Time starts... now.

She took a deep breath, and put her head under water. Her robes flowed around her, clinging weightlessly to every crve and bone, floating up around her ankles before settling, like her, at the bottom of the tank.

Beneath the water, everything seemed muted. She could ignore the audience, the leering faces, the peering eyes, the raucus, crude carnival music hummed softly through the water, muted and beautiful, a world within a world. She liked it in here. No pressure, other than the water around her, slowly increasing on her lungs. She began to breathe out, a little bubble at a time, which flew up to teh surface the moment it escaped her lips, tickling her nose on the way.

The man outside tapped the glass, startling her from h er meditation. The signal to ebgin. Maybe she wouldn't, this time. Maybe this time she wuld giv into the pull, and stay down here forever. Here where the music was sweeter, where the lights were paler, and where she was alone. It hurt more to surface