As I Fall Asleep- Joshua Bassett

Chapter 3

When I reach Josh, he is under the water, surrounded by strange, dark, orangish-red water. Blood.

 Joshua and the shark have moved into deeper water and I am unable to stand on the bottom this time. I'm now grateful for my ability to tread water successfully, brought on by years of playing water polo.

I dive under the water and immediately feel Joshua's arm. I grab a hold of it and pull him to the surface with all the strength I have.

 When we breach the surface, Joshua coughs out a "thanks".

"Don't mention I-" something clamps down on my right calf as pain shoots up my leg.

I gasp, cutting off what I was going to say. I don't have time to process what is happening because I'm dragged under the water. Adrenaline kicks in and I begin to fight.

I kick with my other foot that isn't surrounded by the monster's jaws. As I kick, I feel my flesh begin to tear along my right calf and scream out in pain. All I have to show for my efforts are a few tiny bubbles that come out of my mouth, but I do feel the pressure on my leg begin to slightly decrease. I take that change in pressure as a good sign and use it to my best ability, kicking as hard as I can, right in the shark's eye.

It lets go and I quickly swim up to the surface, sucking in a breath of air. Although that encounter lasted less than a minute, it felt like hours. I quickly look around and see Josh struggling to stay afloat, clearly in pain.

"Let's go", I tell him, and he nods, "Yeah, good idea,"

We begin to swim back, extremely slowly, when the shark returns, this time chomping down on my torso and arm. I yelp out and am swept underwater once again.

The pain was so great, I wasn't even trying to hold my breath at this point. My lungs begin to burn, but it's nothing compared to the burning in my side. 

I feel a slight tug on my arm from above. That small gesture wakes me up from the daze that I'm in, making me not give up.

I open my eyes and look down. It's hard to see with all the blood in the water, but I can just make out the sharks near my side. More importantly I can feel the shark biting into my torso.

With all my might, I punch the shark straight in the nose. Almost immediately, I feel the sweet release of my body from the death grip that the shark was exerting on me.

The tugging on my arm hadn't let up at all and with my now being free of the shark, I let myself be pulled to the surface where Joshua waits.

We both begin swimming back to shore again, a little quicker than last time. About 15 yards from shore, Joshua stops swimming and huffs out, "I can't.... my leg...". The blood surrounding us hasn't let up at all, seeping from both of your wounds.

"Yes," I tell him, "Yes you can," he shakes his head in denial.

"Look at me Joshua," and he does.

"We're almost there, you can do it,".

He nods his head and we continue on our way. Luckily the shark hasn't come back, which allows us to reach the shore and stumble on the ground, where people and paramedics are waiting for us.

My adrenaline rush is calming down and all of a sudden, more pain than I thought possible filled my body. I'm lifted onto a gurney and brought into the back of an ambulance. 

People are surrounding both Joshua and me, but the only face I see is Lauren, sobbing.

"Katie... are you..." another sob breaks her sentence and she stumbles into the ambulance behind the paramedics.

Once the doors shut in the ambulance, we're off. I drift in and out of consciousness on the way to the hospital, gathering snippets of conversations.

"30 milligrams of morphine right now..."

"Chest tube..."

"Her heart rate is too high; we're going to need to sedate her..."

I feel a light pinch in my uninjured arm and I drift into a black, dreamless sleep.  

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Here's the big shark attack! Do you think they'll be ok? Make sure to keep reading...

-kb

Also this is a fear I have. I'm actually really scared of sharks