Therapy Bits

The water was cold, heavier than she expected. It pressed in against her ears, her chest, her ribs, as if the sea itself were a fist tightening around her body. She thrashed, arms cutting through the current with a strength born from panic, but the weight of her clothes slowed her down. Her blue blouse clung to her skin, buttons straining against the pull of the water. Each movement felt weaker, as if her own body were made of stone.

She tried to scream, but only a muffled gasp escaped, rushing out of her lips in a stream of silver bubbles. They spiraled upward toward the light above, beautiful and cruel in the way they glimmered—a reminder of what she couldn’t reach. Her lungs burned, an ache that spread into her throat and jaw, begging for air she could not find.

Her eyes darted around, searching for the surface, for a hand, for anything. Shadows bent and shimmered in the shifting light, the sun a fractured disk above her. She reached upward, fingers trembling, but her body seemed to sink faster with every second. More bubbles slipped from her mouth, frantic bursts that made her chest seize with pain.

Her blouse rippled around her in the current, sleeves ballooning like ghostly hands tugging her deeper. She kicked, fought, clawed her way upward, but the water felt endless, an unbroken ceiling between her and life. A scream built inside her chest, crushed down by the flood in her lungs.

Then—her body convulsed, a final ragged exhale breaking free. Bubbles tore from her mouth and nose in a violent rush, a cloud of silver pearls fleeing into the dark blue. Her vision flickered. The panic inside her was deafening, a single thought echoing in the silence of the deep: breathe.

But there was only water.

Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge #336 – Mom With a Blog