If only I could see what it was. If only I could see!

Then maybe it wouldn’t be nearly as scary. Maybe it wouldn’t be nearly as bad.

Maybe I wouldn’t be looking wildly around me, my eyes searching, looking as hard as they could, opened as wide as they could open.

Maybe I wouldn’t be reaching out in the murk, half afraid of what I would find, but needing to find it.

The water was ice cold, and it was already biting at my lungs.

I couldn’t stop screaming, even though this cold part of my brain that had still managed to stay logical, despite the chaos in the rest, was telling me that this was only killing me faster.

Maybe that was better, though. There wasn’t any hope anyway, was there?

I was drowning.

Worse than that, I was being drowned.

I could feel an iron grip on my ankle, just above my waterlogged shoe.

Maybe it was a hand, but maybe not. It was so hard, so cold. Colder even than the freezing water around me.

And it was pulling me down.

Into the deep dark.