This was it. She was either going to overcome her fear or continue to be a slave to The Unknown. Her thoughts were uncontrollable, part of her wanted her to jump and the other part wanted her to back down and not do anything. She stood at the edge of the boat looking down into the dark blue water, unable to see what may live underneath. To her, this was a matter of life or death.

Ever since she was a young girl, her biggest fear was the unknown, more specifically, the dark. She never knew how she became afraid of the dark, all she knew was that she couldn’t escape it. However, as she grew older she learned ways to avoid it. “The dark hours,” which was when the sun began to drop beneath the horizon and the stars slowly started to light up the sky, was the worst time for her when she would try to sleep. She was not strong enough to ignore the thoughts her fear caused. Luckily, her night light gave off enough of the faintest light that made her feel safe enough to fall asleep. But when she fell asleep she was unable to escape the nightmares that would haunt her. She found herself to have the same nightmare of her being alone and stranded in the middle of an ocean during “the dark hours.” Where she would drift further and further, with survival being the only thing on her mind. The fact that she was in the ocean, only made it worse with the random splashes that would happen feet away from her and the occasional creature that would slightly rub against her skin. Her panic from everything that was going on around her, only fed her fear of the unknown. Since she didn’t know how to escape her nightmare, she had no other choice than to float on top of the water the best she could and wait for “the dark hours” to end.

So, here she was taking a trio to the lake with her family to relax on the boat. They were all having a great time, soaking up the sun and tubing. The fun times came to an end sooner than they expected due to the boat shutting down. Unfortunately, they went during the week when it wasn’t busy and there was barely anyone else around to help them. At first, they all sat around trying to think of a plan to get them back to the shore, which was about a mile or two away. Without much lick of the boat starting, her brother got the idea to pull the beat back but by swimming with a rope that we can connect to the boat. Everyone thought that was a great idea. Well, everyone except her. Her heart immediately started to pick up its pace and her breathe started to become short. She tries to avoid her mom’s eye contact, thinking that it will make her invisible, hoping that it does at least. But it doesn’t, her mom tells her that she needs to jump in the water and help her brother pull the boat. She can’t bring herself to move a muscle, not even to blink. It was as if she frozen in time. A couple minutes passed by that brought her back to reality where she then realized that she had no other choice, otherwise they would be stuck for who knows how long.

As she started making her way to the edge of the boat her heart continued to beat faster, tiny balls of sweat started to form around her brow, the hairs on her neck began to stand up. There she stood at the edge of the boat looking down into the dark, blue water, unable to see what may live underneath. Back and forth, her min had a battle of whether she should jump or turn around and do nothing. This was her chance to break away from her fear of the unknown. It was now or never. If she didn’t jump into the water, she knew that she would probably wouldn’t have the chance to escape her prison again. This was it. She took a glance around her, taking a good look at the beaming sun rays, the faint ripple in the water, her family. Her eyes closed and she began taking deeper breaths to slow her heart beat down, she started counting down from three, dragging out the numbers as long as she could. One she got to one, she took one last deep breath and in the most whispered hush, she said “I will be free,” and just like that she jumped into the water.