I drifted upwards, long strings of bubbles coming off my skin, streaming away in all directions. There was a faint glow up above, like pre-dawn light. Currents pulled at me, twisted me round faster and faster.
My bubbles poured straight back off me now and the light was coming fast, taking shape, making it real.
My head came up and out of the water, gasping air under blue sky, then back under again. I hit something solid and grabbed at it. I tried to cling onto the tree trunk in black smashing water but my hands slipped and I was off again, trees rushing at me and a giant roaring crashing the air.
I was thrashed round and smashed into the hard, rough concrete of the giant drainage ditch. My fingers scrabbled at the surface, nails tearing off. I flattened myself against the drain edge and tried to hold on, but the force dragged me up then pushed me over. I hung on for one long moment then I'm gone.
I fell back into space over a flash of burnt orange and black rubber wheels, Mum's pick up, lay smashed upside down in the deep drain.
"No!" I screamed once, then hit the water feet first and plunged straight down till my feet caught on the bottom. I crashed into something hard, pushed into it by the force of the water boiling round me. The back of my head cracked something hard, then silence, not even black, just nothing.
�5
YOU ARE READING
Lotus Blood
FantasyNam's life stinks. She loathes having to live in baking hot Thailand where she hates the food and can't speak the lingo. Now her boyfriend back in England has dumped her and she has no idea that the Mara, the Buddhist devil, wants her for his blood...
