The Realisation, You're Not Invincible

Original title: Maturing Is Realising You're Not Invincible (that was too long) (year 12)

My dad loves ‘The Incredibles’. He likes a lot of kids’ movies actually.
When I saw the snow outside, I immediately thought of Frozone, and envisioned myself skating around on the ice of my own creation.
There’s a pond that has frozen over, and I can see it now, skating around flipping and doing tricks on the ice. I leave footprints in the snow behind me as I make my way over to it, picking up the pace as I get closer.
The ice is glowing. It’s sparkling. The sun perfectly sets its rays upon it, like it was meant to be.
The edge of the pond meets the tip of my boot. I only halt to put on my skates.
The edge of the pond meets the tip of my skate. I lift my face up to the sun, imagining the grin I must have on my face.
A step onto the ice, then another, then a push to pick up speed.
I probably don’t look as cool as Frozone as I fling my arms and legs around. I even do some little jumps, picturing myself doing a loop-the-loop. Sometimes I close my eyes and give in to the image of a superhero.
I didn’t see the stone frozen in the ice.
My face strikes the unforgiving harshness of the ice. It feels stuck to the ice when I try to pull myself up. My hands can’t quite find a grip on the surface and slip out from under me. The tip of my skate starts scratching at the ground to find a foothold.
I can’t get up.
I can feel sweat start dripping down my face, from my hairline and falling off my chin.
Or maybe they’re tears, it’s too cold out here to tell.
My foot breaks the ice. I can feel it puncture the surface. Something cold claws its way up my leg. My sweat starts sticking my hair to my head.
I only saw the crack for an instant.
There’s water under the surface. I can’t tell if I’m sinking or swimming. And it pierces my skin, reaching into my veins, injecting itself into me.
Frozone would never have slipped. He would never have become a victim to his own power.
I look up, whichever direction is up. I’m so far away already, flying or falling away from the world.
I hit the bottom. Or it hits me. And it hurts. It’s hard and it’s sudden and there’s no way I could have stopped it, or seen it.
Suddenly, I’m just lying there, surrounded by my own blood and sweat, still feeling the icy water flowing through my veins.
Why didn’t I see the rock?
It’s hard to move when my limbs are fueled with ice, freezing them solid.
Why didn’t I hear the cracks?
A dry riverbed, I think. I’m lying at the bottom of it. My blood travels down the crevices and lines of the parched ground.
Why did I not test how thick the ice was?
It looks like a map. Lines in the sand where the water used to flow, and rocks that used to guide its path.
How long have I been lying here, at the bottom?
There are remnants of twigs lying here, stopped on the dried clay.
The pond, I started with my gaze forward. I put one foot in front of the other. I heard the wind as it passed by my being, skating through it because it couldn’t stop me.
Now I can hear my lungs squeezing breath out of me. I can hear my heart trying to beat the warmth back into me.
The flow of ice cuts off.
Yet I still feel like I am drowning. Or have drowned already. In my own sweat and blood, in the icy water that lies beneath the surface.