Maybe it’s just a reflex. Or maybe it’s the burst of memories that flare through me: of my parents the last time they said goodbye, my mom smiling as they strode out the front door, and then the image of their car, destroyed a few miles from our house. The memory of that day, of death so close I could feel it.

And it’s here again. Making fissures in the ice.

I bolt forward and push Max away, knocking him hard to the surface of the ice. Something slides out from his pocket: the silver watch with the long chain. We both eye it for a second, only a foot away, and then the ice breaks beneath me.

Whoosh. And the ground drops away.

The cold stabs its talons into my skin like a thousand little cuts with a serrated blade. My head sinks below the surface at the sudden impact, and it sucks the air straight from my lungs. Panic surges up into my brain. My arms reach for the surface, lungs tightening, and I fight to pull myself back above the waterline, drawing in a quick, cold breath of air. I try to yell but can’t. No air left. No function beyond staying above the surface.

I grab for the edge of the ice, but my hands slip off. Too cold. My arms too weighted. I look for Max and find him standing several feet away, staring down at me, like he is observing a creature in an aquarium. A curiosity in his eyes—but not panic, not shock or fear—only an eerie, calm resolve. He doesn’t drop to his knees and try to pull me out, he doesn’t yell for the others to come help, he just stares—his jaw set in place. His eyes pinholes of black.

I claw at the ice, and my hand grabs something, something cold and smooth. I clutch it in my palm and then Max is suddenly there, reaching for me. But he doesn’t grab my arm to pull me out; he snatches at the thing I hold—the silver watch—and his fingers catch the chain, yanking it back. It snaps apart between us, the watch still in my hand.

I blink up at him and suck in my final breath, knowing it’s the last one—the stormy night sky blurring around me—my vision going as the cold sucks all the warmth from my skin, my eyes, my lungs.

I blink and try to grab for the ice one last time, but my arms barely move, and Max only watches. Cold, cold stare.

I close my eyes and the dark pulls me under.

One swift gulp, and everything goes numb.

The lake is just as bottomless as the boys at camp said it would be. An immeasurable depth.

I sink and there is no light. No quality of time. Of how much water can enter a person’s lungs.