Then Into The Abyss
THEN: INTO THE ABYSS
Tired lungs scream for air.
It’s the paradox of drowning. A scratchy, dry throat from the wet death flooding in.
Terrified tears stream down my face, mixing with the murky lake water. I’ve given up struggling to free myself. Now, it’s just a bitter tread until my arms and free leg give out.
They caught me, learned my secret and executed a sentence to match. For years this lake was my escape from a life I didn’t want. Now, it would be my death.
The chain around my ankle bites into my skin as my useless leg jerks against the weight holding me prisoner. Eighteen feet below, an anchor attached to the other end of the chain carves a groove into thick sediment I can’t see.
Just ten yards away, the shoreline taunts me. In the ultimate act of torture, they dropped me close enough that I can feel salvation but never attain it. I see the indentation in the tall grasses where I hid to write my traitorous thoughts and plot my escape to a different life.
A rush of water pours over my head as my cramped arms fail.
Panic surges through me.
Icy bursts of adrenaline send me back to the surface where I pull in a gasp of air. I will my body to fight harder. I’m not ready to die. At seventeen, I no longer believe in hope, but I do believe in honoring the hard-fought years behind me with an expectation of more.
But I’m losing.
Another slip below the surface leaves me coughing when I force my head back up. My arms are giving out. My lungs. God, everything is breaking down and I’m still no closer to freedom.
I pool my strength for one last desperate tug against the chain holding me captive. The metal scrapes my raw skin, but like every other time, the effort only results in a fresh ripple of despair.
Maybe it’s better if I give up. It’s what they want, right? What they expect.
It would be so easy to let go and drift… drift… drift…
I close my eyes, settling into the embrace of a strange peace. Death can be a reward as much as a punishment. Would sinking into oblivion be so bad? All that’s waiting for me on the shore is more of this.
My eyes snap open when I sense movement. Sure enough, a figure dressed in all black is making its way along the lakebed to the small dock just forty feet away. The boat that delivered me to my living grave is still tied to a weathered post.
Fear rips through me when I realize what’s happening. I’m not dying fast enough. They’re sending someone to finish the job and collect the body.
There’s no chance for me now. I can’t fight the water and a murderer at the same time.
Fear becomes terror when I see it’s Razor, one of their most trusted soldiers. I’ve been afraid of that man for as long as I can remember.
My executioner drops a heavy pack on the dock, and I suck back a few embarrassing sobs as he climbs into the boat.
“No, no, no.” I hate that I’m whimpering, but the child long buried inside me is clawing his way out.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
Please!
Wooden oars slice through the water. With smooth violence, they shove the boat closer and closer.
“I’m sorry!” I cry. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please! Please don’t do this. Please.”
Tears choke my broken lungs. Sear my icy skin.
But the boat keeps coming, its occupant unreadable in the thickening veil of dusk.
Adrenaline rages through me as I flail and sob.
“Razor, please! I wasn’t going to run! I swear… Please don’t do this! Please! I’ll stay! Tell them I’ll stay!”
The old man’s jaw is set in determination. He won’t even look at me.
Stroke. Swish.
Stroke. Swish.
Steady, steady—the opposite of my erratic heart.
Will he push me under or use a gun? Or worse, a knife? I’ve spent my life surrounded by both, but it’s the knives I always feared more than the guns. One is a weapon. The other is a grisly paintbrush.
My broken sobs are louder now, skimming along the surface of the water and colliding with the splash of the oar. He’s only a few feet away, his face a cadaverous shadow.
I command my arms to react as he closes the final gap. If I’m going to die, I want it to be as an opponent, not a victim.
But nothing happens when my brain issues the command. My muscles, my limbs, everything is just… depleted. There’s nothing left as my head dips under again.
Rancid water rushes into my lungs. A panicked gasp for air sends another surge down my throat. My brain is screaming for oxygen, but all it’s getting is chaotic flashes of movement and ripples of darkness.
My watery prison becomes infinite as a rough hand grasps my arm to shove me further down.
Tears mingle with the brown water and debris. My heart screams appeals no one will ever hear.
I’m going die. I’ll disappear and be forgotten like they always said I would.
No one will ever know about the tragic boy who never had a chance.
Except…
I’m rising.
Water runs down my cheeks as my starved lungs gag on an overdue breath.
“It’s okay, son,” a rough voice soothes with unpracticed emotion. “It’s going to be okay.”
He’s blurry through a sheen of lake water and tears.
“You’re okay.” His words clash with my choked sobs. “You’re the strongest damn person I’ve ever met.”
He yanks harder and shoves a rescue tube beneath my arms.
“Hold on.”
I wrap my aching limbs around the floating device as he slips into the water. I’m still too stunned to react as he disappears below the surface. The panic returns when pressure around my ankle tugs me down a few inches, but it releases just as quickly. My left leg moves freely for the first time in what feels like an eternity.
Razor resurfaces and climbs back into the boat. He holds out an old, knotted hand.
For seventeen years, I’ve been afraid of that hand. Now, it’s reaching for me with a different message.
Salvation. Hope.
I grasp his palm, and he lifts me higher. His other hand loops under my shoulder to drag me out of the water. I use every ounce of strength I have left to flip myself into the boat.
My chest burns as I shiver against a deep cold. It assaults me from inside and out, coating my body, my soul. I’ve never felt anything like it.
This must be what death feels like.
I briefly wonder if the cold might be worse than the drowning, until a warm jacket slides around my trembling shoulders. Heat from another body infuses into mine.
I lift confused, broken eyes to my killer-turned-savior.
“It’s not supposed to be like this, son. You’re not wired for this life.” His tone is gruff but gentle at the same time, like he’s speaking with anger meant for something else.
No words make their way from my damaged throat. There’s nothing left inside me except a crushing fear of the watery abyss.
Well, there wasn’t.
Now, a tiny sliver of hope is filling one of the endless cracks inside me.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he says. “I have a change of clothes and supplies on the dock. They won’t know we’re missing for at least twelve hours. That’ll get us a good head start.”
“A h-head start?”
“You’re not going back there, son. What they did—what they’ve done your whole life…” He shakes his head. “No more. It’s over, okay?”
It’s over.
I’ve wanted to hear those words for so long, but I always assumed they’d be accompanying my death, not a new life.
I stare at the man I’ve misjudged, the last person I would expect to reach into my nightmare and pull me out. Warmth blossoms in my chest. I pull the jacket tighter around my shoulders.
”R-razor…?” The name stutters from my trembling lips, still frozen and lifeless.
He cringes and shakes his head with iron resolve. “No. I’m not Razor anymore. Call me something else. Fucking anything else.”