1 more time

The world around me stopped. The sound was still and unwavering — like everything was frozen in time. My heart stopped, my head was ringing, and my mind was trapped in anxiety; goosebumps ran up my limbs. The water rushed in, faster and faster.

“When will I be rescued? When will I be freed of my watery shackles?” I thought, my mind swirling with thoughts of my impending death. I had hated water since the moment I was born — surrounded by it then, and now destined to die by it too.

“Poetic, huh?” I whispered as the water climbed higher and higher. It was up to my torso now, and soon I would be under it completely.

“I never should’ve gone on this ship. I never should’ve dreamt of a freedom I was never going to have,” I thought desperately, frozen in place. It was a cold, windowless room — one I couldn’t even try escaping from. I could only be rescued… but by who? Who would even try to rescue me? Who would risk their life for me?

I had once dreamt of going to a new country, of starting fresh and anew, but I was going to die here — early, and young. I hadn’t even truly lived yet. I hadn’t even truly lived yet.

Panic resurfaced within me, and I finally moved after being frozen in fear. My legs dragged through the water, heavy and uncooperative, as I pushed against the currents to reach the door. I shoved as hard as I could — but it was hopeless. I scrambled against the door, tears forming in my eyes and plopping into the rising water.

Something was stuck behind the door as I cried out for help even though I knew it was hopeless. My fists pounded against the door but the water rose higher and higher. It was up to my shoulders now and as the water grew so did my fear. All my regrets and unfinished goals consumed me like a tsunami.

How could this happen to me? On the last trip I had ever planned to go on..? Like a bank account all the misfortune and luck tallied up and all I could think about was how negative the number was. The improbability of all of this happening was so slim, so why did it have to be me? What if one — just one — thing went right? Why couldn't it be someone else? All the ideas and scenarios swallowed my head and I was drowning in self pity.

The cold rushed in, cruel and absolute. It filled me from the inside, flooding the air I once owned. I tried to cough, to scream again, but nothing came out — only bubbles, small and useless, floating toward the faint light above. My throat burned, my lungs screamed, but even pain began to fade beneath the weight of the sea.

“Help!” I screamed–voice stretched thin. “Please! Over here!” Unrecognizable words pleaded out of my mouth until it couldn’t anymore. Pushed out and replaced with water, drowning at the edge of my final breath.

I thought of my mother’s voice then. It came to me clearly, softer than the water but stronger somehow. She used to tell me stories about the ocean– not scary ones, but stories of freedom. Of endless blue horizons, of winds that could carry you anywhere. “The sea,” she’d say, “It's alive, and if you very listen carefully, you can hear its heart thumping.”

I listened now, but all I could hear was my own pulse, slowing down quietly. I wondered if this was what the sea’s heart really sounded like — endless, cold, and merciless, beating beneath the weight of forgotten souls, echoing through the deep like a lullaby for the lost and the doomed.

No, it wasn’t any of those.

My whole life I had been surrounded by people enduring environments that would’ve sent others to mind-rearranging wards. People who, despite being put through things worse than most could imagine, endured it all for a future they only had the luxury to dream of. It was a rolling hill accompanied by mislabeled weights, each step pulling them closer to an unescapable hole they could never see. Hope had whispered lies that echoed in their ears — lies that powered them to keep moving, to keep believing there was something waiting beyond the next rise.

I knew how consuming hope was–seen the effects it had on people. The ability to empower and crush someone with a blink of the eye. I could feel it slowly drain out of me at every moment. Each second stretched longer than the last, like time itself was mocking my struggle. A silent echo travels throughout the water.

It clicked. I wasn’t dying anymore. I had stopped fighting long ago. The panic that once clawed at my chest had dulled into something softer, quieter — acceptance, maybe, or the absence of it. My hands floated before me, pale and trembling in the dim blue light, fingers moving as if they still remembered struggle. The skin looked unfamiliar, wrinkled and ghostly, like it belonged to someone else — someone who had fought harder, lived longer, mattered more.

Perhaps my body already knew of my fate, long before my mind did. It had stopped resisting, surrendering to the water’s slow rhythm as if it had always been meant to return here. I could barely recognize myself anymore; the outlines of who I was had blurred into the currents, dissolving piece by piece. The body that once housed my heartbeat, my laughter, my fear — it was just another thing the sea would keep.

The water carried my limbs gently, almost tenderly, like it pitied me. I felt light, unanchored, as if the weight of everything I had been was finally slipping away. My reflection on the surface wavered and broke, rippling into something unrecognizable. I wasn’t sure whether I was watching myself die or simply watching myself disappear. But, if I knew one thing in this life...

For certain this time,

It was my final breath.