I lived to tell the story: A near death experience

When I was 10 years old, I and my family had travelled to the countryside to see grandma.

Anytime she called, the old woman had always insisted that she wanted to see her grandchildren one more time before anything happens to her.

I and my other siblings had been very excited the day dad had announced that we would be travelling to the village since we were done with our examination.

There were three Rivers in my village. The first one was very small . It was a sacred river that was only used for spiritual cleansing. The second one was much bigger and provided all the water needs for the villagers. The third river was at the centre of the four villages that made up to clan. It was far more bigger than the other two and a prominent bridge was built overhead.

Grandma had always warned her grandchildren never to visit this river. "Apart from his beauty, it could also be dangerous, as little children could easily be carried away", she had said.

But these "scary" stories only made us the more eager to explore the river. Before we arrived at our village, we had crossed the bridge and I saw alot of people and children playing at the river and I had wished to join them.

Two days before Christmas, I,my siblings and cousins embarked on a journey to the big river after telling a lie to the elders that we were going to take our bath at the small river.

We kept running till we ran past the small river and laughed.

As usual, There were alot people at the river who were having fun. Some children were playing ball games in the water while others where playing rough. Everyone was happy. I told the other children that the setting looked like one of those scene in those foreign movies where people go to enjoy themselves at a beach.

We became more excited as we quickly undressed and flew into the water to join inthe fun.

A while later, my stepsister started swimming farther away from the rest us. Even though we were almost thesame age, I always had this false impression that I could always do better than her since I was bigger, even though the both of us were not that good at swimming. So, I stopped swimming and kept looking at her in a surprised manner. She kept swimming into the deeper parts of the water and came to a halt at a point I had imagine was not very deep since I could see most parts of her upper body.

She turned around and started laughing and waved at me to come join her. Without thinking, I started swimming excitedly without thinking. I swam in an irregular manner the popular butterfly stroke I had recently learned without even lifting my head to see where I was headed.

As soon as I reached where my stepsister was standing, I placed my hand on the back of her shoulders an d tried to assume a standing position too, but my legs didn't feel any sand underneath.

I became so alarmed that I clutched at my stepsister's arm so tight . And since I was bigger, she lose her balance and together we both drifted and fell deep.

It was then I realized that the area my stepsister was standing was not as shallow as I had thought. Actually, it was very deep and she only stood on a rock that was just few feet in width. And of course only one person could stand on it at a moment.

Twice I tried to bring my head above water but failed as my hand continued to wave above the surface in a desperate signal for help. I started to scream but water filled my mouth and throat.

Out of sheer willpower, I managed to lift my head above the water and I vividly saw my younger brother and cousins beckoning in a distressed manner to the other swimmers to go help me. But the other children didn't pay me any attention. Actually, most of the older children believed I was just kidding because it was quite normal for people to fake drowning just to fool others when they swam to deeper parts of the river....it was part of playing 😆

By the way, they must've seen me swimming towards that direction and they prolly thought I was a great at swimming and I could look after my self.

Folks! That was how I kept drifting downwards. By the time I drifted down again for the fifth time, I became too tired to bring out my head above water again. With the overwhelming force of gravity, the effort was just too much for me and there was no strength left in my body to bring my head to the surface again .

I started crying as I had never imagined that I was going to die so young talkmore of dying this way.... I continued to drop deeper into the recesses of the river.

Then out of the blue, I felt a strong arm wrapped over my body and the person propelled me upwards. I was transported some feet forward from my position till I reached the shallow parts of the water where my feet could now touch the ground.

By this time, my eyes were bloodshot and I began to violently cough out alot of water in a breathless manner. My cousins rushed towards me and carried me out of the river. Everyone surrounded me and my younger brother held me tight and began to cry.

Nearly at thesame time, everyone paused to look around for the guy who had rescued me but we couldn't find him. No one even saw him. No one knew him. News got to the village about what had happened to me but no one could even guess who the person that had saved my life was.

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My mother had always told me about the invisible angels who God had used in performing miracles in our life anytime a servant was in a desperate situation. I guess that would be the only plausible explanation.

Oh! about my stepsister, that one? Lol.... she fought her way out of the river through another route without much difficulties. And I would always think I was stronger! Lol.

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Thanks so much for reading friends ♥️

Really missed you all!