Open Heart: Second Year {On Halt}

Chapter 26- Still Waters

I was weightless in air, a flabbergasted feather pulled down by gravity— just falling and falling. Dregs, concrete and thick broken cable lines fell along with me and in my vision; I saw the entire side of bridge collapsing, slowly, into the river below. I wasn't feeling anything. Nothing. Just falling quietly because my hearing senses were shut off from all noises except for hissing of tangible air pressure. Time seemed to slow down as the world passed in blur, rapid and then slow, a mocking movie frame being paused and forwarded. I was falling on my back, in the hollow stretch of bridge underfoot and beyond it, above the mangled structure was the tarpaulin of a beautiful clear wispy sky...an ungrateful day of tragic.

And then I slammed into river.

It wasn't a hard impact considering the bridge was some two hundred meters above. But my body jarred immediately because water was icy, cold...sending an arctic blast through my bones which seeped to take away the heat at my soles. Seconds more, I was within the world of frost-bound water.

It definitely wasn't how they'd showed in movies—that if you plunged into water, you just came out with open hair dramatically looking like a kelpie queen. No. Nothing like that. Plunging into water was quiet, soundless with all movements subtle enough to rarely make any noise except some useless thrashing. One moment you would be on top of water and the next, inside its carcinogenic currents.

Bubbles brushed in my cheek, and my lips nipper to not let water inside. In the mesh of muscles, my heart was a cornered beast— scared of water and the fate it promised. All I did was kept going under surface for a few meters before buoyancy took over and started throwing me back. I blinked, feeling the sting of icy liquid...which wasn't that cold anymore but there was nothing I could do except to remain at mercy of this force. I felt my blood shuddering with alarm, and yet could do nothing. And then there was debris falling all around and over, and yet...nothing could be done by me to avoid getting trampled by them.

But I tried to look for Mitch. My blood was going cold, heart pumping furiously to keep me alive but we all knew what happened when you fell into an almost wintry river flowing from north. It was just fucking cold and I was slowly going up in water, unable to see anything except mystic blurs all around me. The water was clear, thankfully but my mind wasn't. I couldn't think properly. Not with the fact that if I don't die of drowning, I might die of hyperthermia within next ten minutes.

But there was Mitch. I needed to find him.

I have to find him because...because I don't want him to drown or just leave this beautiful gift nature has been humanity irrespective of our cruel treatment for her by us.

I surfaced like a whale, gasping and took a gratifying gulp of oxygen. My body was soaked, drops dripping from hair to eyes, down the chin. With everything cold as ice, that single inhalation almost sparked a new life inside. I was a swimmer. I knew how to move around in water like a little fish...I was a little fish who was trying to survive and I would try my best to. 

Then there was screaming...not of people but a high, grinding bluster of metal slamming into each other near me and concrete falling with loud splashes.

I cleared the messy keratin strands from face and peered away, spinning over water with my legs kicking rigorously to keep me in surface. My eyes searched for Mitch but he wasn't anywhere near. He was holding me when we fell but when the ground gave away, both of us separated mid-air and fell without each other's hold. A terror shot to pulses, almost umanning me in total. And out of nowhere, a huge block of bulwark crashed just two meters away and I yelped, shellacking my arms to get away. Actually there was a lot of junk falling from above and if I wasn't careful— which I definitely wasn't, then I could just get crushed under it.