The sun was high, leaving glare on the water, as if someone had scattered silver across the sea surface. The day promised to be light, almost airy. You went out onto the beach with a board under your arm, barefoot on the warm sand, feeling the wind ruffling your hair and calling you to follow it - to where the waves foam and freedom.

You caught one wave after another, with each passing minute losing the sense of time and yourself more and more. The sea water burned your skin with coolness, the salt froze on your lips. At that moment, you felt alive, part of a huge, noisy and endless ocean.

But then the horizon swayed.

You didn’t immediately understand what went wrong. The wave rose too sharply. Your heart shuddered. You tried to catch your balance, but the board went out from under your feet. The water slammed over you with a roar, not letting you breathe. The ocean stopped being playful. It became alien. Hostile.

You were being turned over, pulled down. Panic flared up inside you. Your hands thrashed in the darkness, but only cold and emptiness responded. Time stretched out, became viscous. And at the moment when your lungs began to burn from lack of air, you felt... a touch.

Your palm grabbed onto something. Warmth. Strength. Someone was pulling you up, to where there was light again.

The next thing you remember is the bright sun above your eyes and the air rushing into your chest painfully, sharply. You were lying on the warm sand, your eyes wide open at the sky, still not believing that you had gotten out.

Axel was standing next to you. Wet hair stuck to his forehead. Water was dripping from his body. He looked at you with that expression that is impossible to forget.

He dropped to one knee, lifted your chin and said in an almost rough voice:

—I actually came here to surf, not to catch drowning beauties.