Page 19 of The Wishing Game

Is it at that moment that I give up? Is it when I sink deeper and deeper? Is it when there's no oxygen left inside my lungs, or is it when my entire body becomes so filled with water it's almostonewith the water?

My eyes are unblinking as I stare at the darkness—at the abyss that slowly calls my name. Slowly, I stop struggling.

This is my fate, it seems. But maybe it's a mercy. Maybe, just maybe...

More water gurgles down my throat.

My thoughts are in disarray.

I'm not sure if I can focus on anything specific as the seconds trickle down before my imminent death, but if I could, I'd always choose Nikki.

Nikki who saved me. Nikki who loved me. Nikki who...left me.

Nikki who is now waiting for me.

Everything slows down until I'm truly one with the darkness.

* * *

Water comes out of my mouth and nose as I cough and cough. My throat is on fire as I hold on to my stomach, spitting up every bit of liquid I swallowed.

I retch until there's nothing more to expel, at which point I collapse on my back.

It doesn't register that I'm alive yet. Not until blinding light washes over my face, the morning sun moving higher and higher in the sky. I squint my eyes, groaning as pain erupts from all places of my body at once.

My broken arm is completely numb, while my right one is bruised and battered. At this point, I doubt there's any spot on my body that hasn't been absolutely obliterated.

But against all odds, I'm alive—I guess.

"Lucky me," I mumble, my voice coming out thick and ragged.

Dragging myself into a sitting position, I look right and left, noting I'm on the shore of the Hudson but quite a distance away from the bridge. I guess the currents must have carried me here.

"Can someone have worse luck than me?" I mutter dryly as I wobble to my feet. My clothes are semi-dry at this point, but I feel dirty and gross and...

"Oh my God," I groan when I think of all the water I swallowed. Who knows what could have been in it. The unbidden thought of an article I'd read about sewage sometimes draining into the Hudson makes me retch again, but at this point I've thrown up everything in me.

My breathing is patchy, a wheezing sound coming from my throat that isnotnormal. Well, I guess neither is being attacked by a masked man and thrown into the river. The mere fact that I'm still alive is a miracle considering I was already half incapacitatedbeforediving from a couple hundred feet.

Quickly, I scan my surroundings to confirm that I am indeed alive and this isn't some farcical afterlife. But going by the acute pain I'm feeling and the putrid smell that somehow's made its home in my nostrils, I think it's safe to say this isnotthe afterlife—who would bethatcruel?

Yet as I take a few steps, something else catches my attention.

Next to the place I woke up, there's a white, sparkly note. Frowning, I stoop to pick it up, only to drop it back down when cursive writing appears on it out ofnowhere.Like one of those fade-in animation effects, black letters stain the sparkly note.

"You've been invited," I read out loud the first line. Right underneath, my name appears in purple letters—purple?

Lucero Archibald.

"I've been invited to what?" I blink in confusion. Yet no sooner do I utter the words than a third line appears on the note.

101 W 54th St.

I barely get to blink before the writing fades out, the note becoming blank once again.

What is this? Is it some kind of sophisticated technology? I've never been too good at technology, barely able to operate my personal smartphone. But this... Now this is the stuff of the future.

AmIin the future?

---