Three Deaths

Falling…
Falling into darkness…
Watching the light recede…
I am alone…
Im always alone in the darkness…
Im always without light.
I cant breath in. The air is too thick. It makes me choke and sputter.
I cant breath out. My screams have already emptied my burning lungs.
Then, the falling stops suddenly.
Water.
I’ve landed in water.1


Three Deaths2


With a gasp I force myself to the surface of the water that the oval dumped me in. Saltwater. I can tell by the taste in my mouth where the unexpected landing shot water up my nose. I sputter and gasp a moment longer before calming myself down.3

“First things first,” I mention aloud to the slow-moving sea. “Jacket.” I know that my jacket, no matter how thin, is just more weight on my body. So, with a great deal of effort, I unzip the green windbreaker and allow the slight waves to strip me of it. I spin in an ungraceful circle and look around. Water. Endless leagues of it. Millions of billions of gallons of water. I have been summoned to drown.4

“The decision is this,” I tell myself. “Do you stay here,” I motion to the green-blue water where I am now swimming to stay afloat, “or do you start swimming for land?” Neither were welcome options. I’m an extreme pessimist. I wasn’t always. I can clearly remember mom and me talking brightly about the hope-filled future. But that was before she was lost. Before the Barbie moved in. Before an endless expanse of water.
I choose to stay. If I can’t see land, I can’t reach land. That’s the way I see the situation. The way I see the world.5

A small splash startles me and I spin feverishly searching, scanning the open water for the cause of the sound. I see nothing. After a long moment of apprehensive silence, I finally breathe again. Something grabs my ankle. It doesn’t pull me under. Screaming and splashing, I frantically try to make whatever has me captured release me. What it is, I have no idea. But my over-active imagination invents visions of giant squid, poisonous jellyfish and killer seaweed. My sneaker-covered foot finally makes contact with something and I am free. Quickly swimming backwards I try my best to think logically. For the first time in my life, I can’t.6

Something begins to emerge from the blue-green water in front of me. Something with sun-dyed hair made of waves from the sea. Someone with fair skin and crystalline blue eyes. A girl. My age in appearance. 16 or so. She doesn’t appear to be wearing anything. An odd and almost frightful thing for me to notice. She looks at me first with displeasure, then with awe.7

“What are you?” she questions. Her voice floats like foam on the sea. My only guess is that she must sing professionally. Her voice rings with lingering notes and harmonies. An eerie voice to hear in the middle of the ocean.8

“Uh… I’m human?” I ask back to her. She looks human. She sounds human. What else but human could she be? Still, her question seems oddly appropriate when she is the one asking.9

“Human?” she laughs. “Humans are MALE!”10

“No, there are us girls too.” Now she seems like an idiot. If there were only men then, what would that make her?11

Turning away from me, she looks at me from the side of her vision. Her eyes. The crystalline blue eyes. Something’s lurking there that wasn’t before. Something cruel. Something evil.12

Without making a splash of any kind, she sinks into the water. A few long, uneasy moments pass before she reemerges from the depths. With her are two other girls. The three of them look like triplets. Three perfectly beautiful girls. Six crystal blue eyes. The image of them all staring at me with such hatred. Such blood lust. It reels me into utter shock.13

All at once they leap out of the sea, again without a single droplet of water being disturbed. They sail over the water and are at once attacking me. I am thrown deep under the surface. All three drag me down toward the dark, cold depths. One rips feverishly at my hair, fiery pain surging over my entire scalp where the salt water meets the newly opened pores. Another bites my arm, blood beginning to flow from it slowly, as though tiny razors are gnawing at my arm. Holding tightly onto both of my legs, the final girl laughs at my desperate efforts to break free and swim to the surface. The more I struggle to break loose of them the clearer her laughter sounds.
As a new bite-mark is forced onto my arm I scream, in both pain and fear. The sound is lost. All that emerges is a stream of white bubbles. My life, slowly rising to the surface.14

As the air rises toward the ever-ascending sky something inside of me awakens. Something that has been locked up since man left the wilderness and established the rules of civilization. I lash out in all directions. I kick the one who laughs at me hard in the nose. Harder than I hit the one that grabbed me the first time. The laughter dies suddenly, her blood mingling with mine and the saltwater. I continue my ferocious attack. I punch at the one who holds my hair in her grasp. Grabbing a fistful of her hair I yank it out in return for this ‘warm’ welcome. Finally, I bite the one that felt it necessary to bite me. Blood fills my mouth by the time my mind clears and I realize that I am still submerged underwater without any way to obtain air.15

I swim for the surface, not bothering to watch as the girls sink to the bottom of the ocean. I hope that somehow my lungs hold out. I hope those three rot in their watery grave. 16

My lungs barley hold out long enough to break the surface. Sputtering uncontrollably, I breathe in as much water as I do oxygen. But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that this salty air, filled with sea mist and foam, is the sweetest air I have ever engulfed. Before I am able to thank any greater power, every greater power, for my safety and long before I am able to decide my next move in this watery grave-site, I am lifted into the air. I panic, as should be expected. Desperately, I try to force whatever is making me rise let me go, right NOW! I want my fate in my own hands, thank you. Alas, whatever holds me shoulders is strong, forceful, and not the least bit caring.17

Closing my eyes, I pray desperately that I could do more. More than pray for my own safety. I wish I were in control. I took control of my life when I changed my name. When I stopped answering to Elizabeth. When my father thought he could replace my mother. But now, now I’ve no control whatsoever.18

As I ascend ever higher, ever closer to an unknown, unbidden fate, I think to myself, “I’m going to die. For a third time in only a single twenty-four hours. I am going to die. This time, for certain.”19