Tweetie

59

The water filled her ears, the sound of bubbling and the feeling of a coldness she hadn't felt in so long stung her skin. It was not at all like you would see in the movies, it was not the loud crashing of splashing and panic, it was not the screams of help, and bobbing of heads calling for help. it's nothing like that. It's the sinking, the freezing shock of silence as you fall beneath the sheet of waving blue and feel the fabric of your clothes cling to your skin as you become surrounded. It's the fear. The real genuine, core shaking fear, not of being lost, but of being found water-logged and blue with no help in sight.

It was as if she had been told not to let her heart beat, like hoping that the inevitable wouldn't happen. She would need to breathe at some point, this wasn't a game of hold your breath. She knew the surface wasn't so far away, it was not as far as it felt when she was sinking for so long it almost seemed like it lasted hours. She knew it wasn't so far, but when her back touched the bottom and her head hit the solid surface, she knew there was no way back up because the one thing she didn't remember was how to kick her legs in the specific way, how to use the force of the water to bring herself back up to the clear, chlorine free air. All she knew was that the surface was too far away for her to hold her breath long enough to suddenly learn how to reach the top.

All she remembered were the facts, the useless facts that would mean nothing if she couldn't get back to reality on the surface. She knew the fact that underwater, sounds travel 4.3 times faster than on land. She knew that the ocean covers more than 70% of the Earth, so why didn't she learn to swim for that fact alone? Why didn't she just lay and listen while she felt her body begin to rapidly run out of breath and her cheeks fill with the oxygen she couldn't get into her lungs?

She felt this once before and even then, it didn't end well. Not for her or her grandfather, not when the car hit the bottom and she was forced to learn in a heartbeat. Not when she rose to the surface alone and unmoving. Not when she was found and her grandfather was lost.

It was only a few seconds now. A few more moments until she ran out of air to hold and she would be forced to breathe in the chlorine. So of course, she did what any sane person would do in the situation. She counted. If she thought about it though, the one second was 1000 milliseconds, so maybe it would take a little longer if she thought about it that way, she could trick her mind into thinking that if there were more numbers, there were more seconds. Mathematically, it was incorrect, but-

Her rambling thoughts that continued in hopes of distracting her mind from the racing panic was torn from her mind as she felt herself run out of breath and the sound of crashing reach her 4.3 times faster than it would have reached her on land. She couldn't see anything, the blue became too much, the sight of the surface she wouldn't reach was too taunting to look at so from the fear, she hid behind closed eyes that prevented her from seeing the movements she felt and heard, it stopped her from seeing the flash of purple and the person who swam towards her and grasped at her wrists, tugging her up from the ground of the pool as she spiralled into a confused hopelessness from feeling the touch and movements all while seeing nothing.

"Oh God..."

She was blinded by the sudden light of the moonlit swimming pool which by comparison of the deepest water, was far brighter. And rather than speaking the words she wanted to let out, hoping to tell the boy she couldn't see through blurred vision that she was alright, she coughed, going into a choking fit in her water-filled state.

"Oh no, oh no, I don't know CPR-"

She coughed the water out, turning away and feeling herself stick to the ground. Her clothes, filled with as much water as she was, weighed her down.

"You-" she coughed, her voice broken from the chlorine, "you should learn for next time..."

"Jesus Christ, Tweetie, what- are you- gah-"