It was wet, and it was so very hard to breathe.
Little Delia's eyes opened slowly in a space of murky, green water. The sun was a blurry, distant light far above her. She kicked her little legs, trying to get to that light, but her dress, a pretty cotton frock that was so light on land, was now a heavy, water-logged weight, pulling her down, down, down into the cold, silent depths of the lake.
He is drowning. He is going to die. She thought to herself, a simple, terrifying fact.
She had seen him fall from the small wooden dock. A little boy with dark hair, just a few years older than her. He had been struggling, but now she saw his small body going limp, sinking slowly down into the dark water below.
