The water tastes of salt, chocking, bitter, overwhelming brine filling up lungs as the waves push and pull their prey, a ragtag doll shoved at their mercy To them, you are just another fool daring the wide expanse of the ocean, another unwilling victim toeing the edge of their altar.

As another mouthful of water fills your lungs you can sense the knife toying precariously above your heart, a hair’s breadth away from falling, life or death merely a coin toss of hazard, a whim of the blue expanse