Drowning

As time begins to run out, I wonder if I have any chance of survival. I can feel the stinging numbness run its fingers up my legs. I start kicking my legs harder, but treading the water all this time has just made me tired and the kicking is making the stinging hurt even more. My mind tells me to keep pushing, my body is a different matter. My legs struggle and slow, but I keep pushing. Looking up at the moon shining down on me in such a peaceful, gentle manner pisses me off. I will probably never again see a full moon. Never again have its loving rays caress my face. Usually my anger at the world serves to fuel me with a burning fire. A desire to try harder, to keep going. This time is different. This time it just drains me. Drains me of my desire to keep trying. Drains me of my need to live. Drains me.

I am ready to let go and enjoy the second moon reflecting on the water. My mind drifting like my body as I watch as the moon floats back and forth on the water. My mind is slow to realize that the moon should not be moving back and forth like that.

Hope surges within me.

I strain my eyes and...Yes. What I thought was a second moon is a search light. I throw my hands in the air, a new energy invigorating me. I yell and wave my hands around.

The light still searches.

Then the light fades away.

There is nothing but darkness and the single moon around me.

Hallucinations. Delusions. Sea madness. I don't know what it would be called, but I do know the dawning realization that there was never any boat, never any hope of rescue, saps the last remaining strength out of me.

I sink into the inky darkness of the underwater kingdom, no longer able to keep myself afloat. Before long, my lungs burn from the lack of air. I involuntarily gasp and the flood of seawater into me does nothing but increase the burn.

Blackness creeps towards me from the edges of my vision. I know my time is running low. What little hope I may have ever had disappeared as soon as I fell below the surface.

I close my eyes and welcome death into my life.