Thirty Nine Minutes (COMPLETE)

Chapter Twenty Two: Thirty Nine Minutes

He was being pulled down.

Thrashing didn't seem to help, it only tangled him further in the thick and heavy folds of fabric.

Don't breathe. Don't breathe. He had to swallow the panic as it screamed at him to take a lungful of air. Take inventory. Count backwards from ten.

Craig shut his eyes.

Ten.

Nine.

His lungs stopped protesting.

Eight.

Seven.

He counted his fingers, and they went lax along with his arms.

Six.

Five.

Four.

His tail went heavy as the muscles calmed.

Three.

Two.

One.

His eyes opened. It was still dark, but the overwhelming desire to surface was, at least for now, muted. Don't look down. Not yet. He let himself descend, biting his tongue as he watched the rippling shadow of the boat become fainter. If he could see the surface, he could swim to the surface at least. At least, in theory.

David was up there. How he got there, Craig couldn't even begin to imagine. But he knew that if he went back up, David would take him back into his care, and his attempt to find Helen would be lost forever. A single, fleeting fear flashed for Neil up there with David, but for now, there was nothing Craig could do.

What he could do right now, was find Helen, but that would mean swimming into the dark tunnel. It was the darkness he feared the most, the bottomless darkness threatening to pull him down. No. Stop focusing on it. Find Helen.

The mouth of the cave stood open, but hardly inviting. Craig pulled off the last of the fabric and with all the alacrity of an aged sloth, swam to its entrance and towards its innards. He only had one defence against his fear.

He counted each minute. So far, he had been under the water for two minutes. He had thirty six minutes remaining to find her. He began to beat his tail a little faster, propelling his body with surprising ease. Almost his entire life he'd been confined to pools where he'd have to lap. Here, there were no obvious walls, just the jagged stone and pebbles that now swallowed him as he swam further in.

Thirty five minutes left. He turned a corner, and met pitch blackness. All the rays of the sun had melted away, and a wall of darkness stood before him.

The panic crept up. He swallowed it back down. Find Helen.

The stones that decorated the floor glowed. He looked down. His tail shimmered and shone, along with his arms. Craig really had to fight not to take a gasp of breath in disbelief. His entire body was alight with lines of glowing fire. They seemed to decorate his entire torso, right up to his head. He had become the perfect torch to navigate this place. It eased his mind a little.

The familiar sound of bubbles from a respirator interrupted the still water. But not from ahead, behind him, at the mouth of the cave. Craig whirled in the water, making the light dance in the ripples as he did. Black pvc diving suits surrounded by a cocoon of air advanced towards him.

A whip of rapidly moving water, and a searing pain embedding in his arm. Craig almost did take a breath as the small, jagged harpoon embedded into his arm. He had to move, at that moment, he was nothing more than a giant neon target for the divers to hit. Only one option remained, and with seconds to even consider it, he broke off the harpoon as best he could.

Acting as quick as a the harpoon just before, he spun up and around, aiming for the small opening that led further into the cave.

Thirty four minutes left. He twisted down into the cave, grabbing anything he could for purchase. Hands gripped the base of his tail but he struck them off with relative ease, clawing his way further down. Luckily, his body was still aglow, at least.

At thirty three minutes, Craig spotted a place that seemed to widen out, and he began to thrash with his tail in an attempt to loosen the rocks behind him, pulling himself forward. It was a risky move, but his mind wasn't really in a place to really be thinking straight. He just wanted to put as many rocks between him and those divers as possible.

Thirty two minutes. Craig pulled himself out into a cave with a window too small to swim through at the top. Helen wasn't here, the only evidence was a smallish tunnel down and to the left. Now, it was the only way to go as dust billowed out from the rocks he'd just blocked the previous tunnel with.

His lungs hurt as they remembered the panic that still threatened to drown them. Focus on Helen. Find her first. He had no idea how much air she might have left in her tank, or his lungs, for that matter.

It took the best part of seven minutes to worm and wriggle down the tunnel. Only twenty five minutes remained. His mind was trying to convince him to find an air pocket but he knew he had enough time. By the time he finally found an open cavern to stretch out in, he was down to fifteen minutes. But now, he faced a dilemma. 

Two paths. The cavern branched both left and right. Glowing barbs under his skin wouldn't help him here.

Fourteen minutes. He'd have to make a blind choice. Tentatively, he reached one arm into the mouth of the left cave, as if lighting up the first meter would inform him of the way to go. Unsurprisingly, it provided little insight.

Thirteen minutes. Helen can't have been too much further ahead. But which way? Craig shut his eyes, almost instinctively, and sensed there was more dust and snow disturbed down the left tunnel, and floated around like lazy motes. He took a gamble, and squeezed down the tunnel.

On and on it went. Twelve, eleven, ten minutes left. The minutes seemed to race by, and there was no end in sight. His shoulder was throbbing by now. How did Helen even see down here?

Nine minutes, nothing but blackness before him.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five. His eyes were getting heavier, and his lungs really did begin to burn.

Four.

Three…

Two…

One. His thirty eight minutes were up, and he reached out to find a smooth, metallic cylinder right beside him. His throat opened in its desperation to find air, but found nothing.

*****

Helen didn't have much time. She was stranded at this tiny air pocket now her air tank had run out. Treading water wasn't as easy as it was in the pool, and she was so unbearably tired.

Bubbles blew up from under her feet, and as she looked down from keeping her face above the surface, she saw, to her disbelief, an incandescent Craig writhing with his own hands about his neck.

It must have been a dream.