was building, my body aching under the weight of the water pressing down.
“You cannot escape me, mortal. You are meant for me. Your Earth is meant for me.”
My fingers ached as I gripped the dagger as tightly as I could. I was determined to hold on, no matter how deep we went, no matter how much it hurt. My body was being squeezed, slowly crushed in the grip of those tentacles and the pressure of the water. But my arms were free.
I swung back the dagger and plunged it down, as hard as I could, right into one of the pale eyeballs in the tentacle gripping me.
A nauseating shudder went through the water, and there was a roar of fury that nearly made my eyes roll back. I pulled back my arm and stabbed again, the dagger sliding in up to the hilt. The volume and horror of the sounds the God made were beyond words. Such wrath needed no language. It was palpable, wracking my body with pain as I was dragged deeper and deeper into the depths. I stabbed again, plunging in the knife and leaving it there when the pain made it impossible to retain any more conscious thought.
The tentacle’s grip on me loosened.
The water swirled, tumbling me, sucking me down, down, down. Water rushed into my lungs. Everything burned, everything ached. I couldn’t tell what was up or down, left or right, air or water. There was only darkness.
Darkness that seemed to go on for eternity.
I was dying.
Death felt...cold. Uncomfortable. But not as terrifying as I’d thought it would.
The silence was nice. The cold...after a while...felt nice.
There was catharsis in acknowledging that I wasn’t going to make it. I made peace with it.
Maybe I could drift for a while. Maybe I could sleep.
I wanted to sleep. Just sleep. I was so tired. But…
There was a silver thread in the dark, glowing bright and beautiful, and it wouldn’t let my eyes close.
I stared at it, numb at first and a little irritated. Why was it here? Disturbing my darkness, refusing to let me drift. Then I felt it tug. Just a little trembling tug that seemed to pull on all my ribs at once. It made my heart lurch. It made my brain wake up.
“Raelynn!”
That voice...so...soft…so far away. I’d have to swim forever to reach it. I didn’t want to swim. I wanted to drift.
“Raelynn! Keep going! Don’t you fucking give up!”
Where? I wanted to ask. How can I reach you? The voice was so familiar, but so far away. I wrapped my hands around the silver thread, using it to pull myself through the darkness. I didn’t know if I was in the water anymore. I wasn’t breathing. Air didn’t seem necessary. But it was cold and thick and strange. Would it be like this forever?
I didn’t want to be in the dark forever. I didn’t feel ready.
I clung tighter to the thread. It was pulsing, beating like a heart under my hands. It was the only light, at first, but the further I went, I began to see a glow above. Faint and golden, like the sun behind the clouds.
“You’re almost there, baby girl!”
Leon...it was Leon.
I was tired. The depths had been soft, and everything hurt worse here. I could look up now, and see the surface of the water, and the gray clouds, and the rain dimpling the surface.
Then I was splashing, trying frantically to surface, and my fingers brushed against dirt and I realized the water was shallow. It was the shoreline. My head bobbed up and I could see the trees.
Warm arms snatched me up, dragged me from the water and pounded my back until air was forced into my lungs. Oxygen rushed to my head, making it light, and I blacked out for a moment as my head kept swimming while the rest of me hit land. There was dirt, there was wonderful solid earth under my hands. I could smell the pines and the rain, citrus and smoke.
“Fucking breathe, Raelynn, fuck, please!”
Breathing hurt. Everything hurt. But if it hurt, that meant I was alive.
I was still alive, and Leon was holding me, cradling me like a baby with my head beneath his chin, murmuring in my ear, “I’m so sorry, baby girl, I’m so fucking sorry. Just breathe. Breathe for me. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
I was too tired to keep my eyes open. I was weak with hunger, dehydrated, and my lungs were burning. But somehow, I’d never felt