Morgan and I were swimming at our favorite spot at Lake Webster. We were 18. She was wearing a vibrant red and black vintage-inspired bikini and I was wearing my black boy shorts and halter top swimsuit set.

It was brutally hot, but the water was chilled to perfection as we laid out on our floating rafts talking about that movie we should see the next day. Why our boyfriends were so awesome. How good it felt to be done with high school. And why we thought it was essential that we took the next year off to find ourselves. It was just Morgan and I. The way it had always been.

I was laying on my stomach on the raft. Morgan was on her back with her huge black sunglasses that covered up more than a quarter of her beautiful, pale face. Her black curls were dragging through the water and I looked over and smiled at her. The reflection of the water bouncing upwards seemed to light her up in an unusual way.

She smiled back at me, "Jenn?"

"What's up?"

"Do you ever think... about life after death?"

"What do mean? Like heaven and hell and that sort of thing?"

"Not necessarily. I mean like actual life continuing on, here, after we die."

"Oh, so like ghosts? Like spirits walking around... watching our every move... ooooooo..."

She splashed water at me and I squealed laughing and tossed some back her way.

"So is that a no?" she pestered me. She knew that I was an Atheist, and had been for quite some time. She was by no means religious, but I think the thought of not having any sort of hope of a higher being scared the hell out of her.

"I'm not saying. I'm just saying that just like a "God", I haven't seen any ghosts wandering around, telling me about how their spirit life sucks or doesn't suck. I mean it's possible, right? Isn't anything? Aliens could land right over there on the beach, so right not some ghosts?"

"This is turning into quite a conversation," she laughed again.

"Don't our conversations always take a turn into 'now how the hell did we land on that subject?'" I turned my head to look her direction and screamed.

There was blood all over the raft and her entire body had become a pool of unrecognizable body parts and fluids. Her beautiful head was floating in the water alongside and her eyes were cold, yet full of fear and her mouth hung open as she choked on the water. What I could see through the puddle of human mass was her cell phone. She was somehow still alive and saying my name. Her voice got louder and louder through the gurgle of water and then she and the raft were suddenly pulled down into the darkness of the water.

I screamed her name, struggling to reach her. She was gone. I kept screaming her name, calling for help. I looked around in a panic for help, for anything to save Morgan. As I looked around, I saw the silhouette of a man standing on the beach. I screamed at him to help.

Please. Please. Please.

He turned and walked away, leaving me in the water, on my raft, surrounded by Morgan's blood, that was rising to the top of the water. I was alone. Morgan was gone. And her blood was on my hands.