text: Inky black crested all around me, the salt spewed into my mouth with every intake. I struggled to take my next breath like clockwork at the bottom of every wave. My head started spinning while I looked up at the moonlit with complete despair. I reached my hands up, trying in vain to secure some kind of connection with something that would save me. Just when I had lost all hope and resigned myself to the depths, I noticed something floating in the distance. An orange light flickered around a buoy that couldn't have been more than 20 yards away. Each wave pushed me closer, and closer. All I could think about was the safe refuge that lay around the ring of that buoy. My tunnel vision saved me from seeing the hundreds of black fins circling around me on every side, inching closer and closer towards the buoy. I finally reached it and nearly cried out, feeling a surge of emotion that made my arms limp. I climbed up onto the small platform that surrounded the buoy and collapsed, the next few minutes completely disappeared. I felt a strange gnawing in my dream. My arm was being tugged. I didn't care, because the sky was beautiful, and I was laying on the beach. The sun touched my face and I felt at peace. Eventually my arm started to feel pain, and I couldn't ignore the sounds. I looked down and my illusion shattered. There was blood everywhere on the platform. I looked at the stub of my arm and screamed in blistering pain. My vision started to darken, as I sat down again, cradling what was left of my arm and wrapping it in my shirt. Where there was a beach was now an ocean. I was back in the same nightmare. I squinted my eyes to look for any sign of hope. My heart sank in my chest, breath became trapped in my throat. I saw thousands of fins circling around me, horrifying creatures with jagged teeth and bulbous eyes popped out over the waves. They looked directly at me, not as sharks would, but as something sentient. I averted my eyes, but I could still see them in my mind. Suddenly, they began to turn around. They swam in unison backwards, retreating from where they came. At the same time, the sky darkened even more, and the water went from translucent to completely pitch black. I hugged my knees close to my chest and prayed as the world closed in to me. I returned once again to the beach. This time, my arm was completely restored. I felt happy again, and went back to enjoying the sun. "This must be the real world." I felt reassured. There was no way anything as crazy as what I just saw could have been real. I smiled to myself and began to count the clouds, wondering when I would return home. I was jolted awake again on the buoy. My arm was gone, but had stopped bleeding. The creatures were absent. I could see nothing except the buoy and the platform, the rest of the ocean was shrouded in complete darkness. A clarion call sounded in the distance. Hope surged in my heart again! I jumped up and looked around for a ship or some sign of life. I could now see the sun, but the waves were completely still. There was no noise or any sign of life. The waves parted in front of me, and something stepped forward. His body took up the entire horizon. He stepped forth from the ocean, coated in moss, both his eyes closed and crusted with seaweed. He did not look in my direction, but I knew he could see me. I was so terrified I could not breathe, my entire body was shaking and I began to sob violently. He opened his fist and put it over me, blotting out the sun. I was picked up and dragged, water filling up my cage, dragged to the bottom where his people lay in wait.