She felt like she’d been wordlessly fading for an eternity. She brushed against people with such a sensitivity to their touch. They made her skin prickle, sent a cold wave down her spine. Their warmth was foreign and she felt them sharply inhale from the chill her fingers held. Your hands are so cold! Winters must be awful for you. If only they knew. Her mind swirled, a dark soupiness that drowned her over and over again. Her thoughts grasped her throat, their nails indented into her skin and left bruises behind. They sneered at her and thrust her head underwater, holding back her arms as she flailed for the surface. She scraped furiously at the churning mess around her, and they only shoved her down further. The water was colder the deeper they pushed her down. They dug those same nails into her eyes, pressing in until they punctured through the skin and drove them into her brain. She screamed, and the water burned her lungs. Her air turned to water; her pain turned to euphoria. She let it in. They released her, they swam towards the surface, they gasped for air, and they laughed in shock at their accomplishment. They kicked to shore, one of their feet crashed into her head and snapped her neck back. She didn’t feel it.

She washed up downriver days later.