Jessie – 7.10 a.m.
I draw in a final breath and hold it as the water washes over my mouth and nose. A moment later there’s a rushing sound as it fills my ears.
I think of Freya, my sweet, perfect little girl, hold a picture of her in my mind, as I close my eyes and the water covers my face. How blessed I was to have her. I will miss her so, so much. Thank God she’ll still have Martin, my sweet, kind, brilliant husband.
My lungs spasm, and the desperate need for oxygen takes over. A final, convulsive breath forces my mouth open, and the dirty water rushes in. I want to keep fighting. For Freya, and Martin. For Dad too, but I’ve nothing left to give. My body is a dead weight, my thoughts are turning into liquid.
I fight to take one last breath, twisting and turning beneath the water, but suddenly I’m lost. My feet can’t find the bottom. I no longer know which way is up and which way is down, which is madness, because I’m in a well just four feet across, submerged in less than six feet of water, but it’s as if I’m drowning in the depths of a vast ocean. No matter which way I turn, there is only darkness.
A feeling of immense pressure inside me in my chest and in my head. It builds, expands until it fills me up, until it’s all there is, and I know that this is the end. I’m finished.
My life does not flash before my eyes. There’s no blinding white light, no tunnel with the people I’ve lost at its end, beckoning me to join them. But in my final moments, I am relieved beyond measure to find that there is … something – a flicker of a feeling, a warm sensation, remembered from long ago. A connection I have missed so much.
Amy is with me. My best friend.
I can feel her, can hear her voice in my head, the way I used to when we’d talk to each other using only our eyes.
Don’t give up, she tells me. You have to keep fighting …
I open my eyes, and through the murky water see a haze of shimmering light. The opening to the well, far above me.
That’s it … You can do it, Jess …
I will not let the water take me. I will not die in this well. I will not—
I reach for the light, my hand breaks through the water’s surface …
An explosion.
Water erupts around me, as if the storm up above has found its way down into the well and has me in its teeth. I’m shaken back and forth like a rat in a dog’s mouth. Something clamps around my upper arm and hauls me upwards. I feel cold air on my face. I’m out of the water, or at least a part of me is.
Someone is shaking me, shouting, Breathe, breathe! over and over.
Rescue has come after all, I realise. If only they’d got here sooner.
The light begins to fade, my consciousness ebbing away, and the last thing I hear before the darkness floods in is a man’s voice, an urgent, desperate cry – I’ve got her! Help me! Help! – and although I know it’s the end, I take some small comfort from the fact that, whoever my rescuer is, he sounds a little like my husband.