Slip

My friend slipped. I watch her face go from complete happiness to unsuspected terror. The cracking gave my neck shivers and my heart skipped at least three beats. I reacted quickly, but too late. I watched her disappear and in the blink of the moment, I jumped to follow her.

The water was freezing. I felt my fingers and toes become numb immediately, with the pain of the process happening on my legs overwhelming me. I could feel myself sinking, and with the only thought of saving a friend in my head, I dragged my already exhausted body to the lake floor.

She was unconscious. It wasn't a surprise, but her usually bright skin and fallen to a sickly light shade. Her eyes were closed and rolled back as her eyelids fluttered. Her mouth was open, and I knew water would be spilling into her lungs. Freezing, numbing, painful water.

I hooked my arm around her and pulled her upwards. She wasn't heavy, luckily, but with the weight of my own body against my weakening muscles, I felt useless. I pulled upwards with one arm as my left leg lost all feeling. I saw the ice at the top of the lake and searched for the large, cracked hole we had both fallen through.

Holding my breath was getting hard, and I felt the mistake of letting out breath hitting me. I panicked. My heart raced. Blood seemed too heavy as it flooded my veins, pushing around my body at incredible speeds my heart could never keep up with- And then I felt it stop. It was a split second moment. That skips-a-beat feeling, but eternally. I knew it wasn't going to restart. The whole time I was staring at the face of a girl as pale as snow, as cold as ice, as dead as me. It didn't occur to me how quickly the ice could freeze over.