"Can you be the victim?"

I never post on here except for comments, but I was working on a paper for my masters class and it put me in the writing mood. So here I am..Several years ago, I was training to be a lifeguard. Funny job for someone who has thalassophobia lol. Anyway. I was in a week long lifeguard course a few weeks after I graduated high school. I figured it would be a fun job. Well in the course, we learned various methods of "saving" or rescuing distress/drowning victims. The instructor of the course would always pick someone different to "go be the victim." Our job was to either be a conscious, distressed swimmer, or an unconscious victim at the top of the water, or completely submerged at the bottom of the pool. In broad daylight with a crystal clear blue pool, being a victim was no problem for me.The last few days of our training, we went to this old, inner city YMCA that was built in the 40s. The two indoor pools in the Y looked old and creepy, sorta like something out of a horror movie. So my instructor looked at us once we all arrived for training and said "okay, today we are going to the deep water pool." We were all brought into this poorly lit room with a big, deep water pool. The shallowest point was 7 feet, and the deepest was 15. After trying a few deep water rescues with our partners, the instructor asked everyone get out of the pool. Then he looked at me and asked if I would be the victim. He wanted me to jump in, submerge myself passively at the bottom of the deepest part, and someone would rescue me. I was extremely reluctant, but with 15 other people watching, I jumped in and sunk to the bottom, grabbed my knees...and waited...for what felt like forever.Then I opened my eyes and saw nothing but dark blue. I was the only one in that pool, felt completely alone. Unable to breathe. I thought "nope. I can't do this anymore" and pushed myself up to resurface. The instructor apologized because he was telling the person to rescue me how to do a deep water rescue. He asked me to try again. So again, I submerged myself, sank to the bottom and sat there. Waiting. I finally felt the rescuer put his arms around me, so I just played my role and was limp.I can't imagine (really) being alone, in a dark body of water...shudderstl;dr I was in a lifeguard training class and was chosen to be the deep water victim in a dark, creepy pool.