She was at that tantalizing moment she never reached beyond, leaving her frustrated each morning when she awoke and realized she’d gotten no closer to reliving her rescue. No closer to Him. She writhed in her sleep. Soon, she would die. With this certainty the consuming panic ebbed away and peace took its place. Marissa could no longer forestall her fate. She was through with the effort of trying to stay alive, of trying to force her frozen limbs to propel her to the surface. Surrendering, Marissa sensed the implosion about to occur. The heat in her core was draining away; her body was becoming as cold as the deep ocean water. The transformation, fast though it must be, transpired in an incremental fashion, each cell exchanging its warmth for cold, like a chunk of wood crystallizing bit by bit until at last it was petrified. While Marissa succumbed to the icy waters, a strange fire burned in her lungs. They ached for the oxygen that would never come. Marissa observed these phenomena as a scientist might study the twitching muscle fibers of some unfortunate laboratory animal in response to electrodes shocking its neurons.
