Don't Forget to Breathe

    Being under water provided a sort of buffer to reality, as if the weight and pressure of it surpassed any other problem she could experience in the outside world. Sam opened her eyes and looked to see the light streaming down below the surface. She smiled and a few bubbles escaped her lips and trickled up to the surface. Her bright red hair haloed around her, only helping to strengthen the other world that the water provided.     She looked at the rocks and broken bits of shells around her and ran her hand through silky sand that covered the bottom of the lake and picked one the broken pieces up, discarded by its previous owner. These shells were by no means extravagant, but they were beautiful in a simple way. That’s what Sam loved about them, there was no exciting story, no amazing creature had inhabited this shell, but it had served its purpose all the same. Sam liked simple and easy, content that life would never be more then it already was. She turned her head up to the light and started towards the surface not knowing that life was about to give way to a much more powerful and deadly force.