For my dad. Thank you for giving me your napkin after I wrote this on mine.

The moon was waxing, nearly full, reflected on the dark surface of the rippling river. All was silent; there was not even a wind to whip through the leafless trees. 

The girl sat by the river, her blonde hair the only bright thing in the darkness. Her feet were dipped in the cold water, her toes turning blue. She sat on a rock, around which the water lapped gently.

The girl was shivering, clothed in nothing but a crimson red cocktail dress. She was mumbling something, a name perhaps, or a prayer.

She let out a soft cry as a piece of driftwood butted against the rock, memories flooding back.

Laughter floods the air. The blonde girl takes another drink from a passing butler, kissing him on the cheek. Perhaps she has had too much to drink, but so has everyone else on the boat.  Maybe if they hadn't, the night would have unfolded differently, but who could make such a guess?

She does not notice the water until it is lapping against her thighs, threatening to ruin her dress. Her first thought is that she stumbled into a swimming pool, but of course, there isn't one on this little party boat.

Her second thought is that she dropped her champagne, but as she looks around her head clears for a moment. Some people are panicking at the fast-rising water, others continue dancing or laugh at the cool surrounding them.

Before the blonde girl can take a breath, she is underwater, the cold around her. She is still drunk enough to think of her smudged makeup and lost heels before the freezing water shocks her sober, and then she is reaching for the surface, taking a gasping breath. She glimpses others thrashing in the water. 

Already, she can see less of her friends than she remembered inviting to her party.

Soon, she washes up on a rocky beach. She sputters, coughing the water from her lungs.

She cannot see the boat or her friends, the river has washed her too far downstream. 

She curls in on herself, perched atop a rock, and sits there, staring and reliving until the cold takes her.

She can see her body, so frail, falling slowly from a rock into the water. She looks on, just as the lights of a police boat flicker not far upstream.

Please give me feedback, and if any of you wants to, go ahead and make me a cover for this story. I'll pay you in whatever follows, votes etc you want!