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No. The water was not nice. The water was so cold Kris couldn’t feel their feet after only a few seconds of being submerged, and that was only the beginning. Noelle’s voice was too loud in their head, reverberating over and over and over again ad nauseam—nausea. That feeling of wanting to throw up, bile rising but never leaving their mouth. They swallowed the feeling down and just like that everything below their neck was below water.
*Proceed
What happened when their head went under? Time ticked down until they had to breathe in, but forces unknown and Noelle’s hold on them didn’t allow escape.
*Proceed
Seconds now. Where had it gone wrong? When they got up that morning, yes, but further back than even that.
*Proceed
The water only got murkier the further down, blotting out their vision with particles of dirt kicked up as the two walked down and down. Darker still, until Noelle’s face was all they could see.
*Proceed
Where had it gone wrong…
*Proceed
Susie. Berdly. The ring.
*Proceed
Further back.
*Proceed
Further.
*Proceed
Cold. Enveloped in a blanket of ice. Skin freezing off.
*P r o c e e d
…Where had it gone wrong?
The
second
the
two
of
them
met.
…
Minutes passed. Not a sound. Noelle’s voice gone into the void. Just like that morning, they stayed perfectly still. The cold had ceased, so had all feeling in their body, and a part of them wished they would simply open their eyes back in bed. A horrible nightmare filled with horribly vivid visuals, voices and sensations. Soon they would awaken back in their body.
But it never came.
Death, then.
Whatever Noelle wanted, whatever it wanted, everything was for nothing. Perhaps that was for the best. They may even be able to get used to nothing. But then that brought up another question: why were they still thinking? Their feet, were they still moving? Were their hands still held?
That… was a nice thought.
Their incorporeal form curled in on itself beneath the lake, all sense of time lost. They felt nothing. They felt nothing. They should have felt nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing, until something. Another something… another someone. Their eyes never opened, the effort too much. That, or the smallest movement would have scared that other someone away.
All they knew was hands in theirs as that someone curled up beside them. The beating of a heart that by all means was only in their head to fill in the endless lake of nothing. Hair that swayed in the water around them it was so long. And…
Hands in theirs.
That was truly… a lovely feeling.