Blink

Then: Pulled Ashore

There was a moment where I was completely and utterly convinced that that water wasn't, in fact, water. It felt thicker, and gluey, like a syrup had grown hands and decided that it would be a fantastic idea to squeeze my chest as hard as syruply possible. With great effort I opened my eyes, sticky with weight, and saw absolutely nothing. Heard absolutely nothing, as the pressure placed on my eardrums increased rapidly. 

The latter was no doubt more terrifying, though my fear was certainly unjustified. I realized this rather quickly, as I attempted to draw breath and ended up instead with a lungful of water. I started to thrash wildly, instinctively. For a few moments I had been paralyzed, which was clearly getting me no closer to sound or air, something even my oxygen-deprived brain was capable of realizing. My arms flailed back and forth furiously, and in a moment of bizarre suspended clarity, a thought struggled to the forefront of my mind. Huh. I have goose-bumps. 

My brain slowed down, like it too was passing through syrup. And that, fortunately, was when someone yanked me from the ocean's icy caresses. 

I'd closed my eyes without realizing, so who pulled me out I did not know, though they did it quickly and efficiently. I did, however, hear the high-pitched screaming and feel the rocks raking along my arms. 

"MELLE!" screeched a voice, unbearably high and feminine. Even though my brain was foggy, it came to a simple conclusion. Celia. "James! You have her? JAMES!"

James, who I now assumed was the one who pulled me from the water, ignored his hysterical sister in favour of instead yelling at me. "Melle! Can you hear me? Melle! Jesus, if you're dead, oh god, oh dear god…" A hand slapped me clean across the face.

It was then that I realized I hadn't bothered to open my eyes. I sat bolt upright, coughing a lungful of water over my own soaked lap, and James' worried face. Instinctively, he scooted backwards with a yelp and an indignant splutter. 

I continued hacking, which obstructed my ability to apologize. My eyes closed with each cough, so the sparkling sunlight and rocks were filtered through the effects of a stop-motion film. Celia, who had picked her way across the rocks towards us quicker than humanly possible, started smacking me on the back with the strength of a heavyweight champion. 

"Not-" cough "helpful." Cough. I managed through her whacking. "Do they really teach this in First-Aid?"

She hopped down in front of me, dislodging some loose pebbles with an errant foot. Her were eyes wild and agape. "Oh my God, can you breath? Are you going to die? Holy shit, JAMES! You're the one who know the Heimlich maneuver!" 

James started towards me, arms outstretched, and I forced myself to stop coughing immediately. "I'm good," I gasped, like a fish out of water. "No maneuvers, please. I'm talking, aren't I? Panic clogging your brains?"

Neither twin looked even a little appeased. "She's talking," Celia nodded in a panicked sort of way, as though I couldn't hear her. "She can breath! She's okay." She turned to me with a manic expression on her face, eyes wide open. "You're not going to die!"

I shivered, still slightly in shock. My head dropped down so I was looking at my arms, which were covered in a criss-cross of bleeding, rock induced scratches. "I'm not going to die," I repeated, and waves pounded against the rocks. Their drumming sound comforted me, if only a little. 

"We'll take you up the rock-face, slowly," James said, extending his arm to me. "Can you stand? Can you still breath?"

I ignored him for a second without any response, staring out over the ocean. Then, I started to laugh hysterically. Laugh and cry, for the second time that day, tears dripping down my already soaked face. 

"Melle?" Celia cried, immediately waving a hand in my face. "She's in shock, she must be in shock. Okay, don't move James, I'm going to find the tour and her mum. You-"

James opened his mouth to argue, and so did I. "No!" I said, attempting to dry my eyes with a damp hand. "I'm fine. I'm totally fine. She'll kill me if I go back half-dead, not to mention you. That was an incredibly stupid thing to do, we all know that, but it doesn't mean I have to go to the tour. It just means we don't do that again."

The my-mom-will-murder-you-too argument seemed to have a profound effect on Celia, who sat back down on the rocks in a defeated sort of way. She didn't meet my eyes. "I'm so sorry," she moaned, with a sigh. "I never should have suggested… You could have died. Any of us, actually." 

Again, I laughed, and James shot me a worried glance, clearly thinking, Oh god, brain damage. Does some sort of insurance cover this? "It was partially your fault, yes, but don't forget your lovely brother. And me. I never disagreed." 

James didn't even bother to argue, which I took as an apology that I didn't deserve. "But still," Celia argued, unwilling to let me take any blame. "We've been completely unreasonable. You don't know us, we don't know you, this was all a terrible idea…" James stayed silent in agreement, picking at a thread on his boxers and shielding his eyes from the sunlight. A light breeze whispered past my cheek, and I shuddered with the silence and suddenly frigid air, despite the blazing afternoon. The cuts on my arms seeped red, but if the cold was doing me one favour, it was that I couldn't feel them. Yet. 

Lethargically, I used a numb and slashed hand to push myself into a standing position, and my back cracked intelligibly. The twins leapt up instantly and in unison, uncertain. "Do you want to go-" James began.

I coughed pointedly, which was effective in shutting him up. "For a second," I said slowly. "I don't want to go anywhere. And when that second is over, I'm not going back to my Mom. I'm dead whether I return now or later. I might as well get something out of it, which hopefully from now on won't endanger any lives." I smiled through a shiver, then took one deep breath. "You see, it's all or nothing now. I'm already in too deep."

A/N: Hi. I'm back, not that anyone really has noticed. If you have 1) I love you very much and 2) Sorry. I was busy with the Author Games, but  now that I've been eliminated *insert sad face*, I will write more often, I hope. Excuse the chapter, I still feel like I have to get back into the story. Bye. :D