The air burned in her lungs. She had to get a breath. Twisting and contorting, she couldn’t even flip herself over. It was as if something was holding her down, trying to drown her. She struggled more, pushing against the rough bark of the tree while struggling to hold her breath. But she couldn’t wriggle free. Her backpack caught in the branches, holding her fast.

Forcing herself to calm down, she unbuckled the straps around her hips and chest, then slipped her arms out. Kicking out vigorously, she broke branches and got free. She desperately swam toward what she thought was the surface. But her grappling hands found only branches and the rough rocks. She bounced against them painfully, cracking her knee and bashing her elbow.

Over and over she somersaulted in the freezing water, until she was so disoriented she had no idea which way was toward air. Tumbling, crashing, pounding over rock after rock, plunging ever downward, down the mountain.

She grasped desperately at branches and rocks as they passed by over and under and next to her. And then she was careening head over foot, arms flailing in the frigid water, legs scraping painfully against passing granite beneath her, bones connecting painfully with solid rock, jutting edges and boulders and slabs of scraping roughness.

She coughed involuntarily, her lungs out of air.

She tried to swim in the other direction, kicking out frantically. For a second she was fighting through a maze of branches, and then a hard slap of water hit her in the face. Her head reached air. She gasped deeply, saw a moment of blue sky just before the tremendous trunk of a tree spun into her line of sight and connected violently with her head.

A blinding light erupted behind her eyes, and her muscles refused to work as she sank down into the frigid darkness.