The moment my fingers touched the cold water, I felt a shiver. The pond was cold, too cold. Not the chill of night or mountain shade, but a biting, invasive cold that crawled up my arm and into my chest. I inhaled sharply.
And the water rushed into my lungs.
The pond swallowed me whole.
I clawed at the water, flailing my hands up and down as if I could ever do it properly. Well, the monastery had never taught us how to swim. Only how to sit still. How to breathe. How to meditate.
Not that I had ever managed that either.
The cold dragged me down.
My movements grew sluggish. Panic screamed through me, then choked. Darkness pressed in from all sides, thick and absolute, until even fear began to dissolve.
I waited for pain.
For my lungs to burst.
For the end.
But it never came.
I was still thinking.
The realization was worse than drowning.
If my thoughts remained… had I truly died?
And if I hadn't… how long could this last?
Moments stretched. Or something far worse.
I tried to open my eyes.
Nothing.
I tried to move.
Nothing.
No water. No limbs. No breath. I felt nothing at all, as if my body had been peeled away, leaving only awareness behind.
Was this death?
Or was this punishment?
"You're doing it wrong." The sudden voice came all over me. Sharp. Irritated. Real.
"What?" I thought or I screamed. I couldn't tell anymore.
"Stop thinking. Open your mind."
"Open… my mind? Huh?!" Panic surged. "Is it some kind of a joke?"
"Heavens above, you're as dense as a mountain ox. Just do it...or you'll die."
A heavy sigh followed, carrying pressure with it, like the weight of a mountain settling overhead.
A mountain?
Why did that word echo in my mind?
I was losing myself. I was definitely loosing.
"O-okay. Okay!" I scrambled. "One step at a time. Open my mind, how?!"
"To think," the voice muttered darkly, "that of all mortals in all realms, I'm trapped with you. This is torture."
"Trappeded?" My thoughts shuttered, I was still not getting anything.
"Yes. Trapped." Its patience snapped. "Do you have any idea where you are? Open your mind and look. Or stay blind and trapped in this Darkness forever."
Darkness.
Trapped.
Forever.
So, I really died or not yet?
Panic erupted, wild and uncontrollable, tearing through what little calm remained.
"Calm down!" the voice barked.
"No way you are saying this?! You mean… " I snapped back. "You want me to calm down after realizing I might be dead?! No, worse, not dead yet?!"
"Celestial Stars! Your Stupidity is the yin to wisdom's yang. Keeps the balance, you know."
Not comforting. And not like I wished to be lectured at this very moment.
"Breathe slower," it warned. "If the Heavens mistake your panic for a prayer, they might answer it."
A chill ran through me deeper than the pond's cold had ever done.
"…Answer it how?"
The voice didn't reply.
Wait, what? Could it all get somehow worse?
*Thx for reading.