I'm… floating…
That's the only thought I can process right now. Nothing more and nothing less
But its more than just floating, the feeling of being enwrapped, no embraced by…
I'm cold… but… It feels nice…
Not to mention I can't hear anything.
No… I can hear something… Its muffled and feels like a flow… like… water…
Turns out my hypothesis was correct based on the fact that my eyes starting stinging like crazy and my hazy vision shrouded by a soothing turquois pigment.
I wince from the pain and my lids turn to autopilot shielding my eyes from more torment. I shake my head, forcing myself to snap out of whatever I got myself into. I can feel my mouth dropping wide open, desperate to harvest air that is impossible to gather for obvious circumstances. Unfortunately, my lungs are reminding me how impatient they are getting and decide be assholes about it by squeezing the life from my chest.
If they're going down, those pains in the ass are taking me with them!
Like hell they are!!
My eyes are going to have to suck it up, because I peeled my lids back and force them to get a bearing of my surroundings. Thankfully, it doesn't take long for me to get a general direction of where the surface is and I force my limbs to go into overdrive and stroke myself upwards!
THAT IS NOT TO BE TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT!!!
Mustering my arms and legs to swim for salvation could not be enough to stave off the desperate need for oxygen. The jabbing of my gut becomes sharper and I can feel as if my throat is being strangled!
Keep it together! Just a little more! Just… suck it up… for a little bit… a little bit…
Huge swaths of bubbles erupted from my mouth as my hand breaches the aquatic barrier!
Victory! Total Victory!
My triumph is short-lived, due to me forgetting the most basic rule of all that is science: You can't grip water to pull yourself up!
Witnessing my hand slip below the surface makes my heart sink. If only that's the only thing sinking right now!
My chest is crushing me as everything darkens, and I can feel the water slowly pulling me down from the surface.
I don't want to die… I don't want to die… no… no…
Right now, nothing scared me more than what is happening right now. To think that I'm cruelly being dragged away from the surface with everything growing darker and the only noise I can hear is the muffled flow drumming against my ears.
Dammit, nononononono! Let me breathe, dammit!!
My limbs for the few powerful brushes of movements I can muster. Thinking I'm close enough, my head rams the surface rewarding me with cold brisk air. My lungs harvest as much oxygen as they can carry at this point but water slipping through the wrong pipe hampers my efforts. My weary limbs continue to flail around desperately to keep me afloat, while my sight is temporarily blind, and my throat is struggling to take in air while choking on rogue water.
Not to mention a cold gush of wind brushing against my face! All while I'm trying not to sink back down to the cold dark depths!
After a few nasty coughs, my throat purifies itself allowing me to draw in air a little easier. And my eyes are quick to clear way the water clouding my vision.
This keeps my chin above water much easier.
Okay... just need to find land! Where is land! I don't see it! Why is there no land! Where! Why!
Despite my best efforts not to succumb to panicking, the more I look around, the more those small creeping thoughts grow a little louder, that I might as well be stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
I've remember reading stories and watching movies about people being trapped in these nightmare scenarios when I was younger. Seeing those guys going mad of heat stroke, starvation, or even thirst certainly left an uncomfortable feeling in kid me.
And here I am in the same predicament, likely to share the same fate!
"No… no… nononononono! Shit! Shit! Okay-okay!" I cock my head in all directions, trying to find anything, anything at all that point me towards anywhere but here! "Okay, okay- alright… just need to find… I just need to find…"
What can I find?! There's nothing out here! Not even a friggin' raft! Wait, is that… oh gods!
Even if it's for a moment, I feel as if the gods of fortune must be smiling upon me right now. I guess they must have a thing for panicked guys like me, because they must have coerced the wind to blow what I can only describe as a decorative raft with sharp jagged edges and railings that made my skin crawl over how razor thin, they are.
And it looks as if it is accompanied by other pieces of similar debris, though most of them are too small, battered, or inhospitable for me to rest.
"Okay... okay! That's a start! Yeah! Get aboard! Find land! It's somewhere! Somewhere!" I let out a shaky laugh and freestyle towards the raft pushing my fumes to the limit.
By the time my hands grip the ragged edges of the wood, I might have cut my hand as well as a splinter or two, but my big concern is this piece of debris rocking and rolling, denying me safe access aboard.
"Just let me on for fuAAGH!"
With a firm hold over one of the edges and a violent dive down away from me, I was able to slide aboard the uncooperative junk, threatening to throw me overboard again. A bitter but shaky laugh escapes my throat knowing that my grip still had some fight left in it.
Thankfully, the tossing and turning of my iron and wooden 'savior' settles itself and allows myself to stay.
I can't help but growl in frustration, thinking it wasn't exactly all too thrilled to have me around.
"Can you stop being so fucking difficult?!" I carefully, but bitterly shift myself to sit sideways. I know it's not exactly good anatomically speaking, especially if I'm planning on prolonging my awkward position, but I rather not push my luck right now.
Especially I don't want to suffer bruising or blunt from the sharp edges. Edges of what must have been some sort of ship. In the middle of the ocean! An ocean I don't even know how or why I even got here!
Well, either way, it doesn't explain how the heck I even showed up here! Even though its hazy, I can still recall my name, address, family, my work, so that's a start. Maybe if I can just recall basic facts about myself, I'll be able to figure out why I'm even here.
Unless this is all a dream.
That theory has been quickly cast aside after a pinch and slap to the cheek.
"Wha- what happened? Where-where am I?"
If those are my only reasons why I'm in this mess, I don't know which one is better. All I know is that I'm here, stranded in the middle of the ocean.
And my chest squeezes me more with each passing second as my mind goes wild over the worst-case scenarios that await me.
"Where is- I-I'm freezing! Oh no, please... where am I?"