MICHAEL
Jagged shards of rock grazed me, cut me as I landed on the boulder, clinging to the peak with all my strength. The rock was slick with ice and much smaller than I thought it to be. The next boulder - easily another ten feet away - seemed an impossible task. There’d be no way I could leap from this rock to the next - there was simply no footing. I would have to swim.
Across from me, more of the damned had entered the water, undaunted from their need to reach me, for what purpose I could not guess. Horror filled my heart pushing out all other thought, making me a “needer” as surely as any of them. I needed to be free of this fear, free of this place, this place of no hope. I suppose that was what any of them needed, too.