Bring Me To 1D (One Direction fan fiction)

Fade To Black

When we reached the cove, I bent over double, gasping for breath while Zayn shone the flashlight down onto the sand below.

Liam stepped forward. "ANNA!" He got right up to the edge of the overhanging rocks and looked around the beach. "ANNA! Zayn, can you see her?"

Zayn shook his head, desperately flashing the light over every inch of the sand. "She might be under the tree, I can't see under there. I'm climbing down." As he started scrambling down the steps, Liam turned to me, worry etched over his face.

"What's going on Tilly?"

I shook my head. "I...I don't know. Don't you worry though, we'll find her," I squeezed his arm gently and noticed there were tears in his eyes.

"If anything's happened to her..."

"Hey, she'll be ok, C'mon," Catching hold of his hand, I led him down the rocky steps to the bottom where Zayn was emerging from under the large palm tree.

As he got closer to us, I could see the panic on his face had intensified. He threw his hands up in the air. "She's not here."

"I don't know where else she would be." Liam said, his hands brushing over his mouth in worry. I wanted to hug him, he looked so distraught.

A strange look came into Zayn's eyes and a second later, he aimed the flashlight out to sea, slowly scanning the water, causing a cold shiver to run all the way down my spine. "Oh my God! Zayn! Why are you looking out there? Why would she go out into the ocean at night?"

He turned and I swallowed hard when I caught sight of the grim expression on his face. "Look..." He saw the growing desperation on Liam's face and faltered for a second. "All I know is that something was said and that she was in a pretty bad state when she left."

I looked confused. "What? What was said?"

"Something...upsetting."

"What, bad enough to...?" I looked out to the black expanse of water then back to Zayn who's expression hadn't changed. "Ok, you're scaring me now. I started screaming at the top of my lungs, panic setting in. "ANNA!" I cupped my hands each side of my mouth and shouted out to sea, trying to make my voice heard over the dull crash of the waves. "ANNA!"

Zayn moved the torch, slowly panning across the water, sending a long, narrow beam of light out towards the horizon. We all squinted, following the light but it was almost impossible to see anything clearly because the waves were so choppy and the water was so dark.

Suddenly, I saw something white reflecting in the torchlight. My heart was pounding in my chest. "WAIT! STOP! Go back to your left, I see something." I grabbed Zayn's hand and redirected it back across the water until the light found the white object again, keeping the flashlight on it as steadily as I could with a shaking hand. I gasped loudly as I realised what it was. "OH MY GOD! That's Anna's white shirt! She's in the water! Oh my God! She's in the water!"

Before I could even finish my sentence, Liam and Zayn were running full speed towards the sea. Just as they were about to dive in, Liam caught hold of Zayn's shoulders and pulled him back. Liam said something to him but I couldn't make out what it was, then he turned him around, pushed him up the beach away from the water's edge, stripped off his shirt and ran into sea, disappearing with a dive into the blackness.

As Zayn came back towards me, he ran his fingers through his hair and kicked up the sand in anger. "God damn it! This stupid fear of water! Liam just reminded me I can't swim."

"Hey, It's not your fault.Liam will get her and anyway, we need you here, we'll need your strength to get her up onto the beach, Liam'll be tired by then. Here," I handed him the torch. "You have to do the flashlight, my fudgin' hands are shaking too much."