Deep Darkness

"Maya!!!"

Diana. Finally.

I sighed, but that wasn't it—it was like releasing the last fragile thread of life I had been holding onto, clinging to hope against hope.

The sound of my sister's voice had been a balm and a wound at the same time. Relief had broken through me for a fleeting heartbeat, but the very act of relaxing, of allowing myself to believe I was saved, had snapped something inside me.

I felt myself plunge into deep darkness.

The fall was instant, merciless. Darkness surged up like a sea, an endless black tide swallowing me whole. It was not emptiness but substance, thick and suffocating, a liquid void that dragged me deeper and deeper into its belly.

My body became weightless, then unbearably heavy, like stones chained to my limbs. I sank endlessly, my arms flailing weakly through the black current, each movement slower than the last, as if time itself had conspired against me.

The water—if it could be called that—was icy, biting into my skin like shards of glass. Yet