Chapter 31

I'm struggling through darkness.

Far from all light, and love, and life.

Death has swallowed me whole.

Gasping for breath, I struggle against the black embrace of the ocean, bindings of frozen ebony velvet that hold and smother me, pulling me down, down, down.

Far below, the bus falls through the shadows; far above, a maelstrom of shattered glass dances through the water.

My body is tired.

Thrashing wildly against the tide, I gasp for breath, and take in a lungful of burning saltwater.

As I choke, their faces emerge out of the gloom.

One by one, like drowned silvery moons, the pallor of the drowned.

A girl with a shard of glass embedded into her eye socket; a boy with half his face missing. Ms. Blyth with a gaping hole in her throat. Mia with her head haloed in crimson blood; Evan watching me with a sad smile. They reach out to me, clammy fingers grasping my hair, my hands, my legs.

The hands clamp down, and we descend.

I don't resist.