I went for my daily swim this morning, not expecting anything unusual.  On a whim I decided to swim up into the shallows farther than I ever had before.  The tide was getting ready to go back out, but I didn’t notice because I was hungry and wanted to eat a few little fish for breakfast.

I went too far in, though, as I quickly discovered.  The cool tide receded and left me stranded on the beach.  I lay there for what seemed like hours, the sun beating hotly down on me.  Just as I felt myself slipping away into darkness, something pulled at me.  I could no longer feel the cool sand beneath me.  Warm air surrounded my weakened body and suddenly all feeling slipped away.  I seemed to float for a moment, and then everything went black, darker than the deepest depths of the ocean.

When I awoke, mere moments ago, I was in cold, clear water again.  And now I am swimming in circles because my ocean water is gone, as is the vastness of it.  There are borders here, boundaries that I cannot push past.  They are clear, though; I can see through them.  There are things outside, brown things, with orange and blue parasites.  They are staring at me, watching me, but I ignore them; I am beginning to think they are the ones who brought me here, to this prison.  I would rather have died, hot and dehydrated, in the sand, than live here in my cold, watery prison.