Waining

I hadn’t seen that man before,
his silhouette stood against
the pin pricked blackness.

Foreboding crept in
slowly with the tide.
It wasn’t until the cold water
griped its unforgiving hand
around my foot
that I awoke
and came to my senses.

I had to run,
I had to hide,
yet the light was too pale
and I had no notion
of which way to go.

Feeling a lump rising in my throat,
I knew a scream would birth no sound.

The liquid black
had already reached my knees.
I fumbled in the direction
I thought was the shore.

But this was getting deeper!
I realised I had not headed toward land,
I had instinctively moved away from him.

Terror welled up inside me,
until all went black.
And then,
I smiled,
as somewhere above me
a white globe
was waxing itself into being.