It's Somewhere Beneath Us

Counting Dots

My mind swirled with the dark water that carried us deep into the unknown. Thoughts and memories of Daniel clawed their way to the surface while rational panic held them under. He was gone, but right now, the others weren't, and we were currently barreling down a concrete flight of steps and being violently tossed around in the process. I focused on keeping myself balanced in the water, but it was useless. The currents dragged me down against the steps like a wet rag against a washboard, then slammed me into the walls at every turn. I struggled between surfacing to find Ethan and Bea ahead of me, but my eyes stung from the dirty, frothy murk, and my thoughts were about as steady as the crashing rapids. Dan was gone.

After what felt like an eternity of being thrashed about, I felt myself go into a freefall before breaking the surface of a pool. The rushing water was muffled by the unmoving lake. I stayed still for a moment, not only because of the aching in my body but because I didn't know what else to do. Surface or remain under, the outcome was all the same. We were in over our heads, and it was my fault. At least if I drowned down here, I wouldn't be around to see any more of my friends die.

'Swim up.' I snapped at myself. 'Daniel just died for you. You're not going to throw that away.'

I obeyed and broke the surface, taking in a deep breath of air. I had forgotten how good the feeling was. Around me, a subway station lit with flickering lights was rapidly filling with water. The whole area was already halfway submerged, and ahead I could see Bea and Ethan supporting each other as they crawled out of the water onto a set of steps. Strained and tired, I began to paddle my way over as well. When I reached the stairs, Ethan turned and gave me two looks. One was of relief that I was okay. The other was a realization of what he had seen behind the thin sheet of ice. Slowly, he folded into himself and leaned against the wall before sliding to the floor and burying his face in his knees. I felt like doing the same. I attempted to speak, but no matter how hard I tried to conjure up words of reassurance, none would come out.

Bea circumvented this problem with denial.

"Are you guys okay?" She said, "Where's Dan? He was right behind you, right?" She asked the questions before we even had the chance to answer the first one. Hopping up, she sloshed her way back down into the water, hardly noticing that it was up to her waist. She fixed her eyes on the maintenance door above the tracks that water was currently gushing from and said nothing else.

I forced myself to stand and stepped into the pool with her, "Bea...."

"We have to wait for Dan." She said plainly.

"Bea, Dan's not-" the rest of the sentence hooked into my throat like nettle being torn from a thicket. "He's not coming."

"What do you mean? He was right behind you." Her voice shook as the flood crawled its way up her waist. "He'll be here any second."

I didn't follow up with anything. Just slowly waded next to her and gently grabbed her arm.

"He's going to-" she didn't get to finish before her voice broke along with her tears. She held back choked sobs and turned to me, pounding hard against my chest. "Why did you let go? Why did you let him go, Joel?"

It was a question I wondered myself. In the moment, it all seemed so clear, but now, I didn't know what to think. Bea laid into me a few more times before stumbling from the water and collapsing into my arms. Her grief was muffled by the wet cloth of my jacket. Ethan continued to not move, only keep his head down and hide from the world. I stood there, numb and lost for a few minutes before the feeling of my stomach being submerged jolted me back to the reality of the situation. I didn't want to keep going. I wished that we had never left in the first place. But there was no way back now, and we had come this far. We needed to find the exit, and Dan believed that we could.