Longing. Whenever she looked out at the water or had a split second thought of its unattainable beauty, the longing hit her and left her raw, naked, vulnerable. Because she couldn’t have it even if she wanted to. La douleur exquise: the exquisite pain. It would devour her in its restless apathy. The water did not care if she drowned in it. The water would not shift its tides for her or stop its constant churning if she sunk down under into its murky, ethereal depths. The water could devour her whole if it wanted to and leave her suffocating and grasping, gasping for a sliver of breath, a small sighting of light. Because the water wasn’t human like she was; the water did not worry about morality or kindness or other dull, humane things such as those. The water was there to exist and be the holding place for the vicious cycle of kill or be killed that went on beneath its depths. Its cold beauty left her breathless and brought her to her knees. Oh, how she wished she could be part of the water’s aristocracy. But fear held her viciously in its claws, its sharpness pricking into her skin and causing her to bleed out the more she struggled toward that which she couldn’t have. She tried to rid herself of the deep paranoia that clouded her brain when she thought of all the things the water could do to her. She gathered her wits about her and went to the crowded, busy and quite public pool and immersed herself in its shallow end. She crept ever so slowly towards the deep end, clutching onto the lane line as if her life depended on it - because it did, she did not know how to swim - the thought that she could drown screaming at her and telling her to turn back, go back to where it was safer. And she had slipped. Her grip on the lane line loosened and suddenly she was dragged into the water’s depths. Weightless. For a moment she felt weightless, stripped down to her core, just...existing. But then her chest began to constrict from the lack of breath, she opened her mouth to breathe and the surrounding water forced its way in, a commanding and uncaring entry of which she was no part of. She knew she was going to die and the harsh reality of such a truth had her sobbing, tensing, sinking deeper and deeper and deeper. With the last of her strength she curled into herself, made herself small. At least now she no longer felt the agony of longing. She was part of the water, it made up her entire being and cradled her in its loving, almost motherly touch. And she closed her eyes to sleep, welcoming the water with a light heart and a feather-light body.