Brief
Amm, a college student with a love for travel and new experiences, had always been drawn to places that felt alive with movement—crowded streets, windy hills, and rushing water. On this trip, the group found themselves near a wide river, its surface restless and loud, the current moving faster than it first appeared.
She wandered a little too close to the edge, curious, watching the water twist and surge past the rocks. The air felt damp, and the ground beneath her shoes was uneven and slick. Amm paused there, unaware of how dangerous it really was—not just the river, but her own quiet secret: she didn’t know how to swim.
For a moment, everything seemed calm enough. The sound of the current, the pull of the view, the sense of being just close enough to feel it without consequence.
Then her foot shifted.
Amm laughed mid-sentence, her breath faintly visible in the cold air as she turned toward her friend. “No, I’m serious—if we’d come earlier, everything would’ve been covered in mist or something. It would’ve looked way better.”
Her voice carried lightly, but her attention drifted again, pulled back toward the river.
It cut through the winter landscape like something alive—dark, fast, and restless. The water moved with a sharp, biting energy, its surface broken by small, violent ripples. Even from where she stood, she could hear it clearly, louder than their conversation, louder than the quiet stillness of everything else.
Amm stepped a little closer, boots pressing into the damp, half-frozen ground near the edge. She hugged her arms briefly against the cold, then let them fall again, distracted.
“I mean, it’s probably freezing, but it doesn’t even look that bad—”
Her foot slipped.
There was no warning—just the sudden loss of balance, the ground giving way beneath her. For a fraction of a second, she froze in confusion, her body tilting as her mind struggled to catch up.
Then she was falling.
The river hit her like a shock.
The cold wasn’t just cold—it was violent. It tore through her the instant she made contact, stealing her breath, locking her chest tight before she could even gasp. The current grabbed her just as quickly, dragging at her limbs, pulling her sideways.
Amm’s arms thrashed instinctively, but there was no rhythm to it—no control. She tried to push herself up, but her body didn’t respond the way she needed it to.
She didn’t know how to swim.
Panic surged, sharper than the cold. She kicked unevenly, her movements desperate and uncoordinated, but the river was faster—stronger. Her head broke the surface for a split second, just enough for a ragged, incomplete breath before the freezing water surged around her again.
It filled her ears, numbed her hands, made every movement heavier, slower.
The cold crept in fast, turning panic into something worse—something duller, harder to fight through.
For a moment, just before everything fully set in, one clear thought cut through the chaos:
This was nothing like she thought it would be.
