The Edge

Chapter One

"Come on, Alyssa," cheered Tom. "You got this baby girl!"

Alyssa rolled her eyes at her best friend's encouragement. She was frozen just beyond the top of the ladder connected to the diving board. Ten feet below her, the water innocently lapped at the sides of the pool. She hated diving - no, scratch that, she despised diving. Diving itself wasn't what bothered her - she could watch Tom swan dive into the deep end all day, laughing and cheering him on the whole time. What she disliked was when she had to dive. It was one of her greatest fears in life. It had been that way for as long as she could remember. She had nightmares of drowning, where she is unable to find the surface of the water- unable to find any source of oxygen. Her lungs burn from the strain, and eventually, she finds herself incapable of holding her breath for even a second longer...then everything fades to black, to empty nothingness.

Every night around midnight, without fail, she had the same dream, with slight variations - sometimes she may have a tail, or even paws instead of her normal hands and feet. Sometimes she was in the body of a small child. No matter which variation of the nightmare occurs, the plot is always the same, and she always wakes up in a cold sweat, gasping for air and trying to suck as much oxygen into her lungs as possible.

She had told her parents about the nightmares, but whenever she brought herself to mention them, it was always the same reply: It's just a dream, honey, it can't actually hurt you. It's probably just your fear of water haunting you at night...But Alyssa was sure that there was more to it than it simply being a manifestation of her aquaphobia- the fear of water.

"Alyssa!" Tom shouted, startling her back to the present. "Just jump, you'll be alright!"

"That's what you think," muttered Alyssa, but she knew Tom was right- she had to jump. If she didn't, then she wouldn't pass the class, and would have to take it again next year. She really didn't want that.

Taking a deep breath, she slowly walked to the end of the diving board...and looked straight down at the water below. She knew the water was only twelve feet deep, but it looked so much deeper...Stop it, she thought to herself, just jump and get it over with.

Trembling, she took one last glance at her best friend standing safely on the floor beside the pool, and stopped off the end... into empty air. Just as she opened her mouth to scream, her body plunged into the icy water.

Immediately, she began to thrash around in a panic, looking for the surface. Everything else fell away, and for a brief second, she was filled with the awful certainty that she was stuck in another nightmare, waiting for the water to fill her lungs and take her into the darkness...Finally she realized that this was really happening- she could really drown if she didn't get to the surface. That thought in mind, she began to claw at the water until her head broke the surface.

As soon as she felt the cool air on her wet skin, she gasped for air, and choked when water went down her throat. Alyssa began to swim to the side of the pool, still choking and spluttering as she went. When she reached the ladder, she stopped to relax for a moment, and tried to catch her brea-

Crash! Someone dove into the water right beside her, causing her to have another coughing fit. Turning to see who it was, she went rigid as she heard their voice. It was Steve, her ex-boyfriend. He had dumped her a year ago, after cheating on her with her own cousin, Mikayla. Mikayla had never been overly-friendly to Alyssa, but she had never been truly mean, either... That is, until she met Steve. Now that she was dating him, she was a completely different person, or perhaps simply the worst version of herself. She had also taken to partying- she had even been arrested a month ago for possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia. She had fallen far from the quiet straight-A student she had once been. Steve had a long list of criminal acts that varied from destruction of property, to robbery and breaking-and-entering. There was even a rumor that had gone around that he had drowned his sister's cat, but there was never any proof, so he couldn't be charged for it.