Head Above Water

Chapter 1

Marinette gulped and glanced anxiously down at the water below her. Why the hell did Adrien have to be so damn inquisitive? She really hated it sometimes: especially now. But to be fair, her partner wasn't the only one who kept bugging her about getting into the water with the rest of her friends.

"Come on Nettie! Aren't you gonna get in the water and join us?" It was Juleka who had called out to her. The purple-haired goth girl was smiling brightly and waving at Marinette. "It's just water Nettie, it won't hurt you!"

Marinette's bluebell eyes grew wider and wider the longer she stared at the clear-coated water standing right below her feet. Didn't they get it? Why were they so hyper-focused on getting her to jump into the water and join them?

Juleka plunged into the dark water. A few seconds later she rose up from the depths of the water, blinking. She cocked her head to one side.

"Why aren't you coming?"

Marinette felt as if the world was spinning around her.

"I-I can't. I feel as if I'm going to drown."

Kim scoffed. "Oh please! Everybody apprentice feels that way when they first get into the water." If she wasn't so petrified of the water, Marinette would have punched the damn smirk right off of Kim's face with all of her strength.

"Stop being such a scaredy-cat and get I. Already!" Kim kept shouting at her but the dark-haired girl payed him no mind.

The blue-haired girl wasn't listening anymore. The more she stared at the water the more terrified she felt.

"Marinette?"

Juleka's voice sounded very far away. Marinette's eyes were glued on the dark water that stood below her.

"Marinette!"

Marinette felt a hard nudge on her shoulder. But it wasn't enough to keep the darkness away.

The dark-haired half Chinese girl gulped and took one step forward. Her feet came in contact with the water and she gasped and began to panic. Her arms and legs flailed wildly under the water and the blue-haired girl could feel something collide with her foot. A scream of terror rose in Marinette's throat and before she knew it, her head went under the water and she began to panic even more as she felt the sensation of water filling her lungs at a rapid pace and she struggled to breathe.

"Marinette! Marinette!" She could hear her girlfriend's voice calling her name, but it sounded muffled. To the girl's plugged ears, Juleka's voices sounded like she was hearing things through a water-filled tunnel. For all the young girl knew, her ears could very well be filled with water and she wouldn't know it. Water filled Marinette's mouth as she tried to cry out for help. Her hands and feet felt like they were stuck in quicksand, and through the darkness that was pulling at the edges of her eyes, the half Chinese girl trued as hard as she could to swim upwards. But after a few more attempts, Marinette soon realized that she had no clue with way was up or which way was down.

As her vision began to darken, Marinette could faintly make out a small and lean shape swimming toward her. Marinette recognized the purple-black hair of her girlfriend. As her head broke the surface, Marinette gasped for breath, her vision suddenly going fuzzy before everything went dark and she collapsed in a heap on the cold tile flooring of the swimming pool.