As recounted by Mathew Serig:
I stepped on the soft turf and instantly found myself quickly descending thru a dark chasm filled with water. It was like in a dream I had back home where I was walking thru the wetland area below the old cow pastures, I misstepped and down in the water I went, straight down, the water above my head and everything getting darker as I fell. I use to have nightmares about this as a child. When I was young I was not a good swimmer, could not at all for some time. I would have these nightmares where I had fallen out of a car or somehow fallen into a body of water and would descend to the bottom, just as I was doing now. But this time it was real. Or at least it felt real. The water was cold. I could feel the pressure around me. My heart was beating fast and I didn’t have much breath. I tried to swim up, but the more I tried the farther down I went. I relaxed, thinking that this was some test. I still descended. I didn’t have much breath left. I was trying not to panic. ‘I have magic’. I froze the water beneath my feet into a thick cylinder of ice and it pushed me up as ice is less dense than water. I was trying to hold my breath and relax as much as possible but my chest and throat were getting tighter and tighter. The ice brought me up and as my head got above the water line I gasped for air and I headed quickly to what I hoped was solid ground. It was. With more regular breaths I scrambled up onto the shore and quickly left this area. What other of my fears or nightmares would this place manifest? ‘I may not survive next time.’
or . . .
. . . I still descended. I didn’t have much breath left. I was trying not to panic. I kept drifting down, everything going dark, just like in my dreams when I was a kid. I felt like I was getting near the bottom, everything went dark and calm. Then I found myself almost up to the ice. I swam up and out of the hole, as my head got above the water line I gasped for air and I headed quickly to what I hoped was solid ground. It was. With more regular breaths I scrambled up onto the shore and quickly left this area. What other of my fears or nightmares would this place manifest? ‘I may not survive next time.’
