ASHES OF HER MERCY
The heavy silk of my dress, soaked through and weighed down by the sea, pulled me toward the black abyss like lead weights bound to my ankles.
My lungs screamed for air, a sharp, instinctive panic clawing at my throat. I tried to kick, to fight the relentless pull of the current, but my body refused to obey. The surgical incision on my lower back was a distant, numb throb, lost to the biting ice of the Atlantic. The strength I had clung to all night was completely gone.
This is where it ends, I thought, as tiny silver bubbles escaped my lips, floating toward the light I would never reach. Three years of silence, stripped of my blood, and buried in the dark.