I hear another scream, closer but also somehow quieter.

But I see no one.

My eyes sweep the horizon, and that’s when I see it.

An arm or a leg volcanoing, breaching the water’s surface, then slamming violently back beneath the waves.

And now I’m sprinting across the beach, my chest on fire, legs, arms, pumping, firing. I imagine myself a blue flame spiraling toward the water, and I am faster than I’ve ever been.

But still not fast enough.

I attack the crooked, cracking stairs two at a time—slipping halfway from the top but catching myself and pogoing back up—until I’m on the long concrete dock.

Lightning splits the sky into jagged halves, thunder claps, and now rain sluices down my face.

My shirt’s drenched. I pry it loose, let it drop behind me.

I don’t break stride. I run harder.

The loose pebbles and jagged divots punish my feet, but I don’t slow, I can’t slow.

When I reach the end, I can’t tell water from sky, both black and angry.

And were I smart, I’d make sure the water’s clear, that it’s deep enough.

Too shallow and I splinter my neck, snap my spine.

Too rocky and I piñata all over the shoal.

But there’s no look-before-leap time.

And it’s too late to alter my trajectory—the waves already reaching for me, the surface approaching fast and hard—this could be it.

I steal another breath and knife through the waves.

I’m not dead.

I swim like mad, arms spiked, legs kicked; I have to be close.

Only every wave looks the same.

I stop swimming. I bob in the water, turning slowly, scanning the darkness, small fish glancing my toes.

I spin ’round and ’round, tell my heart to please shut the fuck up, stop yelling, stop panicking, just let me—just give me a sec to—

And then maybe fifteen yards toward the moon, movement, something jerks.

It takes everything I have to fight the current.

But when I make it, there’s more nothingness.

I take the deepest breath, inhaling summer air and midges, and plunge into the water. For a moment it’s so dark I can’t tell if my eyes are open.

I drop lower.

Lower.

And there, below me in the murkiness, a body limp and drifting.

I surge deeper, my fingers narrowly missing their arm.

I need air.

But retreat for the surface and they’re lost forever.

I slowly exhale, exhausting every molecule I can scrape from my lungs, a thousand tiny bubbles roaring from my lips; I kick, I thrust, with all my might, diving deeper and deeper.

This far down, I can’t see anything.

I throw my fingers out, groping for the smallest piece of anything.

And then I feel it.

Fabric.