Ocean Mouth

Anxiety buzzed through my veins as the plane roared, the ocean stretching as far as my eyes could see below, although I tried to keep them closed. It had been three hours already, yet I still felt as nervous as I did when I first took a seat. Even though the window was shut tight, I could hear a faint whistle of the wind outside.

My stomach turned; something felt off, as if something was wrong. Sweat had begun to gather in the palms of my hands, and my throat felt choked. I closed my eyes and imagined I wasn't thousands of feet in the air; I wished it all away. Every moment after that thought unfolded true.

A soft beep went off before the pilot's voice came through the intercom, "Attention passengers. We are experiencing a problem with the engine and order you all to take a life jacket from the back isle. Do no panic--" the intercom is interrupted by a low rumble, and a few snapping noises. Everything thing felt like a dream: the rapid beat of my heart, its pounding in my ears, the trembling feeling of my feet. It was this very feeling that made it more terrifying. Snapping back to reality, I bolt from my seat to the isle and start pushing through the crowds of people for a life jacket. They were all yelling, shoving and screaming. The few children on the plane had tears cascading from their eyes, just like the plane was cascading farther down from the sky.

I took a glimpse at the window and saw the sea of blue growing closer, so close the whole plane started to shake. My body was thrown around the isle, with seats shoving into my sides. My hands reached for a life jacket only to be thrown back with the rest of me to the ground. It vibrated against my back, shaking my whole body. A few others collapsed, their faces petrified and hands shaking in a nervous tremble.

The shaking, cracking, the screaming and yelling escalated so much my head begun to pound to the point where I couldn't think straight. The plane however, was shooting down to the sea as if it had jumped off the diving board, desperately wanting to plunge into the deep waters. The wind moaned and the plane cracked, tumbling into a downward spiral. My muscles ached as I tensed and tried to get up from the isle to only collapse back down.

Then it happened.

My limbs stung and my skin burned, as if every nerve in my body had been torn apart. The burning sensation faded, and a cool numbness replaced it. I looked at my surroundings and quickly noticed the Atlantic waters that caressed my now shivering body. The plane was in pieces, and beside it was a yellow life raft filling with passengers. After a moment of hesitation, I began swimming to it, my hands trembling with each stroke.

The waves were too strong. Every motion forward I would be set two paces back from the raft. My vision became blurred with tears, and my heart pounded. Is this the end?

"Come on!" The passengers screamed, looking at my frozen body. They grabbed pieces of the plane and tried to reach me, but I could never grab hold with it. It was as if no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much my body ached, no matter how mentally exhausted I was, I would never reach them. They were like a distant memory I couldn't quite recall; they were fading, their image floating away on the water, their faces disappearing under the horizon.

But this memory I remembered too well, every moment of the present was agony and fear. I felt through the numbness of the freezing waters, and with each sharp inhale I only felt more. My legs furiously kicked to keep my body above water, but eventually they grew tired and my head began bobbing below and above the surface.

When I kept myself up for more than a minute, I couldn't find the yellow raft and had realized they left. How long had it been? How long do I have?

My lungs burned as I could only get my head above water about every 30 seconds, and my legs started to lose feeling. I had kept fighting, my arms furiously swinging in the water, my legs kicking harder than they ever have, but everyone had a breaking point.

I broke.

Finally, I relaxed my limbs and the ocean consumed me, its tongue wrapping around me like a blanket of silk. The black waters were cool against my skin and the salt stung my eyes; I closed them, embracing my fate. Pressure had begun to build on my chest, and the farther down I went, the colder my body became. It was as if I was frozen in time, frozen in the waters.

I felt my heart slow down, and the pounding in my ears became so faint I could barely hear it. The burning of my lungs had burned out, and the water cooled the embers as they filled. No more rise and fall of my chest, only it is collapsing into me and life collapsing into death too quickly.

The sensation was bizarre, a sensation I had never felt before: peace. The water was my casket and my body lay at rest. It was nothing more than a lonely funeral; and now, I was nothing more than a lonely soul.