Walk. Drown. One step, then another. The water waist-high, dragging
against my thighs, a numbing cold. A breaker rising, trembling at its
crest, smashing down to drive me off my feet, tumbling me helplessly in
the churning violence.
"Up! On your feet! Walk!"
Eyelids heavy and wet, the salt taste on my tongue. The cold, bone
deep. Staggering, half falling, dragging myself forward against the
pull of the water. Another breaker, and I fell face forward into it.
My whole body was numb and wet and shivering, and the chill penetrated
my brain where the voice pounded at me with its relentless power,
shattering my will, dominating me as if I were a simple-minded child,
driving me onward step by step. Another wave broke over me, lifting me
off my feet and slamming me back, the water filling eyes and nose and
mouth as I went under. I swallowed water and came up choking with a
heavy pain in my chest.
"Drown! Drown!"
The voice spoke pitilessly and I staggered forward once more. And at
last I was beyond the line of the breakers, out where the water rose
with a slow heaviness, building high behind me. And there was a new
strength in the deep pull of the water flowing out to sea. Another
step, another, still one more. And I tried to ask why, but my brain
would not function. The water rose above my head and I went down, down,
sinking into the cold black waters.
The voice was triumphant, exulting, reaching through the tumultuous sea
to the numbness of my brain. "Now drown! Give yourself to the water!
Die!"
In the last moment panic came--the body retching, trying to disgorge
the deadly water, the mind recoiling from the black abyss that
beckoned, now so near, so tempting. And I tried to push up from the
bottom of the sea, but the water was a thick, impenetrable wall
toppling down upon me. I could see a layer of light near the surface
and I strained frantically to reach it, to grope beyond it toward the
life-giving air. The alien mind which had driven me under was now--
The mind was silent.
* * * * *
I woke shivering in my bed. The sheets were damp with sweat. I lay
rigid, unable to move. The panic drained out slowly. I thought of
nothing, staring dully at the sleek surface of the plastic ceiling
overhead. When at last the terror had ebbed away, I felt empty and cold
and spent, as if all strength and sinew had rushed out through the
opening where the fear had gone.
A dream, I told myself. Only a dream. But the feeble reassurance
carried no conviction. The barrier against thought which I had erected
gave way, and the chill knowledge of what was happening to me spilled
through the breach to strike with sickening impact.