[Original Novel] Pressure 2: Dark Corners, Part 8

^{Previous parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}

His muscles burned, not just from exertion but because he’d long since had to leave the mouthpiece behind and his body craved oxygen. Of course without any training in free diving, that sensation is initially more of a recommendation than a demand. He knew it could be ignored for a minute or so.

Every muscle in his core wanted to suck in water, but drawing his diaphragm up and making his chest rigid alleviated the stress somewhat. Hand over hand, eyes burning from the salt, drawing ever closer to the hatch. The single, narrow path to survival. The gateway to dry warmth and light. To Hank and Olivia. The hatch that was now swinging shut.

Jamming his arm in the opening was a gamble. The motor drawing the hatch shut might’ve been much stronger. There was no real need for that from an engineering standpoint, it was not the motor but the screw-driven clamps which sealed the door once shut. The force was instead firm but not in excess of his own strength; His whole body now aching for oxygen, James wedged his shoulder, then his chest, and finally his whole body between the hatch and the rim.

Getting leverage to push on it with his legs was the key, and as soon as he’d secured enough clearance, he tumbled into the chamber. Four clangs signified a dry seal and instantly he felt a sharp pressure on his eardrums as compressed hydrox gas forced the seawater out through check valves in the floor. Placing a finger in one ear, he withdrew it to find it covered in blood.

The salty copper flavor on his tongue told him that his nose was bleeding too, and he was having difficulty focusing his eyes. Not a good sign. James wondered how many more seconds of consciousness he had, and began to count. He didn’t make it to three.

After the usual routine of picking himself up off the cold concrete floor of the foundry and getting his bearings, James set off for the stairwell. He had no intention of descending it this time. Instead, the moment he confirmed that the umbilical was where he remembered it, he began a new expedition to locate the other end. His last attempt wasn’t especially revealing.

The cord’s point of origin was concealed by the rolling fog blanketing the lower half of the monstrous cavern, although it could just as easily be the point of termination. There was a sense of defiance, like the whole thing was a puzzle designed to be unsolvable and his job was to find some overlooked seam he could pry into.

He gripped the cord. It was cool and moist to the touch, mildly repulsive but keeping one hand on it reassured James that it wouldn’t suddenly vanish, or withdraw, or otherwise frustrate his efforts to trace it.

Finally he found himself in something resembling a boiler room. Pipes lining the walls vibrated slightly, blending their metallic rattling with the already deafening sound of churning water. The furthest corner of the room was dark, conspicuously so as the room was lit in such a way that it shouldn’t be.

James inched along the umbilical hand over hand until he could peer around the hulking central pipe at the darkened corner beyond it. The umbilical lifted from the floor about ten feet ahead of him and undulated weightlessly as it did in the cavern, trailing off into the shadowy blotch ahead. It was an unnatural darkness. Not caused by lack of light so far as he could tell, but having a definite volume to it.

His first inclination was to pass his hand through it as an experiment. Before he could reach out, something began to emerge from the rift. Lily white skin dripping with sweat stretched over an incoherent jumble of bones. The mass slowly resolved itself as a shameful mockery of the human form.

Feelings of panic and nausea welled up inside James as it turned to face him. Every second intensified his anxiety until by force of will, rather than gaze directly upon the thing, James withdrew from the foundry and returned to the waking world.

“His eyes are moving.” Confusion set in. James felt intolerably hot, and someone’s fingers were forcibly spreading his eyelids open. He thrashed in protest. “Settle down. You collapsed during decompression. It’s not the bends, happened as soon as the chamber purged. I timed it to make sure you did your full 6 hours, the gut bacteria did their job, everything checks out in the procedural sense. It’s the open water swim that broke you.”

Mercifully, whoever the voice came from had stopped trying to force his eyes open. Once the feeling of lightheadedness left him James took it upon himself to crack open his eyes a bit. He found himself nude, propped up in a steel tub filled with steaming hot water. Hank and Olivia knelt beside it. His embarrassment subsided somewhat when he realized they’d saved his life.

“Looking good, color’s returning. Your pulse was so faint when we pulled you from the deco chamber I thought you were past saving. Olivia refused to believe it. I don’t know how you survived a two hundred foot free dive through near freezing water at these pressures, but here you are. I’ve heard it plays tricks with your perception, can’t begin to imagine what you saw.”

James opened his mouth, thinking back on his tiny luminous visitors outside the cell, but thought better of it. “Finish recovering and tell us over those beers I promised. The Navy pilots disappeared a few hours ago, no sign of them since. It’s weird, no question about it, but you know what they say about gift horses. Olivia, call me if he takes a turn for the worse. I’m going to see if I can find more meds.” Hank rose to his feet, towering over James on those long spindly legs, and strode out of view.

“So, did you see anything strange out there?” Olivia’s earnest look suddenly reminded James he was nude. His expression must’ve communicated that, as she made a visible effort to look anywhere but into the water.

“I...I ask because...Hank and I saw some strange things inside, while you were gone. We’re still not agreed as to whether they’re real or hallucinations.” James raise an eyebrow. “I might’ve. You go first, though.” She smiled, briefly glimpsed downward, then blushed and renewed her efforts to pretend that there was something incredibly interesting on the far wall that commanded her attention instead.

“I don’t know quite how to describe it. It was like a dream, but with the same clarity as waking life. And I wasn’t asleep for it, according to Hank for the entire duration of this...hallucination? I was walking with him, talking, laughing, saying things I don’t remember saying as if I was awake the entire time. Whoever that was, it wasn’t me. I was somewhere else.”

“I’ve shared my most private dreams with you for months” James offered. “I think I’ll enjoy being on the other end for a change. Let’s hear it.” Olivia furrowed her brow. “That’s it, though. I’m not convinced this was my dream. I mean, it’s not something my subconscious would ever come up with. And like I said, I seemed awake to everyone around me while I was experiencing it.”

The more she talked about it the more distraught she became. He wanted to comfort her, but also to hear more in the way of details. Olivia’s unusual episode was beginning to sound familiar. “I thought maybe it was pressure related. That’s known to cause hallucinations if you’re not acclimated to it. But internal atmospherics all report normal. That’s why Hank wanted to know if you suffered similar hallucinations. If that’s what they were.” Sounded like Hank. Eliminate all the mundane explanations first.

“I found myself wandering the halls of my primary school as a little girl. It was abandoned, and falling apart as if hundreds of years had passed since anyone else inhabited it. All doors were locked save for one that hung open as if inviting me in. I found a student laboratory, bare of supplies except for one table with two mountainous piles of clay. Everywhere else colors were muted or nonexistent, but one pile of clay was a very deep red and the other radiantly white. I thought it strange they should be here, and not in a crafts room, but instinctively began to sculpt with them.”

“It felt nothing like clay to the touch. Both the red and the white felt warm and soft in my hands. I found that two pieces would merge when touching to create any shade of red or pink, depending on the ratio I combined them in. I next found that when I sculpted from these different shades, they became living tissue of different kinds. With pure red clay I could fashion muscles, arteries, and blood. With the right shade of pink I could sculpt living brains, lungs, and skin. With white I could make eyes, bones and teeth.”

“The moment I added each to the growing sculpture it became real flesh. I was so enamored with it that I didn’t pay close attention to what I was actually making until it began gurgling in pain. It was a monstrosity. An abstract, misshapen pile of living tissue, obviously suffering. I watched for a while as it wheezed, pulsated and struggled to live. But then I remembered, I was the one who created this error. I was responsible for its suffering, and obligated to end it. Tears rolled down my face as I stabbed at it with the sculpting knife, smashed it, tore it to pieces, as much to end its agony as to relieve my own embarrassment.”

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 9!}