Now You See Me

Thirty-Six: Blue Savannah

"Did you get through okay? No cuts?"

"You sound like your mother." Chris drifted forwards and came to a stop just short of me, giving himself a cursory onceover for open wounds while I did the same. It was strange; in the unforgiving darkness of the caves and tunnels, despite being underwater with him the entire time, I'd almost fully convinced myself that I'd imagined everything that had happened in the lab. Seeing him using his tail, with his scales glittering in the weak light, made me feel guilty and uncomfortable all over again.

"Come on, let's get into clean water. I feel fricking violated by this place." Chris looked back through the grate as he spoke, and his look of deep disgust lingered still when he turned back to face me. "We're inhaling...." He trailed off and shuddered violently.

Moments later he swam past me towards the light I had spotted from inside the watery burial chamber. It wasn't huge - it was only just visible – and I felt like I was taking a risk by hoping it was what we thought it was. Leia was still frustratingly silent, and it made me feel more vulnerable than it should have.

"Chris, slow down," I called, as he began to merge with the gloom. He paused and looked back.

"I can see it," he said, and I didn't remember ever hearing him so excited. "Hurry up, Damien! I can see the damn thing!"

"Is it an exit?" I asked, propelling myself forwards with a strong beat of my tail.

"Looks like one."

He began to move again, but slower this time. He wobbled slightly when he tried too hard to control his movements, ungainly from lack of practice with a tail. I was under no illusion that I was much better, but I was very sure that I at least swam with more confidence in its ability to support me. Watching him struggle gave me the strange urge to wrap my arms around him and guide him myself, which in turn led to a strange, hot, but not unpleasant sensation flooding me. It was tainted somewhat by a hideous guilt.

We both stopped at the same time minutes later, and glanced at each other.

"Do you hear that?" I asked. A disbelieving smile was already breaking out on his face.

"It's a tide," he whispered. "It sounds like a tide!"

Some strange emotion was swelling in my chest at this proximity to the sea; a release from weeks of longing to be in it, and we were so close. I could almost taste it; it was beautiful. I began to move towards the hole in the wall of the tunnel, the light from which became a deep aqua blue when viewed close up. I felt Chris's hand close around my arm, and resisted a wild urge to fight him off me. I'd waited so long for this; I needed it; what right did he have to stop me and why didn't he feel the same?

I looked at his face, and his expression cut through my excitement. He looked terrified, and the fear seemed to have come on just as abruptly as my relief. He looked at the escape route, and then back the way we'd come, and then up at the ceiling as if he was hoping that a third option would materialise there.

"This has got to be better, right?" I asked him, inclining my head towards the exit. "It has to be."

"Yeah." He didn't look at all convinced. I frowned.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing," he said quickly, when he saw the look on my face. "I'm being stupid."

"Chris –"

"Let's go." He blanked my attempts to catch his attention as he swam by, disappearing through the gap into the blue expanse beyond it. I peered out behind him, heart catching in my throat. We were close to the surface here; only an inch or two of the rock above the opening was actually submerged. Using my hands to propel me, I pushed myself out, and began to slowly sink into blissfully deep water. I closed my eyes and let it flow past me, enveloping my body, running through my gills like silk. There was nothing about it that was extraordinary, in reality. The relief was just so great that the whole experience carried with it the ethereal quality of a pleasant dream.