So this is death
Fuck. Such a pitiful way to die.
This was Jason Liu’s last thought as he slipped further toward the bottom of the lake.
That morning had been his first day at the company. He had just graduated college and gotten hired at a large well known corporation. Unfortunately he had forgotten to charge his phone the night before and missed all the alarms he had set for himself.
Upon finally waking up and noticing the time, panic set in and adrenaline pumped through his veins. He was dressed and out the door of his shabby one bedroom apartment within ten minutes. Living in the city, he had no need for a car and had opted to take public transportation most of the time, but today, since he was already late, it was faster to run.
Luckily he knew of a shortcut through the park near his apartment complex. Sprinting through the grass he caught sight of a small child waddling near the lake. A woman, likely the child’s mother, was sitting on a bench not too near and not too far. She was having an intense argument with the person on the other end of her phone, not paying close attention to the baby slowly tottering further away from her.
Unconsciously Jason slowed down as he neared the lake. His intuition telling him something was about to go wrong.
As fate would have it, the child bent over at the water’s edge, seemingly interested by something in the water. Stretching out a small, cubby hand, the toddler lost balance and slipped into the lake. The man-made lake was particularly deep. There were few to no shallow parts, even near the land, instead it was a straight eight foot drop from the grass to the water, and the lake only got deeper the further away you went from the edge.
Jason immediately took action and changed his direction, charging toward where the boy had fallen in. The woman didn’t even notice anything was wrong and was still screaming into her phone until Jason jumped in the water with a splash.
The man swam down in the deep water until he found the toddler and grabbed him. He swam back toward the surface with clutching the child with one arm. Breaking the water’s surface he headed back to the shore, making sure the child’s head stayed above the water.
The boy’s mother was no longer on the phone but was instead crying, and calling for her baby near where the boy fell in. When Jason made it to where she was he lifted the child toward the woman and she snathed her coughing child into her arms, tears streaming down her face. Tired, cold, and wet, Jason wanted to lift himself out of the water, but unfortunately he would never reach the land.
A leg cramp had come without warning. He clutched his leg and groaned in agony, sucking in a huge mouthful of the lake water. He had only been a couple feet from land, but he still couldn’t make it. Unable to swim any longer, he could only feel the excruciating pain from his calf and the burn from the water that had entered his lungs.
The woman, noticing her son’s savior had not come up, reached in the water, trying to pull out her son’s benefactor. The woman lamented the fact she had never learned to swim, otherwise she’d jump in directly. How could she possibly let such a heroic man die? Thinking swiftly she grabbed up her abandoned phone and called the emergency number. Who knew that she was still too late and that young man was bound to die that day?
Jason struggled to breathe underwater, cursing the fact that humans weren’t born with gills. By the time his cramp subsided and he could swim again, it was too late. Too much water had entered his lungs and his vision was slowly blurring from the lack of oxygen. He looked up toward the surface and tried to swim up, but his arms and legs felt like lead.
Unable to breathe, unable to move, his consciousness faded and he fell deeper and deeper until his back hit the soft bottom of the lake.
So this is death. Fuck. Such a pitiful way to die. He thought, and then nothing.
