Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 18

My ribs collided first, knocking the breath clean out of me.

Then my head hit the upper edge.

White pain.

A scream escaped my throat, raw and animal and involuntary.

Then—

Darkness again.

The sea swallowed me whole like it was hungry.

This time, I didn’t catch a breath.
This time, the cold sank deeper.
This time, I didn’t fight right away.

The pain pulsed like lightning beneath my ribs. My body refused to move like I wanted it to. My arms floated uselessly. My legs felt distant.

I blinked, barely seeing.

The storm was up there. Somewhere above. Roaring and tearing itself apart.

But here beneath the surface—

It was quiet.

Eerily still.

Like nothing had ever gone wrong.

Like the storm didn’t exist.

I floated in that eerie calm. The silence pressed against my ears. The cold wrapped around me like a blanket, too familiar. Too soft. Too inviting.

And in the drifting dark, I remembered—

My dad.

His cooking. His laugh when he tried to dance in the kitchen. The way he looked at me like I was the last good thing he had left.

If I died here…
If the ocean took me…
It would break him.

It would destroy whatever piece of him was still holding on.

And James…

James.

His stupid grin when I beat him in rock-paper-scissors.
His voice calling me “B.”
The way he looked at me tonight when he knew the dinner wasn’t ours, but still acted like it was for a second.
The way he held my hand like it was a promise.

All of it.
All of him.

Flashes of his face swam behind my eyes. His laugh. His frustration. His apology. His care.
His warmth.

The boy who could be a storm himself—unpredictable, loud, intense—but who had also, somehow, become my anchor.

I wanted to fight.

I really did.

But my arms wouldn’t move anymore.
My lungs burned.
And the cold felt... peaceful now.

As much as I wanted to keep holding on—

My body let go first.

I exhaled.

A single bubble floated from my lips, soft and slow.

The last breath.

I watched it rise, fragile and round.
It shimmered in the murky water, a tiny thing trying to reach the light.

And it struck me—

Isn’t that what we are?

Just small, fleeting things trying to rise through the chaos, the pressure, the weight of everything crashing down?

The surface above was war.
But here, below… it was surrender.

And maybe that’s why it was so calm.

Because the fight was over.

I felt my thoughts splinter like driftwood.

Felt my fingers loosen.
My eyes close.