Creek Island book1

Untitled Part 2

Prelude

The thing that Ashley enjoyed doing the most was laying flat on her back in the meadow. She could stay there for hours watching the clouds float by. Some would say she was a dreamer and perhaps that was true, others called it laziness, and she called it summer time relaxation.

She lay there thinking of all the fun summers she shared with her father and how much timed had passed since then. Her thoughts tangled in her mind exhausting her and she inadvertently fell asleep, and right into her recurring dream

The air around her grew moist, suffocating, and then appeared to liquefy. The trees that bordered the meadow, transformed into wiry leafy images. They swayed gently, slowly lifting and falling. The flowers became bright colored coral of red, pink and orange. The bodies of flies and gnats distorted and swam around displaying newly developed fins and gills

Ashley stood up and stretched; her arms and paused in a Y position. She slowly looked around and realized that she was no longer in the meadow, but in fact, now on the bottom of the ocean floor. Her hair lifted up spraying in all directions, and her clothing was now floating and swaying in the water current; except for a few spots that had suctioned to her body. Her shoes somehow disappeared, leaving her feet bare. She began to burrow her toes in the sand. The disturbance to the ocean floor caused a mixture of ocean debris and sand to curl up and swirl around her ankles.

She panicked at the realization of where she was.

"Air! I need air!" she grabbed her nose and pinched it shut with the fingers of her right hand. She used her left arm to fight to reach the surface. Her throat began to spasm. She stopped swimming and glanced once again around her. She was still at the bottom of the ocean. She had not risen an inch.

"I am going to drown!" her panic was now visible to the tiny ocean life that surrounded her. The hair on her arms began to stand straight up as if communication among each individual hair were possible. Her throat tightened even more attempting to expel the air that was left in her lungs. Her eyes began to roll and her head tilted upwards, then the last bit of air escaped and she watched as an army of bubbles headed to the surface. She closed her eyes as her back arched and then reluctantly she breathed.

A few moments later she could feel the heave of her chest beneath her floating shirt and opened her eyes.

"I'm breathing! Impossible." She looked down and watched her chest rise and fall with each breath.

"Impossible, just impossible." She grabbed her shirt and pulled it tightly around her and once again watched as her chest heaved outward with each breath.

She blinked her eyes rapidly as if that would put an end to her obvious hallucination but her chest still heaved with each breath.

She stood there completely bewildered. Tiny fluorescent yellow lights materialized and began to swirl around her. Thousands of yellow lights moved gracefully through the water. A sudden calm came upon her as she became transfixed on their movement.

"They are so beautiful," she reached out her hand attempting to touch what could not possibly be real. Her fingers pierced through the shining lights. A barely noticeable electric shock traveled through them and then throughout the rest of her body. The lights drew closer and closer until they no longer just surrounded her but had become her.

"Oh I must be dead," she fumbled with her thoughts. Then her body began to tingle and then went numb.

Chapter One