"I've been taught that girls have no value, and he's the only one who assures me that I do."
Soleil is a girl. A young woman. A female. She couldn't hate it more, because in her society that cursed gender makes her expendable.
The war that was wrou...
The water is freezing, it burns, it drenches me head to toe instantaneously. It's unforgiving as it drags me away. The image of Fray's face lingers in my brain as darkness tries to attack me.
I thrash my arms and legs, completely clueless of how to swim. The current has no mercy as it licks and tears at me. The river is a monstrous that's determined to devour me.
I reach for the surface, desperate to touch the air above that's not quite dry, but holds what I desperately crave.
Oxygen.
Pushing myself upwards, my head breaches the surface, and my mouth opens to invite the air I need to survive. The burning in my lungs is only satisfied for a few scarce moments before the rushing flow pulls me back for more. It's not finished with me yet.
I try to scream, but I decide to close my mouth so I won't gag on the frigid water.
Darkness crowds my vision, I try to open my eyes, but there's nothing to see in the river but pain. I squint, kick, flail. I'm dying. I'm going to die.
The ache deep in my lungs spreads as far as it can reach, gripping me in its spiked fingers. It's the worst way to go, I assume.
I can't swim. I can't think. I can't breathe.
Once more the wake toys with me, stringing me up to the surface for one breath of air before I'm yanked under the surface.
The water pours into my mouth, and down my throat, filling my lungs and my nose in a painful invasion. I try to fight back, but it's no use.
Things grow impossibly darker, and I'm barely aware of the arm thrown around my wait that hauls me like a suitcase. My eyes flutter briefly, but the water sitting in my chest is like a brick. Breathing like normal seems impossible, like I can hardly remember the feeling of inhaling air instead of liquid.
A massive push has me reeling, my back hitting something extremely hard and unyielding. Wind funnels through my ears, telling me that I'm no longer drowning. Something sweet and warm touches me lips, prying them apart with demanding strength.
Confusion blossoms when pressure assaults my lungs, and then the sensation of pressing against my ribcage. It makes me feel sick.
Desperate words echo around me, a haunting voice filling my ears.
"Please, please." More shoves against my chest. "Do not leave me, please, do not leave."
A broken sob rings out, sounding more like a growl, before the warmth is back on my lips with so much force I'm sure that I'll bruise. I want to comfort whoever it is that's crying, tell them it'll be alright, but I can't find my voice. It, like me, is lost in my mind.
Suddenly, everything is fading away, the only thing I can focus on is the words being spoken at me.
"You will not die, I won't let you leave me. I love you." Each syllable is broken and brimming with so much sorrow that I want to reach out. I want to cry with them. I want to move again.
My world is turned upside down when a huge crash against my ribs causes a total wave of motion within me. I'm suddenly coughing, gagging, hacking. My eyes fly open as immeasurable pain reverberates from my lungs and outward.
I'm aware of the water purging itself from my lungs, pouring from my mouth like a river of its own.
What little strength I had left leaves me completely, my head falling back and cracking against the rocks behind me.
I blink away the rain falling across my face, looking through the hair plastered to my face. A man leans over me, his large hand cupping the side of my face as he stares into me.
There's so much fear in those burning yellow eyes, eyes that I know so well.
"Fray?" It's all I get out before I'm dragged back under the darkness, my mind slackening as sleep grabs me.
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