Ever since I was a little girl, I loved the sea. It was my favourite place to visit. Even in the winter, I would take long walks on the beach alone or with friends. That’s why, in the summer, my family would rent a house by the beach and I would go out every day swimming and having fun.Unfortunately, last summer, a terrible accident occurred that made me change my mind about this amazing but dangerous place and made me see life differently and become a lot more careful.

It all started when my brother got injured playing football just before the summer which made him unable to swim with me and watch over me. However, we still rented a beach house and passed our holidays there. At first, my parents didn’t approve on me swimming alone because of its dangers, but when they started noticing me getting sadder and bored, they allowed me to go out but only if there were people around. And regretfully, I didn’t listen.                                                                                                                                     One night, I missed how I used to go out at dawn with my brother and enjoy the sea while the sun rises from the horizon, so, I got out secretly planning to come back before my parents would wake up and realize me missing.                                                            There were only a few countable people in this wide dark sea. It was a lot of fun until, without noticing, I started going deeper and deeper because I was carried away by the current.                                                                                                             

After spending about half an hour, I started noticing some darkish blue things popping out of the water. At first I didn’t pay much attention to them but when I was returning home, I realized that I was way too far from my destination. So, I swam and swam until I was interrupted by the same blue things that I saw. I focused on them a bit until I realized that they were a group of sharks. I was freaked out, I didn’t know what to do and the first thing that popped to my head was to scream and in this case that was the thing that saved me, because that same scream made this teenager that was a bit near me realize what happened and come to help me. During which, I was frozen; I couldn’t move a finger, I almost passed out but when I saw this boy coming to rescue me, I came back to my senses and started swimming as fast as I could but sadly, that wasn’t fast enough: one of the sharks chased me and bit me in the leg. Neither pain nor shock was the one that made me lose conscience, it was fear: the fear of losing my life because of a stupid mistake and at such young age without fulfilling any accomplishments but luckily, this wasn’t the time of my death and I owe that to the man that reached me right before I completely drowned into the water and the shark attacked me again. He hit the animal with all the strength that he could find in himself until it ran away then got me to safety. After what seemed days to my family and what was actually about half an hour, I woke up in my bedroom painless but a little dizzy so I didn’t notice that I was surrounded by a doctor, the boy who saved me and my family.                                                                                                                           

At first I thought that it was just a crazy dream that seemed very realistic but when I leaned forward a little bit, I saw a bandage around my leg filled with blood and I noticed later that the boy’s wrist was twisted. When I first opened my eyes, my mother yelled of joy while hiding her tears from me, my father held me in his arms like he hadn’t seen me in decades and my brother made this sigh of relief and looked at me smiling  in a way that I never saw before. The doctor waited a moment then explained to me what happened and told me that I was too injured to be carried to a hospital so he was brought here then told me that I needed to stay in bed for a few days to rest and let my leg heal. When I understood what happened, I thanked the teenager who was named Jack for the amazing effort he did to save me and told him that I was very sorry about injuring his wrist. After a while, Jack and I became really close friends and I hope that someday I will be able to repay him but I doubt it because what he did for me was far too great to be replaced by a simple favor.                                                                                                                             

As for my family, they ordered me to never go alone to the beach although, I didn’t really need further reprimanding because I truly regretted what I did, and I would never do it again. This experience might have gave me a lot of injuries but it also made me a lot less reckless but not less stubborn and it made me meet a great person and a wonderful friend that stuck with me no matter what and helped me in plenty of other issues later on. I hope that you would take this adventure as a caution story because if this happened to you, you might not be as lucky as I am so, think before you act because life is too short.