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Dear MMXXIII, it was unfair, and you did nothing wrong. I still love you
;
I find myself underwater; it fills my lungs. Panic fills my body, I scramble to find up, when I do, I don't feel any relief. I force myself up, but a strange pressure holds me down. More panic. Though it's hard to see under the water, I make out a man dressed in a semi-formal suit, wavy pepper hair passing his jaw line. He stood atop the water as if it were ground. Staring down at me with the kind of annoyance I wish I didn't know. Part of me still panicked, yet another part of me knew I would drown. Unsure of how I got here, where here even was. I let my burning eyes shut for what seemed like the last time until the man grabbed my arm and yanked my heaving, wet, and cold body above the water. I coughed up water, struggling to inhale as I started managing breathing again, I tried to process my surroundings. Getting a better look at the middle-aged man in front of me, he seemed so familiar, like a neighbour you see often but have never spoken to. The surface of the water that had almost been my new cause of death felt solid under me like a marble floor. Individual roses bloomed from the water, and the walls seemed to be those of a maze, made of marble. The sky above wasn't one I had seen before, a night sky sparse of stars; it felt as though they had died, burnt out. The man kneeled before me.
“It was never up to you; you were a kid. It will be okay,” he said, pity in his voice, his hand moved the wet hair from my face.
“Thank you,” my raw voice spoke without my consent