Ari Ven was sinking.

She didn't remember falling in. There was no splash, no gasp for air. Just the slow realization that her body no longer obeyed her, that everything she was had drifted beneath the surface, far from the sun, far from breath.

The water was cold. Not painful, just... hollow. Like a numbness that seeped through the skin and into the bones.

Her eyes were open, staring into an endless stretch of greenish-blue. Her arms floated at her sides, heavy with exhaustion. Her lungs should have burned by now, but they didn't.

It was as if she had always been here.

There was a faint light above her. Faint, like hope that's been tried too many times.

It flickered through the ripples and shadows, just strong enough to remind her that something warmer existed; somewhere she couldn't reach.

She didn't fight it.

She just floated.

Until the voices came.

Muffled, at first, like distant echoes through walls. Then sharper. Closer. Familiar.

"You're wasting your life."

"Writing? That doesn't feed anyone."

"You're still here? Still not helping?"

Her muscles twitched. Not from movement, from shame.

"I paid your all school fees, your food, and put a roof on your head. What did I get in return?"

"You could’ve finished college if you weren’t so lazy. Don’t blame anyone but yourself. 

"Too sensitive, as always. You make everything harder than it needs to be…"

"You're the one who failed yourself."

"Grow up! You’re not a child anymore."

"You’ve spent years writing, and it still earns nothing. Not one cent to help this family. If mother gets sick again, who exactly am I supposed to depend on? Because it clearly won’t be you. Start being useful!"

The voices came from above and below and inside her head. Her mother's voice. Her sisters'. Her brother's. Her own.

She felt it then, the slow flood of water entering her lungs. It wasn't violent. It was worse than that.

It was quiet.

She couldn't scream. Couldn't cry. The cold wrapped tighter around her chest, pulling her downward. The light dimmed. The pressure grew. Her vision blurred. Her throat ached with the effort not to breathe.

Still, the voices clawed at her mind:

"Be useful."

"You're nothing without money."

"You're the problem."

Something broke. And Ari let go.

Of trying.

Of pretending.

Of surviving.

She sank deeper into the dark.

Until all sound vanished. Until even the weight of her body disappeared.

She thought maybe this was what dying felt like, not fire, not fear, but silence so wide it swallowed who you used to be.

But then, a hand. She didn't see it coming. She felt it.

Fingertips against her cheek. Warm.

Gentle.

Real.

The voices stopped.

Ari gasped. Air. Real, living, oxygen filled her lungs like a sudden thunderclap in a still sky. Her eyes snapped open. And she was no longer in water.

She was lying on soft, damp earth, in the middle of a field she had never seen, but somehow remembered. The grass was tall, golden at the tips. Wildflowers bloomed in reckless color, deep red, soft blue, innocent white.

Above her stretched the heavy boughs of a fig tree, green and fruit-laden, its shade cradling her like a mother's lap.

She was alone. And but for once, she didn't feel lonely.

A breeze moved through the field, warm and clean. It brushed her skin like a wordless promise, that she wasn't forgotten. That peace, though quiet, still chose to come near her.

She sat up slowly.

Everything ached. Not her body, her heart. It still remembered everything. The failed semesters. The unfinished novels she spend years of writing. Her mother's hospital bills. The fast food apron from her part time job she couldn't wear anymore. Those cruel voices that followed her into her dreams.

But here... none of them could reach her.

She stood. Barefoot. Breath steady. For the first time in years, she felt light. Not healed, but not breaking anymore. And then she saw him. Just at the edge of the field. A man in white. Unmoving.

Not glowing, just present.

His face was hidden by distance, but his stillness was familiar, like something she'd known before memory began.

He raised one arm.

Palm open. Voice soft, but unshakable.

"Come, little lamb," he said.

"Let's get you back home."

Ari's breath caught.

Tears gathered but did not fall. She couldn’t understand, couldn’t think straight; all she knew was that the voice wrapped around her, steady and warm, a voice that made her feel whole, a voice that felt like home. 

And then, with a trembling smile, the first real one in years, she ran.

Toward the voice.

Toward the hand that pulled her from the depths.

Toward the home that never asked her to be anything but His.