After graduating from high school, I went off to take a year off. While I didn't have much planned, I had always wanted to try fishing. One thing led to another, and I had rented a small boat for the afternoon, with a crew of 3 people. The crew were thankfully not very conversational, as I myself was a bit introverted, and I quickly found myself waiting for a bite for over an hour with no response. The smell of the salty sea, and the rhythmic, gentle motions of the waves against the boat I rented were enough to drive me to sleep.

When I was woken up by a member of the crew, I found that I had slept through the entire afternoon, and the dark sky, complete with glittering stars I couldn't see in the city told me it was already quite late. I groggily packed up the fishing equipment, and idly started going through my phone as the boat headed back for the shore. Then, I nearly quite lost my phone overboard as the boat suddenly rocked violently. The next wave made me stumble over the step I was making as I stood up, and I let out a grunt of pain and surprise as I fumbled on the railing. When I finally did stand up properly, I was met with a wave that slapped me fully awake, and left me cold and terrified at the sudden weather. The previously calm sea had turned into a non stopping deluge of waves that reached higher than my head. There was no rhyme or reason to how or why the weather had changed from a matter of seconds, and I didn't have the time to even think before a final cry of alarm sounded out before an absolutely massive wave crashed into the boat, flipping it over and launching me into the cold waters.

When I woke up again, the water I was in wasn't the cold, deep waters I died in. The waters were warm, and although I couldn't seem to be able to open my eyes, I could hear someone singing distantly. I tried moving around, but my body felt weirdly weak. As I slipped into unconsciousness I faintly remembered reaching a wall.

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I woke up again to the sound of the singing, and fell asleep once more shortly after to the soothing sound. This repeated itself countless times, me waking up in some sort of dark chamber, then falling asleep a short time later. What I could remember most vividly, though, was the muffled sound of someone singing in an unknown language. The time I could stay awake increased over time, finally allowing me to listen to the voice singing the entire song at one go.

Then the day came.

When I woke up this time, this time it was not because of the soft, muffled sound of singing - it was of pain. My head was stuck in an absolute vice, and as I wriggled my whole body in pain, I was dragged out from the darkness into the cold.

The coldness of the air caused me to open my eyes, and the sheer amount of light made me regret the decision. Compared to when I was in the dark and warm place, this was almost painful, and I screamed. However, I almost stopped doing so, because of one simple fact - it was not my voice. Sure, I didn't spend all my time listening to myself screaming in terror and pain, but I sounded like an actual baby instead of a grown man.

As I cried in both pain and confusion, the rest of my body slipped out from it came from, and I was promptly grabbed by hands that absolutely dwarfed over mine. Everything seemed like it was causing pain for me - the noise, the feeling of the rough hands against my own skin, the light - it was too much for me, and I kept crying. Then, the hands holding onto me changed, and I heard something that made me calm down - the voice that sang me those songs. It was calm and serene, and I stopped crying and tried to focus on who was looking down on me.

It was a woman with long and white, nay, ivory hair. She was dressed in rough clothes made out of animal pelts, but her smile shown through my blurry vision. As I stared in astonished silence, she smiled and laid a kiss on my forehead, and brushed it in a loving matter. As she started to sing, my body and mind, tired from the trials I had faced gave in, and I once again fell into unconsciousness.