.Turbulence.

Some say the water's best when it's lukewarm. You can swim and it isn't so uncomfortable as when it's cold and stiffening. I suppose my situation would be considered that: lukewarm. It's mildly comfortable, but something I'd rather not swim in for too terribly long. My heart beats with a few skips, drenched with paranoia and cut gently with panicked netting. This raging hydra that sees the world around it and swivels and thrashes about to grasp a piece with its jaws.

There's a struggle. A deep one. A well-and-deeply-seated one. Pooled underneath the skin and caked underneath the nails and extravagantly painful. Almost to a numbing extent. There's no time for tears, no time for looking back, no time for calculating. You just keep moving and ducking and dodging the flagrant debris, and be thankful the scrapes aren't amputations and fatal wounds.

I'm surviving. It's all I know to do. It's all I can do. It's very painful to experience, but so is life. You simply navigate and hope you don't lose your head in the sea of blades. Even with a hydra, one cannot bear cost to lose them all at once. Regeneration does have its limits and prices.

I'm still swimming. Still moving. Still dodging. Still breathing. Still making it. That's all I can do now. Though hope can be a fool's game, it can also be a loser's last grain of sanity. Hanging by a thin thread. Until they pull themselves to the top and proclaim success. And never give up and pull still.

I at least have hope; whatever threads remain. I still grasp them. I won't fall just yet. Even though the pain is great and suffering is surely at hand. Just keep pushing, a little further,

It's all you can do.

It's all you have left.