Everything after that fractures.
And slowly, I slip away again.
I wake up choking.
Not on water, but on air that burns on the way in. My lungs spasm violently, dragging breath into themselves like they don't trust it yet. Each inhale scrapes, shallow and incomplete, like my chest forgot how to open all the way.
I roll onto my side and retch.
Water comes up. Just enough to scorch my throat and make my eyes flood. I gag hard, coughing until my chest aches, like something inside me was beaten. My head throbs in slow, nauseating pulses. Even with my eyes closed, the room refuses to stay still.
My body feels wrong, dense and sluggish. Like it has not fully come back to me yet.
Drowning doesn't end when breathing starts again.
It lingers in the muscles. It lingers in the head. It lingers in the way the heart hesitates between beats, unsure whether it should continue.
I don’t know how long I blacked out.
I try to sit up.
The world lurches violently.
I grab the edge of the cot and hang on. My ears ring in hollow waves. My vision blurs and narrows. I swallow hard, my throat raw, tasting chlorine and bile and fear allat once.
Then the cramping starts.
It is sharp enough to steal the breath I just fought to reclaim. I freeze, dread locking me in place.
No. Not now. Not here.
Another wave hits, tighter and more insistent. My stomach clenches hard, muscles pulling inward like they are trying to tear something loose from inside me.
I hit the floor with a dull thud, pain shooting up my legs as the concrete leeches heat from my skin. I curl over myself, arms locked around my middle, breathing through clenched teeth.
I crawl.
Each movement lags, like there is a delay between thought and action. Sweat breaks out across my back. My vision tunnels until the edges darken completely.
I reach the wall and drag myself upright. My legs shake violently beneath me.
Another cramp rips through me, twisting, relentless and cruel.
And then I feel it.
Warm, thick liquid moving between my thighs.
My breath catches painfully in my throat.
I don’t want to look. I already know. My body knows. Every instinct inside me is screaming the same truth.
My hand moves anyway.
I press it between my thighs, shaking, terrified of the confirmation I am about to give myself.
When I pull my hand back and see the blood, bright and unmistakable and smeared across my fingers, something inside me fractures completely.
“No,” I whisper.
