Her life ends and begins in darkness. Cloaked in the cold, suffocating in the silence. She sees nothing. Hears nothing. Water pricks at her skin, like a thousand icy needles, begging for her to just scream.
'Scream,' she thinks. 'Just scream.'
It's a strange sensation. To feel the life literally drain from you. It starts at your fingers and toes. A cold sweep that gently numbs your muscles, rising slowly up your limbs. The fighting, the thrashing, it never seems to stop, even when she can't feel it anymore. This is the easy part.
The closer the ice draws itself, crawling, groping its way across her skin, through her veins like a sickeningly sweet caress, the closer it grows to her heart, the harder it becomes.
'Scream.'
Lungs crave, cry. Her mouth grows dry. Yet all she can do is bite down.
'Scream.'
At some point, she hears silence dissipate. She hears a pounding. She thinks someone's found her; that they're trying to get her attention. But there's no one there. Only a salty darkness, clawing at her eyes as they strain to see through.
'Scream. They'll hear you. All you have to do is scream.'
It's her heart. The thundering drums. The deafening timpani. It drives her mad. She wants to block it out. She wants to stop it. She can't.
'Scream.'
Louder and louder. Faster and faster. Like a timer, increasing with speed as it ticks down the last moments of this life.
She always supposed time would slow down before you die. That she would see flashbacks of her life. Of her parents, of her friends. Every time she laughed. Every time she cried. Every mistake she made. Every lie she told. Every time she'd sing. Every cherished moment on the wards. Ironically, she remembers a time she used to swim.
She wants to laugh.
She wants to cry.
She wants to scream.
'What have you got left to lose? Scream.'
They say when you're drowning all the pain, the suffering, the agony disappears in the last moment. That a single bubble of oxygen, find it's way to your brain. It fills you with a sense of euphoria… then you pass in peace.
She stills her movements, though she stopped feeling them long ago. Her icy lids slowly slip close. She allows herself to entertain one last thought.
It's not a memory.
It's not a word.
Scream.