Chapter 7: The Bizarre Afterlife?
Starlight blinded Nova's vision as cold smothered her entire being. A heavy weight pressed into her chest as she fell deeper and deeper into this nothingness, this piercing starlight. Drums thumped loudly around her.
Had she hit her head?
None of this made sense.
Yet she was conscious enough to remember falling into the lake. Nova's lungs constricted as she held her breath. It was brutally cold.
A cry tore from her throat as an unbearable pressure suddenly fell upon her. It was so intense it felt like her bones were grinding against each other, her eyes on the verge of popping. Light streaked like shooting stars at the edges of her vision, and she knew whatever this was... death was near.
Then, all at once, everything vanished. The starlight, the cold, the pressure, the weighty feeling dragging her down. It was gone.
Nova's lungs burned, screaming to breathe. She blinked wide-eyed; golden rays of light streamed through the water around her; the temperature had changed and—why the hell was she still floating about in deadly water?! Anything could be in here! And those men might throw spears at her!
Nova swam the short distance to the surface, her legs kicking rapidly like a crocodile might snap at them and the panic clawing at her chest from the lack of oxygen. She broke through the water's surface with a gasp and squinted from the sudden heat and bright light. She raised her arm to shade her eyes and frowned, utterly confused by the sudden sunlight.
Heart racing and breath heaving from the rush of air into her lungs, Nova's head whipped to the side, searching for the natives and Chad. They weren't there. They. Weren't. There.
She swam to the rocky edge where she'd fallen from and lifted herself up, careful to put her phone aside first. Goosebumps pimpled on her skin, and she wiped at her arms, feeling a little chilled like something wasn't quite right. She hadn't been under the water long enough for them to completely disappear nor for the sun to be high up in the sky.
"Am I ... dead?" Nova touched her face. Like that was going to give her any proper answers!