There was no way to tell whether the water running down Meriwa’s face was from the panicked, hysterical tears or whether it was from the bath itself. From the fact that she’d been a moment away from drowning again. The breath sawing in and out of her lungs burned, sweet and terrible.
It didn’t matter that it wasn’t deep and that she’d been able to touch the bottom, straighten her arms and breach the surface enough to breathe. The terror had been there, the memory.
And the darkness.
It had seemed to go on forever.
Making it easy to forget that she wasn’t in the cold, deep ocean. Alone and falling deeper and deeper.
Either way, the water dripped off of her chin and nose. It ran down her body in rivulets, catching in the hollows of her human form. In her throat and her belly button.
