The strength it took to raise and plummet me into the pond exceeded that of one man.
This debt.
This atrocity had become a family affair.
Jethro, Kestrel, Daniel, and Cut.
Together they played roulette with my life, and in a perfect harmony, they shifted as one and began the rollercoaster all over again.
Their side of the seesaw rose; I dropped.
“No!” I screamed, thrashing in the chair.
But they ignored me.
Faster and faster they dropped me until they disappeared; once again, my aquatic grave welcomed me.
The water’s kiss devoured my feet, my thighs, my breasts…my head.
I sank quicker.
Like I belonged.
The second time was no better.
If anything, it was worse.
My lungs burned.
They felt as if they bled with my submerged screams.
My heartbeat sent ripples of horror through the water cradling me. Sonic sound waves alerted fish that I would soon be easy prey…that I was moments from slipping from this world and into another.
One that hopefully treated me better.
I struggled harder, bruised deeper, and drove myself quicker into madness.
I screamed again, unable to hold in oxygen. Something scaly swam beneath me, tickling my toes. Fronds of water grasses and quick flashes of movement from frogs all sent my mind twirling into darkness.
Images of Loch Ness monsters and sea creatures with wicked sharp teeth stole the remainders of my rationality.
I want to breathe.
I want to live.
I strained for the lighter green of the surface. Crying and pleading and drinking gallons of pond scum in my struggle to stay alive.
Time played a horrible joke on me. It never ended.
There was no reprieve…no air.
The emerald depth of the water crowded me, closing in tighter and tighter—crushing me like a tin can beneath its gentle waves.
This ducking lasted longer, or maybe I was destroyed already. Perhaps it was shorter, but I’d run out of reserves to hold on.
I wanted to stop fighting.
I wanted to succumb.
How weak I was.
How fragile.
How broken.
My fighting gave way to twitches. My muscles fought on their own, demanding oxygen I didn’t have to give.
My hair hovered around me like it was alive, swaying like seaweed, promising an easy existence if I just followed its gentle dance and give in.
Just…give in.
Give in to the gentle lullaby of sleep.
If I died, I won.
The Hawks would lose as I would be free…
My struggling ceased and I hung there as if I was no longer bones and breath, but weightless freedom. My shift billowed like wings around me, sending me deeper into the abyss.
It was quiet down here. Quiet and calm and…drifting.
I drifted…
I faded…
Then the weight began again, folding my chin against my collar, tugging me from the deep. Pounding, pounding pressure as I was wrenched from my emerald tomb and hurled into the clouds again.
Gravity was now my foe, making everything so eternally heavy. My chest was an elephant. My head a bowling ball.
And I was weak.
So weak.
Air trickled down my throat, mixing with water I’d drank, making me retch. As each mouthful registered, my brain awoke, kicking me into survival. I moaned and begged and devoured every drop of oxygen I could.
I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t look behind me.
All I saw was blackness. But something granted me inhuman strength to twist in my bindings and look, just once, behind.
The clouds were dark and threatening, shadowing the Hawks in sombre gloom.
Jethro’s golden eyes burned me from the banks, superseding all distance, glowing like amber or sunlight—or paradise.
Paradise…
I would like to go to paradise.
But then I looked at Cut, Kes, and Daniel.
Their eyes were the same damn colour.
All of them.
Four men. Four wishes and wills—but one pair of identical eyes.
Evil eyes.
Horrendous eyes.
Eyes I never wanted to see again.
Daniel asked, “Have you given up your power, you wicked witch? Are you cured of the infection of magic?”
Jethro shoved him, cursing him beneath his breath.
Then, I fell again.
The men released their hold, shooing me from dryness and gifting me to a wet crypt.
As the water crashed over my head the third time, I gave up.
There was no point in fighting.
I was done.
I lost all track of time.
Up, down, up, down. Wet to dry and back again.
Every ducking I grew weaker…faded faster.
How many times did they raise me, only to drop me a few moments later? I believed Jethro when they said some torture sessions went on all day.
It felt as if this lasted forever.
I couldn’t move. I had no energy remaining.
Underwater again, my heartbeat raced until it splintered my ribs, cleaving me open, letting water pour down my throat and slosh into my lungs.
Delusions were no longer something to fear, but to be embraced. Delusions brought fantasies to life, soothing me, eradicating monsters from my world.
Down here, unicorns existed. Up there, only beasts.
I opened my mouth wider, slack-jawed and spaced.
Perhaps I had a gift I didn’t know of.
Perhaps I was a mermaid and could breathe water better than air.
Perhaps I could transform and swim far, far away from here.
I would try.
Anything was better than this.
The icy ache in my chest as the water filled me like a balloon was foreign and frightening.
But then it grew warmer.
And warmer.
It comforted me.
The pain left.
The panic receded.
I said goodbye to life.
Death slid over me with the sweetest kiss.
I smiled and sighed and gave into the deep.
SHE WAS DEAD.
I knew it.
I couldn’t explain how I knew.
But I did.
I’d done it.
I’d killed her.
She’d left me.
IT WAS OVER.
I existed in a fog of warm, comforting blackness. I didn’t have a conscience or stress or worries.
I was content.
This nether world had no stipulations or rules on how to be. I just was. With no thoughts corrupting me.
I liked it here.
I preferred it here.
I sank deeper and deeper into the billowing softness.
I belong here.