The world goes dark.
My flailing arms are now sluggish, fighting against the thick force around them. What I thought was searing pain before is only worsened with movement and the salt of the sea.
This is nothing like the pool. There’s no ground under my feet, no way to stand when I feel overwhelmed, no Weston to save me. Rough currents flip my body over it self, and I can’t determine which way is up. I kick and kick, hoping it’s the right way.
Please be the right way.
My chest burns and squeezes. It’s too far. My vision blurs, and panic takes over my body as I fight the treacherous water.
Air.
I need air.
Kicking and fighting the urge to breathe in, remembering Jorn only yesterday, his lips as blue as the water I’m immersed in. I kick harder, toward the space above me, the space that is lightening.
The gasp that erupts from my throat as I break the surface hurts, and I heave the air in and out, the tears seeping from my eyes mixing with the rivulets running down my face. Before I can get my bearings, waves crash over me, rolling me under again. I flail, trying not to lose sight of the surface when fingers grasp mine and tug. I squeeze them and hold tightly until I break the surface again, to find Sig bobbing next to me and clutching me to her.
“We need to get to the rocks,” she yells over the crash of the waves around us.
The weight of my soaked clothes pulls me down, and my arm is useless. Sig swims to the side with perfect strokes and I try to follow, kicking and paddling slowly behind her, trying to make it before the next wave comes crashing down on us.
We reach a large sharp rock jutting out of the sea, and I grab hold, clinging as hard as I can with only one arm as my chest still heaves breaths. I dare to glance up at the top of the cliff and find Mara pacing back and forth, scanning the water below.
“Shit, Mara’s still up there. She’s looking for us,” I say.
Sig walks her hands around the back of the rock, gesturing for me to follow. We sink low into the water, trying to stay hidden. I don’t know what she can see from her vantage point, but maybe she will think the water took us. She probably still thinks I don’t know how to swim.
Mara continues pacing until she lets out a feral yell, the sound muffled by the crash of the water around us. We wait a few moments longer after she disappears from the edge, pulling our shoulders farther out of the crashing surf.
“How’s your arm?” Sig asks.
“Pretty bad. I can’t really use it.”
Her jaw ticks and she looks past the rock toward the island. There’s no beach under the cliffs, the sheer face extending directly into the sea.
“We need to make it back. The entire way, I want you to think really hard about needing safety, alright?”
I nod. Is that how portals appear? Have the Castaways figured out how to ask the island for help? Is that how Weston snuck through the back of the cave when I couldn’t?
I’ll have to ask Sig later, because right now, I need to focus on safety. I won’t be able to swim around the island like this, so I have no choice but to beg Dawnlin to help.
Sig starts toward land and I paddle behind her with one arm, struggling to stay above the surface. I focus on safety, just like Sig told me to the entire way. The last bit of distance disappears as the waves push us into the cliff. We cling to the rock as waves pound at our backs.
We’re barely there a moment before the rock above us begins to shift, disappearing where we clutch it, forming a rock ledge that leads straight into the wall.
“Thank the gods,” Sig breathes.
She reaches over and yanks me up, my feet kicking for purchase to pull my body up into the opening. I gasp and grunt as I fall down onto my arm, rolling quickly to my other side to get the pressure off it.
Sig pushes herself over the edge, her upper body falling into the opening until she can crawl forward on her elbows. The moment we are both inside, the wall seals shut again and we’recast in darkness. Neither of us moves, the sound of our panting filling the tight space.
I don’t regret anything that just happened, although my body is screaming otherwise, and I know I’ll have to answer to Weston later.
Roley is safe, and hopefully relatively unharmed. But Mara?
This is not at all how I expected this shift to go.
“We need to get back to the lookout. We shouldn’t try to get back to the ship in the daylight.”
