I saw her in the corner of my eye, she moved as I moved, where I moved, when I moved. Everyone else was minding their own business; reading an old magazine or making small talk. Everyone that is, but her. Her eyes followed me and burned holes into my skin. My mind starting racing and I could feel my palms were getting sweaty. What does she want? Who is she anyway? So naturally I tried to distance myself from her. At first, I walked away to the other side of the room. The walk their itself was torture, it’s like everyone was staring at me, like they knew something I didn’t. Oh god, what’s going on? Who the hell is that lady?!

Everybody was staring at me, and I started to run. I couldn’t handle it my heart was beating a million miles a minute and I couldn’t keep a single thought straight. I started shaking uncontrollably and got extremely hot and unbearably cold over and over repeatedly. She’s following me. I started to run, at first slowly, then a full on sprint. I was knocking over tables and chairs and anything in the way. I gotta get away from her! She was right behind me! I turned the corner and tried to run around the pool deck to escape her, with no use; she was fast. I started to scream my lungs out; at this point I was sobbing so hard I’m sure my words were incomprehensible to the human ear.

“Get away from me! Please stop, get away!”

Running was getting me nowhere, she kept up right behind me and tried grabbing me. I had no idea who she was, all I could see as the blue and light green blur of her clothes.

“Don’t kill me please, I didn’t do anything!”


At that second I realized I only had one choice left, and I jumped into the pool. I pressed my feet hard on the ground, and leapt far into the pool. Bit by bit the water quickly covered my body, and I felt the bottom in no time. The tiles were cold, but felt rejuvenating. Too soon I found myself above water once again and terrified for my life yet again. Did she follow me into the water? Not more then a second later I saw Hallie running to me, with my stalker not far behind.

“Run Hallie! She‘s behind you! We’re gonna die, oh my god, save me!”

“Your gonna be okay Anna I’ll be right there!”


And just like that she jumped into the pool and I suddenly felt relief. This was shortly diminished by the lady jumping in after us, hands like claws and teeth like razors. In my hysteria, I could see her better . Her hair was a dirty blonde mess and her lipstick was completely wrong and smudged. She was getting closer and I began to question my life.

“Dive under! We might have a chance!” I screamed, still crying; though you couldn’t see it because of the water.


So that’s what we did; we dove under and I felt safe from the mysterious lady. It’s as if all of a sudden there was a barrier blocking us apart. Like the water was a concrete floor separating us. I looked at Hallie and laughed, we were safe. We attempted to high five to acknowledge our success and escape from death, but it was difficult under water, which just made us laugh even more. But our breath began to run short and Hallie started to pull me up toward the surface. With a muffled voice from the water I managed to say
“No please, I like it here.”

“Then we’ll stay.” She said in her cheerful, letting go of the rest of her oxygen.


So we grabbed each other’s hands, and laid down on the tile floor. Our heads touched and our bodies made the shape of and arrowhead. Only then I realized how nice the water really was. The gentle waves felt like silk on my body, and the tiles no longer felt cold. The blue of the water looked more vibrant then ever. I felt so calm that I never wanted to go back up. I was with my best friend, there was nothing that could go wrong. And on top of all that, the mysterious lady wasn’t anywhere in sight, I practically almost forgot about her. For this moment I was safe and the world was perfect. I began to see colors, and I imagined that they were millions of fish, like you see on those commercials for deep sea diving. It looked beautiful. But it shocked me out of my calm and made me realize we were still underwater.

“Hallie, maybe we should go up now its been a long time! I didn’t even know I could hold my breath for so long!”

“Me neither!” Hallie blithely agreed.

So I tried pushing myself of the pool floor. I didn’t move though, not even an inch. My body was a weight I had completely no control over.

“I cant move!” I confessed to Hallie in a panicked voice. What’s going on? Is this normal? I was just about as panicked as when the lady was chasing me. Are we gonna be ok?

“Its okay, neither can I. But we’re safe here Anna.”

As strange as it might be, and as panicked as I was, Hallie was right. So we lay there hand in hand, smiling and laughing and talking, unable to move our bodies. For once in my life I felt like I had a best friend. There was a special bond we had, a deep connection. The atmosphere and water amplified it greatly and we shared the strange experience underwater together. It didn’t last long though; it was taken away from us in the blink of an eye when a bright flash of incredibly white light shined throughout the entire pool deck. I tried looking at Hallie through the corner of my eye, and for a second her body looked translucent, almost gone. Then the light became so white it was blinding, and suddenly we were above the pool. Literally above it. We turned to each other, afraid to speak. We watched as many workers and paramedics drained the pool. It wasn’t until now that I noticed all the people had left, most likely when I started screaming. The pool deck was empty and deserted with chairs and tables in disarray. There were stretchers and medical supplies on one side of the room, which was cleared for this reason. On the other was a big, loud machine which they used to drain the water quickly. Then I looked down and saw our bodies, still in the arrowhead arrangement. What happened to us? Hallie and me looked at each other, knowing what had happened but too afraid to speak of it.
“We’re too young for this.” We both muttered quietly; as if we were ashamed, and closed our eyes.