting, not knowing which way is up, not knowing if you're struggling to the surface or just swimming deeper. It was cold, I remember that too. The kind of cold that spikes through your body and weights down in the pit of your stomach. The kind of cold that you can feel running throughout your veins, turning your blood into icy prickling shards. The kind of cold that settles in your very bones and doesn't go away. The shock from only being knee deep, teeth chattering, limbs shaking and knocking together like wind chimes, to having the icy lake blanket my body and drag me down made me open my mouth to scream, swallowing a gulping mouthful in the process, causing me to choke and gag as air didn't come.

I must have been panicking because I could feel my pulse thrumming hard and fast, the only indication that I was still alive tied with my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, reverberating like thunder in my skull, my body's way of telling me that something is wrong.  And something was wrong, I couldn't find the surface, everything seemed dark, white spots flickered in my vision. My hands grasping at nothing, my feet scrabbling at the soft mud floor underneath me as my skin tingled, already cooling, as if I were already dead. I should be able to stand, why couldn't I stand? Why couldn't I move? My body was giving up, tired from struggling against a seemingly unstoppable force. My limbs felt like lead even  as I continued struggling against the familiar, strong grip that held me just below the surface. Muffled screams echoing from my mouth that only resulted in more water pouring down my throat.

                  I remember my body slowing down, limbs getting sluggish and clumsy as my lungs pushed past the breaking point from the water that flooded into them relentlessly.  It was painful, no one ever really talks about how painful it is to drown, how it burns as if you are being consumed by a raging fire from the inside out, as if you are being eaten alive. You give up, your body feels so heavy, helpless to what's happening, even when air is half a foot above, I could see the sunlight now, a pale yellow shining through the murky lake water, as if it were mocking me, taunting the fact that I was unable to move, that I was being held under.

In movies there's always a chance, the lead girl keeps fighting, plot armor causing her to gain inhuman strength to push the big bad monster off of her, letting her to reach the surface, letting her breath. But this isn't a movie, and my life won't be saved because the director wanted to keep me around for the end credits. In real life final girls aren't victims, and I've been a victim my whole life.

              Yet all I remember thinking about in that very moment wasn't the pain, it wasn't Ashley or Lyra or the Group or even It. All I was thinking about was him. His betrayal running through my veins, burning worse then the fire in my chest, worse then the raw muscle of my throat as I opened my mouth in a garbled silent scream, inviting more water in. Isn't that was love is? Suffering? Pain? I had no one to blame but myself, I had trusted too easily, too fast, and now I was paying the price. The panic felt like a distant memory now, was I supposed to be hurting? Was I supposed to be feeling anything other than this eerie emptiness?

                  I was past caring, my brain shutting down, making everything seem hazy and slow. There was nothing else I could do. I couldn't breathe anymore, the water filled every crevice of my throat, pressing my esophagus and pushing its way into my windpipe until there was nothing left to breathe out. Choking me, filling me. I was dying. I was sure of it. My adrenaline draining as I realized fighting was getting me nowhere, there was no point anymore. So I stopped. I stopped struggling against the arms holding me down, the very arms that used to hold me so gently, the arms that had held me as I cried, the arms that had braided my hair and brushed stray eyelash's off my cheek, the arms that used to make me feel safe. His betrayal is what made me give up, it's what made me slump, worn out and weak, against his hold, succumbing to the unyielding suffocation.