”Easy for you to say” Lavena muttered to herself, shaking her head as if that would help wake her, but all it did was splash water into her eyes, and grumbling, she rubbed at them with her free hand, a small sound escaping her. She was so tired… so very tired and cold, although she felt like the water was slowing warming, becoming something almost like a blanket, and she just wanted to fall into its embrace, and not worry anymore. Yet Valen seemed not to want to give her that, and she groaned, opening her eyes.
”Alright, alright, stop nagging, your worse then a mother hen!” she said, starting to move once more, although it was a monumental task, one that she wished she didn’t have to do.
Would it be so bad, to just… float away? Never to be seen from again? But Valen would, it seem, kill himself to get them all out, and the girl came first… with another groan, Lavena continued on, wishing she was anywhere else by there. Or maybe with someone that would just let her sink into the abyss.
”I take it back. I don’t wanna fuck you now. I wanna punch you in the face” she said, as she continued to swim, which was rapidly becoming the hardest thing she had ever done, her body was just so cold, so heavy… could you get waterlogged, weighed down? She had no idea. She continued to struggle, to struggle with swimming, to struggle with keeping her eyes open, to just struggle with the need to keep going. How much further? The water wanted to claim her, and it was doing a damn good job of it. Each stroke was a little weaker, a little slower than the last…. Eventually she wouldn’t even be moving.
And still the bloody bastard Valen wouldn’t let her stop, stopping and encouraging her to continue on, nagging her and basically making it impossible to stop, or be nagged to death.
”I just want to sleep” she whined, after what seemed like forever, and she was beginning to wonder if Valen had lied about it being close, they seemed to have been swimming for days. Suddenly Valen seemed to turn, and Lavena groaned again.
”More swimming?!” with no other choice, Lavena began to follow Valen once more, the even warming water inviting, to the point where she wasn’t sure if she could resist its pull for much longer.
She thought she could hear voices, but maybe she had gone crazy. Maybe she was in a padded room somewhere, and this was all a dream… Or maybe it was just others calling for help. She looked up, her eyes a big bleary before focusing, although that seemed a hard task. Was there movement, near the lighthouse? Had others made it to safety? She thought she heard a bit of a struggle, and when they neared the steps, she thought she could see people climbing up the stairs…
Stairs!
Even as Lavena neared the stairs, she thought she heard someone cry out
”Juliette!” an oddly familiar voice, although she couldn’t imagine where she had ever heard it, and the sound of running footsteps. She threw her case onto the steps, and for a moment, she thought they might just beat her.
”I’m here, stop yelling at me!” She cried back to Valen, the running steps slowing as she slammed against the stairs, scrambling up, her legs and arms screaming in protest, the brutality of… however long it had been crashing down on her.
”you have my sister! Juliette!”Ah, now she knew where she had heard the voice before. The guy yelling for his sister in the water… was the girl okay?
”Valen went mama kangaroo mode, she should be okay” Lavena said wearily, the wind biting against her skin, as she sat half submerged on one of the higher steps that was still in the water, shivering violently, and still wanting to sink into blessed sleep.