Dani became gradually aware that she was lying on the shoreline of the lake, her body still half in, half out of the water. Painfully lifting with her shoulders and arms, she dragged herself up a little farther until only her feet still felt immersed. Then she flipped over onto her back, raising one arm to shield her face from the warm brightness of the sun.

What? The sun was up! That was different; just a moment ago, it seemed, it had been night. Dani had obviously been unconscious for many hours. Gently, she rubbed her forehead, trying to remember what had happened. She and Jonathan had been in the boat.

‘Jonathan?’

‘Where’s Jonathan?’ she thought, suddenly sitting up as an alarm went off in her mind.

Dani relaxed as she remembered that she could scan for Jonathan mentally, then did so. She could plainly see the image of him lying on a rock at the base of a waterfall – which was really strange because there were no waterfalls on this entire lake that went either up or down. So where the hell was he?

She sat up, nearly boosting herself back into the water with her effort. She cried out in terror as she became airborne for the briefest instant, then slid slightly toward the water again.

‘Wow! That was different,’ she thought when she had her terror under control again.

She looked around. ‘Where are the mountains?’

“What the fuck?” she asked out loud. “I’m in a goddamn park!”

She stood up, then completed her earlier action of nearly falling into the water with an angry yelp and a big splash, preceded by a really fancy dance complete with twirling and leg kicking as she continually overbalanced in the light one-quarter gravity.

As Dani spluttered to the surface, she noticed an almost pleasant thundering vibration that, when her head was above water again, became a roar that she realized had been there before, but she simply hadn’t noticed. She relaxed after a few seconds as the sound continued. Then she recognized the sound. It was a waterfall. A very close waterfall.

Shaking her head to get her wet hair out of her eyes, she squinted in the direction that the sound was coming from. Then she saw it – the ghost ball that the two of them had tried to approach many times over the past few months – that indistinct glow that floated over their mountain lake. But it was much brighter now, producing enough light to fill this entire… (Chamber? Park? Where the fuck am I?) with light.

“So this is where that comes out…” Dani said to herself, gazing up at it in awe.

The sun came out from behind a cloud and the ‘ghost’ ball was suddenly brilliant – much too bright to look at directly. Dani squinted and looked away. There were fragments of wood floating on the water nearby. She looked at them for a moment, then her memories flooded back.

She had been sitting, half-asleep, in the boat, fishing (her fourth favorite pastime after eating, sleeping and making love to Jonathan). Jonathan had been sitting right next to her on the same seat, his back resting against hers. Occasionally, they would dreamily rub their heads or shoulders against each other.

‘I must have fallen asleep,” Dani decided.

The next thing she knew, Jonathon was falling over the side of the boat as it swirled and spun. She remembered holding onto the sides, desperately trying to stay aboard, knowing that if she was sucked into that incredible whirlpool, she wouldn’t be able to rescue Jonathan.

Then the entire boat was sucked straight down. As it fell, the boat flipped over and Dani was falling through the water into the AIR – BELOW THE WATER!

‘This is impossible!’ she remembered thinking even as she peed her shorts in pure terror.

Then she was in the water again. This water was shallow. She remembered slamming into the river bottom. Then water was swirling all around her and she was falling again. This time, when she hit, the water was deeper, and violently churning, driving her under.

Struggling for the brightly-lit surface, it seemed she was trying to swim uphill. She knew she had to get to the surface soon – she was almost out of air. Then she remembered an old trick about swimming against the undercurrents that often occurred at the edge of the ocean and began swimming sideways. The heavy flow of the waterfall drove her further down, but a few seconds later, once she’d moved, she was shoved back up, and greedily, gratefully, sucked in a lungful of misty air.

She didn’t remember how long she paddled, trying to stay afloat, but finally her arms and legs struck bottom and she was still breathing. Realizing she’d reached an area of safety, she had crawled halfway out of the water and passed out.

Now, gazing around at the wreckage of their rowboat, her eyes were finally focused enough so that she could see the waterfall.

‘Gods! I fell down that?’ she thought to herself. ‘Where’s Jonathan – did he fall through, too? Or is he floating in the mountain lake wondering where the hell I am?’

Then she remembered seeing him in her mind, lying on some rocks in the middle of the falls. Realizing it would be easier to walk to the falls, Dani crawled wearily out of the water and very carefully stood up, bracing much harder against a tree than she really needed to.

“I don’t weight anything at all!” she exclaimed. “My God, where am I?”

Carefully taking a step, she moved away from the tree. After a few giddy steps, she started giggling, not having any idea what was so funny, but she couldn’t stop. Forcing her feet to walk despite her near-debilitating giggle fit, she managed to reach the falls just about the time she brought her giggles under control.

Jonathan lay face down on a large boulder. Dani couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. She was deliriously happy to see him, but deathly afraid that he might be injured, or worse – dead. Climbing out over the slippery moss-covered rocks, she finally reached him.

Fearful of what she might discover, she slowly reached out and touched his shoulder. It was cold.

‘Oh, God – He’s dead!’ she thought as she flinched away from him.

Then she saw him move, ever so slightly.

‘Is he breathing?’ Dani thought anxiously. ‘Maybe he’s just cold because he’s wet! Oh, please let him be alive…’

She touched his cheek this time, shuddering as she did so with the fear that he was cold and lifeless.

He flinched at her touch.

“He’s alive!” she yelped as she jerked her hand away.

A groan answered her cry and Jonathan tried to move his arms.

Wild eyed and not realizing she was whimpering, Dani stared at him as he tried to move.