Chapter Eight ~ P1:
I was a net; pilfering my consciousness from null to resonate with me once more. A low thrum radiating from the front of my head to spread throughout its entirety, consuming every thought as an undertone of agony. With the consciousness though, there came the knowledge that I was underwater.
The familiar atoms that formed water clung tightly to my body, squeezing against any kind of entry it can find to become one with the seventy percent of the water that dwelled within me.
My head snapped from left to right and made out nothing but a heavily saturated shade of blue. The water had the kind of emptiness outer space would, the kind that you know it has literally everything in it, but due to its expanse, it seemed as if it had nothing at all.
I threaded through the density of the water, propelling my body weight to the surface to supply myself once more with the gift that was oxygen.
I touched my forehead and felt a foreign-watery consistency — a consistency that also seemed a bit sticky. I looked at it; it was blood.
A sigh warmed the coldness of my lips as my eyes sought refuge and, given the fact it found nothing beyond the shade of blue, I gave up.
I floated at the surface, my back laid buoyantly as the water carefully cooled my sides. The sun wasn't as bright, but the sky was a light shade of blue. It was beautiful and simple; I liked that.
From the air, I borrowed a breath that completely filled my lungs to its capacity, only to send it all the way back as a new gas. I laid on my back and imagined what the stars may look like tonight. What am I kidding? They're going to look the same, just as they always do. I longed to have that kind of consistency, but sadly, I was just a human. No, I was just me. How could I blame my kind for something billions of them do relentlessly? That's not fair.
In the distance, beyond my sight, there was a splashing sound. I removed myself from the position in which I resided and threaded inconspicuously toward it. My fingers snatched something up. It was a note in a bottle.
I popped the cork and retrieved the note within. Though it was hard to not wet the note, I managed to keep it dry as I swam only with my legs.
Of course, the file in which the memory of the text was left became lost, so there was no hope for me to even try to remember.
When the words became linked to a meaning in my mind, I remember feeling determined to find a weapon. The letter must have been a list of rules or instructions to which I had no choice but to comply.
I dove beneath the surface, taking a breath of oxygen to venture with me. And with more depth, the pressure on my body and the saturation of the ocean became intense in its volume.
I searched the ocean floor for anything, but all there was was coral and sand. I wanted to venture deeper, but the oxygen became converted to carbon dioxide and was now toxic to me. Thus, to the surface, I returned, took in a deep breath, and went once more.
This occurred for many more times until I needed a break. This stretched for about a minute as the notion in which I hadn't found this weapon yet really planted a sapling of anxiety to sprout in a manner untamed throughout the vastness of my body.
Catapulted beneath the wavering surface was my entire frame, my eyes left open—disregarding the obvious pain, of course—to find this weapon the letter most definitely mentioned.
With a passion that grew more affluent by each moment, I streamed seamlessly throughout the water, feeling almost nocturnal as I managed to see despite the absolute blackness of the ocean floor.
There was something quite perplexing about the ocean floor; from the placement of the corals to the random species of present fish to the way the sand seemed a bit too white. It seemed almost as if I were in a giant aquarium; something about the place just felt off.
I had just begun to question it further when something of a higher value transpired toward my awareness. It was something metallic and shiny; it was a spear.
I was scrambling toward this spear as reckless as a pickpocketer pickpocketing a person without the cloak of a crowd when I felt a sharp pain shoot through my body.
The origin of this agony, you may ask? My right leg. What happened to my right leg? It had the teeth of a fucking bull shark sunken to a great depth within it.
Released from the welfare of my lips was the remaining amount of oxygen my body harnessed. Becoming liberated in the form of a thousand air bubbles were the screams that still carried somewhat of a reverberation despite our depth.
I fought with the shark who threatened to tear my entire leg from the hip; kicking and twisting, and trying to open its jaws, only making the beast clamp on tighter.
Realizing I was going to run out of oxygen soon, I tried my best to calm down, only allowing my face to contort to fit the state I was in.
Suddenly, it hit me. I remember watching a YouTube video sometime in the past where it said you have to punch it somewhere in the face, either in the nose or eyes. So I did just that. Punching it in the eyes only seemed to have irritated it more, but with a single impactful punch to the nose, the shark let go and swam away.
Without giving myself time to doubt the abilities of the spear, I dove toward it prior to swimming back to the surface for a breath.
As I threaded through the blue, I noticed how the color became lighter and lighter, almost becoming completely clear before I was ripped back down to the ocean floor, completely leaving my body as a tiny bubble was my last gust of air.
Astonishingly etched across my countenance was disbelief. There was another shark, not even the same one. I assumed it was a tiger shark as it clenched into my left thigh. The blood must have drawn it toward me.
Drowning and in a substantial amount of agony, I drew out the spear, stabbed it into the face of the shark, and ripped it out to notice the bull shark regaining its might and coming back for revenge. That's not supposed to happen, I thought as the bull shark batted the tiger one out of the way on its journey toward me.
You might think that there was nothing that could possibly capture my attention at a time like this, but then you'd be wrong. Pilfering my attention like that of a thief at night was a camera that seemed to have been... filming me.
A tiny red light flickered in my widened eyes as the outline of fingers at the sides was completely see-through. Is there someone here? Recording this?
What in the actual fuck?
 Author's note
𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐈'𝐦 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐭.
𝐈 𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐰𝐞'𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐢𝐟 𝐈 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲.
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