Sort of a preview/prologue.

First chapter story.

I'm sure you haven't experienced the sensation of nearly drowning, but if you have, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

First, you'll be holding your breath, bearing the pain in your lungs until you can break the surface of the water.

As you struggle, dragging your arms, which seem to weigh a thousand pounds each, up through the thick barrier between you and the rest of the world, your muscles begin to ache and scream for oxygen.

You realize that you're sinking rather than swimming, and start to panic.

That horrible feeling that you might actually die right now, envelopes you, closing around you as an invisible field of pain and fear. You don't know what will happen next, but not knowing makes your mind race as you think of the most horrible ways that you could die here and now.

Soon, out of desperation, you open your mouth and suck in, inhaling the bitter, cold water, burning your throat and nostrils, and triggering you impulse to cough. You start to swallow and breath in more and more water, the panic pressing your organs into tighter and tighter balls, the world around you darkening beyond pitch black.

You continue to attempt at swimming up, you even try to scream, but you only sink lower, your limbs numb, water rushing into your lungs once more.

Eventually, you don't get enough oxygen to your brain and the pain dulls away. You're not scared anymore. You are in fact, happy.

Everything around you seems like a dream. You see images float behind your eyelids lazily as you sink into a warm and soft daze.

You can't even remember the pain or how you got to this place, but you couldn't care less either. You were safe and secure. Nothing bad would ever happen.

At this point, one of two things could happen.

You could slowly sink to the ocean floor, oblivious of your death, only feeling safe and warm. A sweet relief from all of the pain.

Or, you could be ripped out of the water, confusion and panic biting into your flesh. You may cough up water for as long as thirty minutes, but you'd be alive. You could go home and dry off, eat, take a hot shower, then go to bed to continue your normal life the next morning. However, you would be haunted by the memory of that panic and the wonderful feeling that you'd never felt nor ever would feel again.

You may decide that you'd rather have lived with those memories, because at least you'd be alive, and the memories would fade at some point anyway, or you may decide that you'd want to stay in that beautiful dream and just float off into a peaceful death, where you would completely relax and remain happy and content.

Whichever you have chosen, I'm taking into consideration. Because being in that position, I can't decide whether to give in to happiness, or to bear the memory of that panic and the ease that I gave up, as a small price to pay for the gift of being alive.

The question is this;

Do I let myself live, and make a single hard decision to make the pain go away, and continue living?

Or do escape the pain all together, and let myself feel happy and free, even though I'm dead?

I just want to say that nobody actually dies or nearly drowns in this story.

This is merely a metaphor for how the main character feels throughout the story.

If you don't understand, I suggest that you continue to read anyway, because I don't write this way the whole time.

I may ask questions at the end of chapters and you can decide what you want to read by answering me in reviews.

That being said, here are your first two questions;

What do you think of my intro?

and

Should I continue?