Irene was afraid of the water. But that has been a fear that has existed for ages and ongoing. She only recalls it now because she's standing on a creaking board that overlooks an ominous-looking man-made lake that reaches a good distance outwards. The length was similar to that of a riverbank, something she reasoned she could handle despite the cold sweat building in her palms saying otherwise. The zip-line is hanging just above her head and she's about to do a double take until she hears Yeri shout over to her.

"Irene-unnie, you can do it! Just think about the bet and don't overthink too much! I'll buy you a washing machine of your choice. I don't care about the price. You know I don't! Fighting!!"

The wooden boards by her feet creak at every spoken word from her enthusiastic, young friend. Irene's unsure whether the creaking is because she's unconsciously dragging her body backwards and away from the platform edge or because it's an unsafe piece of a construction disaster. She shakes her fearful thoughts off and regains strength to retake her position but with very small shuffling steps. She can admit that she is very afraid right now. The tower even creaks again in a sort of agreement, as if the universe could sense her distress. It creaks another, and then again. That's the third creak under the span of twenty seconds. She wonders why the tower is shivering like this and in mimic with her. She can't shrug off the worry as she burrows her eyebrows together, hoping for the adrenaline to help give her that push of confidence she had when she proudly accepted the challenge in the spur of a moment. She eyes the wire of the zip-line until her sight reaches the distance on the other side of the lake where the other tower is propped and where the zip-line ends. It looks completely fine, Irene convinces herself. Yes, it looks about safe.

She looks over her shoulder and looks towards the taller of the duo; her friend Joy had actually shown more worry about this than she had before she climbed the tower. Irene thinks back to the words Joy had said whilst they were on their way up,

“Unnie, I’m really, really, seriously reconsidering this. Let’s think about this properly, please unnie? Yeri, call off the bet. You don't even know this place at all. You haven't even verified it. It might be fun but don't you think it's a little too much even for Irene-unnie...” Joy had actually said the last part as a mumbling whisper over to Yeri but Irene managed to pick it up. She climbed faster and switched to tackling two-steps as she climbed because she subconsciously took the comment as a hit on her dignity. Joy doesn't understand how competitive she can get and she should never be belittled even if she knows Joy just meant it out of concern of her wellbeing. But now, she was definitely not going to back out, she'll prove to them she can and she will.

Although thinking about it now... maybe, just maybe, this was a little too much for her. Her eyes pan over to Yeri, the youngest had a blank look in her eyes as if in deep consideration of something. Perhaps, Yeri was going to take back her words and the bet altogether any moment now. Knowing this could be a possibility; Irene pulls a big grin, a grin big enough to look playfully mischievious. Inciting enough to ease Yeri and whatever thoughts she was having, as well as the worrisome expression over Joy's face. Irene wants to let them know that this was going to be fun and they shouldn't worry either because even she was up for it. Or so she appears to be. Her heart, in fact, is racing. 

She takes a breath, tugs on the safety straps wrapping her body and nods to herself and to the man waiting for her. She steps forward and lets the man attach the zip-line cable to the hook in front of her chest. She stares and gulps with every clinking sound from the metal attachments. She stiffens when her ribs feel a tightening squeeze; the man pulls at the straps restlessly until he is sure they could print red under her clothing. She shoots a frown at him so he could get the idea that she's basically suffocating and that the straps and her are more than fine. Irene couldn't exactly gather any words to criticise him for tightening the harness so much so she had sent him glares instead until he fixed his overly cautious tightening of her harnesses a moment after.

"Ok. Ok. Ok!" The man says after quickly scanning his hands over her safety harness and giving it a pat. Irene looks up and meets his eyes, they were indifferent but his head was bobbing in an over-the-top gesture. He pulls two hands and creates an 'Ok' sign on both. "Ready?" The man levels to her face and looks her in the eye before recapping the instructions again in a stern tone, "Do not touch the main zip-wire, keep your hands off it or it will hurt. Burns you. Okay? When you are ready, give me 'Ok'!"

Irene's heart is going at the speed of rabid rabbits. She huffs and puffs under her breath and her head is spinning. But she sees the man shoving the 'Ok' sign at her and she's always learnt of this sign as a positive signal, so it forces her into a false sense of security. Was she ready? Her fingers curl and although her hands feel just as numb as her legs, she exchanges a shaky 'ok' over. The man nods once more and gets his countdown ready. "On three... Okay?"

"Eu-"

"1!"

"Uunnnn-"

"2!"

"Nnnnnuuunngg!!!" Irene wants to back out right now.

"3!" She's pushed off.

"Was she pushed off?" Joy asks. Yeri nods slightly. "Yeah she was." They both gulp.

Irene yelps out a thousand screams from her lungs. Her eyes initially presses together tight shut because she feels the wind press against her entire body. But she slowly finds it in her to open them. It was an overwhelming feeling although she wonders why she's going so fast. When she finally takes a peek, she sighs besides the breeze because it doesn't feel that bad. Moments of admiring her scenery, she takes in the refreshing scent of nature; she's almost reaching the half point. When she jumps and suddenly lowers. 

In thin-air she had jumped. Her weight had suddenly dropped by half an inch. Her legs flail in absolute confusion. Following, a sound like an untwining rope interrupts her stifled breathing and she makes the hopeless move to turn her head around to her 180 angle, her eyes scanned her side views. Ridiculous because beside her was air and the other side was also air. She knows the eerie sqeaking sound was right above her, a sound she could pick up over the laser sagging of metal over rope. She finally sees the subtle movement of the rope's unwounding. She stares in unblinking, in disbelief because she's sure she must be hallucinating and that her rope attached to the zip-line did not look as if it were going to break. Further, the wind takes to it to caress her sideways, rocking her as if teasing her fate and her body spins even with the stillness of her lower body, She can spot her favourite duo at the tower she had departed from, she wishes they could recieve the SOS she was trying to send out via telepathic brainwaves, but to no avail. Her breathing only escalates as her hope dissipates. Still, it bewilders her how her zip-line experience continues despite her undeniable pending doom. She lets out yelps and whimpers, but her voice is burried and washed away in the drag of the wind and the zip-line cable's descending whistle.

She wonders if she can make it to the other end by any luck, she prays. She squeezes her eyes close and prays. But she only hears it again, the trickling unravelling of the rope's fibres tearing out of it's wrap. She loses all hope and listens with a heavy heart. It's the sound of clinging thread by the corner of her ear that drives her in tears. She hears the exhausted rope's grip continue it's unreeling; a sliding, rough, fickling flick of separating fibre. A crack to the rope's plait stretches her distance; she lowers with a loosening tug as she continues to zoom on the zip-line's drag. Her weight hovers off another inch from the last. Her jaw is shaking. Her rope was going to snap.

It was an eventuality. And the tear in the lake's water muffles in her piercing fall in embrace.

-

-

-

Splosh.

Gasps. Inaudible to Irene, submerged in dirty lakewater.

There's a shout elsewhere. The wind carries the scream of a name that came from the starting tower... someone else had jumped.

"WENDY-YAH!!"

..

..

..

..

..

Unbeknownst, Irene struggles against the small current of the man-made lake, because her legs were weirdly paddling and her arms were floundering. She couldn't, no, she didn't know how to keep her body upright within the water. But she's a panicking mess; she doesn't know why she hasn't drowned yet or why her body is moving so much. She sees something splashing, they were her splashing she contested because what else could it be apart from her arms thrashing, she turns off to no direction. Her legs and arms were gradually tiring. The water would forcefully enter at uneven intakes and her attempts to coughing it out turned into choking because she couldn't time the water's sabotaging streaming. 

She couldn't stay afloat and she knew she wouldn't manage to for any longer but she was trying and more for her life, fighting. Every time her body was engulfed, she would push right back up, but now her eyes were completely shut, a vision of jet black. She breathes when she's underwater and when she thinks she's above water she heaves regardless, she takes all. Choking some more as consequence to mistaking.

She's feeling no end to her end. So when she's brought up. And she stays up. She wonders if her mind had ascended. But she realises that there's another gripping to her flesh and that there were hands. A hug to her thighs keeps her levelled above the water but she still cannot manage to open her eyes, because it stings and she's afraid to open them. With her head afloat, Irene calms her coughing fits into that of haste breaths. She's still in water but she feels the support of an unknown other. Her hands reach out carefully and unsteadily, she stabs and dabs around in order to trace her saviour. Irene could hear gasping, huffs of air and spitting of water from the person holding her under the water. Irene assumes that the person is swallowing some of the dirty water because her turning and poking on their shoulder and face must be pushing them down into the lakewater. She feels apologetic. "Sorry!" She manages to sputter. Irene immediately stops her difficult twisting and turning and tries to stay as still as possible until they both reach a quiet bobbing. They try to maintain this still floating and at the calm flow of the water, they remain in a vague waiting.

Irene spots a boat coming over to them with speed. So they just needed to wait for it to reach them for that meanwhile. Irene waits patiently while she hears the person sustaining her up take obvious gulps of lake water here and there...