I kept going deeper and deeper.
The bushes thinned out before I realized it, and suddenly I was no longer in the school. Tall trees surrounded me. Their branches blocked the light. I had reached a forest.
I was lost.
I stopped walking, my heart pounding, but the voice didn't stop. It called me again—patient, calm—like it knew I had nowhere else to go.
I didn't know what else to do.
So I followed it.
The forest slowly opened up, and the sound of waves reached my ears. I stepped out onto a sea bank. The water stretched endlessly before me, dark and quiet. For a moment, everything felt strangely peaceful.
Then I saw her.
A woman stood near the shore, crying. Her hair was wet, her clothes heavy with water. She looked at me with desperate eyes and screamed for help.
"Please," she cried. "Help my child. He's drowning."
Without thinking, I rushed into the sea.
The water pulled me down instantly. My body sank, heavy and weak. Panic set in. My chest burned.
That was when I remembered.
I couldn't swim.
The water filled my mouth. My vision blurred. As I struggled, a horrifying thought hit me—
I wasn't saving a child.
I was the child drowning.
The realization crushed me as the darkness closed in.
Immediately, I woke up.