Chapter 5
John stared at the bottom of the bridge, wondering why the world was so muted and nothing seemed to hurt. He had been shot, that much he was sure of. There was blood everywhere, Jesus, he was seeing Afghanistan again. Too many lives lost there, too much blood on his hands, again.
His ears were ringing; people were yelling above him, He wondered what they were yelling about. He was just lying there staring up at the bridge and the sky, wondering about trivial things. Then something smacked into the water next to him and snapped him out of his trance.
And that's right about the time when John realized that he was fully submerged under only four feet of water, being held down by some weight mass lying over the top of him. He began to struggle, trying to get out from underneath whatever it was that was holding him down, but he had already let go of all of his breath during his trance.
His mind growing duller, he cursed himself for being so stupid and finally had to take a breath. He got halfway through his breath when all of a sudden; he is being pulled up and out of the water by a man in a long wool coat. His oxygen deprived mind could not make any connections on who this might be.
His lungs were half full of water and his body was inches away from death. He only know that the man saved his life when he decided to carry John by throwing him over his back like a bag of potatoes; all the water that John had sucked in the moment before were now being ungraciously returned to the lake.
Soon after John got a decent amount of oxygen into his lungs, he lost consciousness with the assurance that he would be safe. The last thing he felt before completely passing out was that man setting him down extremely gently and closing his eyes for him.