I stopped myself from overthinking and took a sharp dive back into the water. Since it was already dark, It was hard for me to see anything. I came up and gasped again. 

"Nathan!" I called out his name but no reply. I kept calling his name four or five times but the reply was only my heavy and unsteady breaths. I cursed myself for ever bringing Nathan to the sea, for ever having a birthday , or for ever being born.. 

But finally to end my misery, I heard a bubbling cry calling my name. I did not need a second thought to understand that it was Nathan. I started swimming towards the sound, ignoring the waves and the storm which was doing it's best to hold me back..

Finally Nathan's struggling body came into my view among the waves. I dived and swam as fast as I could to get a hold of Nathan's abdomen. I held him tightly. Nathan was already unconscious. I was struggling to keep us both floating. I started swimming towards the shore but it seemed to get far away in the dim lights offered by a few lightning strikes.

Suddenly, a huge wave engulfed us again and I lost the hold of Nathan's body. Now I was underwater, surrounded by nothing more than pure darkness and raw force of the water. I dived below trying to get hold of Nathan's body.

In another lightning, I saw a figure sinking in the depths of the sea bottom. I dived deeper and deeper. 

I touched a hand in the darkness. I held it tighter than the last time and started drifting upwards. But I had gone too deep and I did not have any more air in my lungs. My vision was getting blurry but I could not let my friend die and neither was I going to give up and die here. There were moments in my life when I would ask myself. What is the point of living this life. Isn't it easier to just end this all and sleep peaceful, for eternity? But the though the question always had been in my mind, answer never came to me. Now, that I was literally on the door of death, the answer came to me. 

"No! You can't. You don't have the right to end yourself. You have to live.... For me." A voice screamed from inside me.

Suddenly a impulse of blinding light hit me and then I felt something pulling me up. 

I kept swimming even when my bones and my muscles were protesting to stop, I did not. Finally we both came up. Everything around me was silent. I looked up and filled my lungs with air. There were no clouds in the sky, only the bright moon and the stars. Even the air suddenly felt different. But I did not have time to think. Nathan wasn't breathing and we needed to get to the shore and get some help.

When I walked to the shore, I could not feel any sand below... It was grass. I kept Nathan down and looked back at the sea in the moonlight. And my jaw dropped in confusion.

The sea wasn't there any more, in its place there was a lake. Is this a dream? Or am I dead?

I looked back at Nathan. His body had turned pale and there was no pulse. I gave him the basic CPR that our P. E. teacher had once taught us. But he was still not breathing. From the bushes forwards I heard footsteps. I became alert. Soon a very tall man emerged from the bushes, holding a lantern in his left hand which was shining with a blue light. I ran up to the man, hurriedly.

"Si-r-r, my friend is not breathing, can you please call an ambulance?? " I said, still recovering from my fatigue. The man stood silent for a second and then brought the lantern up to his face.

I could not believe my senses, the man was not even a man. He was just a boy, maybe an year older than me but he had pointy ears which were standing out of his smooth wavy raven-coloured hairs. Was he even a human? I don't know why but I felt a ting in my heart when I witnessed his dark grey eyes and handsomely-chiselled face.

"A-r-re you really...a human? " He asked in a deep voice though it was something I should have asked him.