In Search of the Unknown Chaptered Version

Part 2

We scoped out the place, seeing when the janitor left, how to get in, how to be as quiet as possible. We made sure there was no room for error, especially since we would be punished even if we weren't homosexual.

I was so excited when the day finally came. We parked in a parking lot far from the school and walked there. We talked, made jokes, did a bit of flirting.

When we made it, just before we crawled through the tiny window into the school pool, Joshua kissed me. I will never forget that moment.

Joshua crawled in first since he was skinnier than me, and I would take some time to get through. Once he got down, he signaled me to go next, as he walked through the lockers into where the pool was. He teased me for how long it was taking when he suddenly went silent. I got worried and crawled through the window as quickly as I could. He could have been caught by the Janitor or worst security. I landed on the tile floor hard and ran to see what happened.

Standing at the opening, completely still and quiet was Joshua. He seemed to be staring into the pool. I stood by him and was about to chew him out for making me so worried. Then I saw what he was glaring at with so much intensity.

It's hard to describe this, but the pool had no bottom. It just went down and from as far as I could tell infinitely. It was this bottomless, water-filled rectangular drop. It went so far down that light did not reach and you could see the border where light ends, and complete darkness begins. On the border, the shadows seemed jagged like mountains. It looked like it was trying to crawl and expand.

The darkness was mesmerizing, so grand it felt like it was going to consume us completely. It reminded me of space, and its infiniteness and depth lessness. I felt an existential dread from it that boils my blood and trains my eyes when I think of it.

I had the feeling it was calling for us. To jump in the vastness of the pool and become one in a careless universe. It felt like a force of nature like it was always there, yet we ignored it because our feeble minds could never understand something that seemed so impossible. It shattered my reality and made me think deeper and deeper until I had the sense I was being crushed and my lungs were being filled with liquid.

It nauseated me, and I had to run into one of the bathrooms where I puked. When I came back, I saw Joshua in the pool, the infinite just below him. He told me to come with him, that we had to see what was at the bottom, that he had to see. I was wary of this, I felt terrified. Yet, I had to go, because from the look I saw in his eyes, he would've gone without me. So, we both dived in, swimming deeper and deeper. The water felt warm, it's heat increasing to the point of feeling unbearable. The pressure was slowly crushing us, but we kept going. That is until something began to push us up to the surface, and no matter how much we put into our swimming, we kept going up. We both gasped for air when we made up. Joshua and I climbed up. He sat at the edge of the pool, starring with this look of confusion and incredulous. He seemed angry and even betrayed at the pool. He turned to me.

"Why was I not accepted"

I began to feel scared. I asked him what he meant.

"Why won't it take me down, why does it reject me like everything else!" He burst out.

He began to weep.

That's when I asked if we could go, and Joshua reluctantly said yes.

After that night things felt weird with Joshua. He began to zone out more. He became tired and more obsessive over things.

The thing that bothered me most was when he bought heavyweights and rope.

That I had to talk to him about. He told me he was going to see what was down there, that he couldn't handle not knowing. Nothing would stop him.