ALISON

She breathed again. Reborn. Like a Phoenix.

Her legs were as smooth and tanned as a Brazilian Goddess's. Under them, her Nike laced toes dashed across the cliff trails with lightness like skates over clouds.

Her heart thumped like drip-drops in a wet cave, and her breaths whistled tunes through the sea salt air that brushed up from the Mediterranean Sea below.

What a sight to see. How lucky she was to experience such a beautiful view-- so violent was the visual of her surroundings, so carnivorous were the crashing waves about the crisp cream-colored sands, that they foamed at their mouths-- and so vibrant was the sun, that the far-off islands illuminated as electric patches of green which melted the peripheral areas of naturally navy blue into mystical optical illusions of rainbow streaks that dazzled the eye with metallic spectrums of emerald, indigo, and turquoise whirlpools which swallowed the oceanic sparkles like twisting saran wrap.

CAW! CAW!

Sea gulls dashed overhead . . . A warning.

She lifted her idyllic face to the skies, where it reflected in giant projections across the starry day sky. What was going on?

Still jogging along the cliff's thin edge, where color-changing orchids lined the trail, she watched a hundred seagulls fly up from below the cliffs, before they plagued the air with more deafening caws.

Her spine tingled, and a shiver stuck her back that triggered her to bolt quicker across the trail. But wait . . . where was she going anyway?

When did she begin this jog?

CAW! CAW!

A seagull talon pelted the back of her head. She fell. Sand choked her in one swallow, and to her surprise she slid like a wheel off the trail, over the orchids . . . off the cliff--

Tumbling, tumbling-- she screamed and crashed against jagged rocks which shredded her sports bra and fluorescent shorts, until her vision faded and the sound of crashing ocean waves boomed her ear drums, and she swallowed ocean water and submerged under Poseidon's land.

* * *

The piercing cry of a child woke her finally. Her eyes peeled to the sight of night, and she found herself on a rickety raft on a stormy ocean-- devilish dark clouds circumventing the skies in all directions-- where lightning the color red bit like fangs into towering waves.

"ALISON--HELP. ALISON--HELP ME-- I'M DROWN--"

She spun and saw a dark silhouette rising and falling with the titanic waves in the distance. His voice was that of a toddler-- a familiar scream she'd heard before-- that which shocked her heart, and crushed her lungs--

She had to save him.

"HOLD ON, ERIC." She leapt off the raft arms first and plunged into the deep. Her vision, aided by lightning above the surface, acquired the toddler, his legs treading short of a hundred yards. She swam and swam. But the ocean swayed like jello. It pulled her back. It was no use. The boy could tread no longer. He lowered beneath the surface. He spasmed. He silenced. Then drowned into the deep, soon vanishing into the dark where the lights did not reach.

Alison had watched, and her tears mixed with the sea. She cried beneath the surface, caring not whether to rise up and breath again herself.

But an arm clutched her chest, and she shot to the surface where she gasped for cold air. Her eardrums were broken from the weight of the sea. All she knew was that a strong silhouette was pulling her up onto a large boat. As the single rescuer hoisted her up, she collapsed out of his grasps and hit the floor. Only until a day had passed would she wake up.

She would wake up, and see her rescuer.

She would wake up. Wake up . . . Wake up . . .

Wake up . . .
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*Author's Note:
Thank you, yes, YOU, my dear reader, for reading this chapter. Please be sure to Like this and every chapter, Add this book and all my books to your Reading List, and Follow me for more stories. I will be posting everyday for the rest of my life. My beloved reader, you make it possible for me to keep writing, and i'm glad we can connect this way. I feel a very strong bond with every one of my readers. Reach out to me anytime!