[b][center] Homestead, Chapter 1: Red [/b][/center]

I was swimming laps. The water was cool and inviting, and my family was there. Mama was jumping up and down with a huge smile on her face as she whooped and hollered with encouraging cries of "Lizzie! Lizziiiie! Go Lizzie, you've got this! Go!"

My father stood smiling at me, standing more calmly next to her. I couldn't quite see them though, only small watery glimpses through my goggles whenever I tossed my head trying to find them. I realized then that I was in the middle of a race, and began to push harder against the water switching to my breast stroke with my entire body fighting the fluid resistance. Something was off though. There was a current of some kind, and it started to pull me backwards, then down. I kicked furiously as my head slipped below water, my hands grasping out for the floating rope that marked the lanes but finding none. I sunk downward into bright blue, and all I could see was the bar of white light at the ceiling hanging over the pool.The silhouette of another girl's body moved through my lane so effortlessly above me. Why couldn't I keep up? Maybe if I fought harder? No, I was still being pulled. I felt the floor of the pool touch my feet, and when it occurred to me I had reached the bottom I sought to kick myself upward sharply to pop back out of the surface, but when I shoved my legs downward the floor was gone, and it was just water growing bluer and blacker. I opened my mouth to scream as I panicked and kept kicking for floor, and found I was breathing the water like a fish. I floated in that space with a feeling of wrong washing over me as I breathed thick, slow breaths, and I slowly became aware of a repetitive alarm buzzing loudly in my ears.

No, that buzzing... that was real. So was the feeling of... slowness? Wrongness? Gradually, I began to awaken. The alarm became more and more real. I wanted to move and open my eyes, but I just lay still in my cryo-chamber, unseeing and breathing a deep steady breath like in sleep. What the devil [i]were[/i] all those noises? And why can't I go back [i]up[/i]? They must think I've drowned...