The dark clouds gather and swirl in an angry sky. Beneath it all, the sea is roiling. Deep blue water turns black and malevolent, rocking and pitching as though disturbed from someplace far beneath the surface. The daylight has not gone, but the sky turns so dark it is impossible to judge the time. On a lone outcropping, waves smash against rocks with a fury unparalleled by anything on Earth. The water and the wind conspire in destructive rage that borders on delirium, as the natural forces called up by this madness threaten to overwhelm any and all within reach.

Including me.

Drowning, I reach for the place of peace, stretch my fingers toward it, and grasp desperately for the shore. I fight, I struggle, I release all the energy that holds me captive and dump myself unceremoniously on its mercy. Long surges capture me in their grasp and drag me back, back, back into the depths of this storm, but I will not be taken. Not this time.

The wind dies, the current lessens, the waves recede. I lay gasping like a landed fish and stare into the lightening sky, and I breathe.