I can hear angry voices somewhere ahead.

"I'm somewhat tired", he said.

The lights of the cottage burned in the mist behind me, the mud closed around my toes and I could feel the water crush in on me. I let my hands sit on the top of the icy water. I should have considered what I was doing, but I did not. I took a few more steps into the current. Letting my feet up off the surface, I felt myself drift with it out deeper into the water.

I kept my eyes firmly shut and did not consider that every breath I took could be my last. I didn't much care. Water lapped over my mouth, as I felt air I instinctively gasped in, dragging in water and air. My lungs burned. Water flooded into me as I was swirled down into the depths. For a wild moment I kicked out. Then I stopped. It was hopeless. Waves beat up against me, rushing away with all my energy. Before I had been uncaring, now I could do nothing even if that feeling had changed. The brief moments of wind made me cough and splutter. I tried to take all my air in one, short, hurried breath but instead all I tasted was the black slickness wet of water.

It was night; everything was black and I could see nothing from under my frozen eyelids. Only a misty grayness hung between the sky-scraping waves. My mouth gasped open for air as I was buried under the water. My heart was pounding in my ears but it did nothing except drown out everything important. I was too tired. Too lost in my own weariness to try to survive. The water cut into me and I could not fight them. Slowly, they pulled me closer to a terrifying, airless death.

The consistency of the waves suddenly broke and I was lunched towards the surface. I breathed in so fast and in such relief I fell back down with a hideous crash and awful, throat wrenching coughs. Cautiously I opened my eyes. The mist was thicker here, and the water seemed nearly flat. Only the softest of lapping waves touched me. I could not see any stars, or coast line. Only a light, too near and bright to be the moon, caught my attention. It burst through the mist in a hazy sick yellow and burned my eyes. I creased my eyelids and peered between my lashes at the light. There was another, I noticed, and in a brief opening of the fog there was a third.

I suddenly did not want to die. I kicked out in a surge of life. The lights didn't disappear, or even seem to move. My heart screamed in my ear and the adrenaline rushed, but acting on it was too far beyond me. I didn't seem to be reaching them. An angry voice cut into my world just as I was about to stop swimming. The halo of white light from the boat reached down to me. With a jolt of paint my hand and forehead plummeted into something smooth and painfully solid. I moved too fast to find what it was and my other hand came against it with a loud thud. I yelped. Then, I realized.

"Hello? Help! Help me!" A noise, a shout, not mine, came muffled towards me. "Help!" I repeated and a spotlight was swung at the water. Cruel and burning it trapped me but I welcomed the brightness with heartfelt relief. A splash, an arm, a hand. Nothing was together in my mind anymore and I let it all tumbled out of my control as I was pulled from the water. Blankets were heaped around me. A warm damp cloth was pressed against my face.

My frozen lips tried to smile or laugh in my shocked relief. I was alive.

Watching humanity move with the measured flow of blood.

On the inside looking out.

Shadows loom indistinct and distorted.