Lucas and Estrella were on a black speed boat as they advanced, tracing a line in the water and leaving the mid-sized ship behind.
The former, with a confused but indifferent expression addressed the latter:
"Estrella, far from me the idea of not appreciating your presence or even enjoying your company, but can you run me through your reason for being with me here, now, in the same boat?"
"You said you were trying to straighten your body and eliminate your deficiencies through those baptisms. I think I need to do the same as I found some drawbacks in myself. I feel rigid and less smooth in my movements. And you would agree with me that with a little attention, I give the feeling of an ice statue. I don't have anything to lose or to live for so why not take a gamble and look for a new scenery? And remember that you said you would look out for any possible side effects of the baptism in me."
Stopping the boat and cutting the engine, Lucas looked at the equipment on the floor. Two oxygen bottles, one he specifically prepared for himself and a second one that was borrowed from the ship they just left by Estrella.
Raising his head, he stayed expressionless to express his discontent while he appreciated the sight before him. Estrella was wearing one of those sports bikinis that showcased enough to induce criminal thoughts. With the way she seemed soft and smooth without excessive muscles or any obvious ones for that matter, nobody would think that she was capable of putting down professional heavy weights with one hit.
Lucas himself was only wearing a diving short, exposing his defined muscles that lacked any exaggeration. He took his bottle that he didn't bother to strap on the back and stood up.
"I understand you, but I would be sad if you were to die so don't pull any suicidal stuff, cling to life."
Hoping that he got his point across, he changed the subject:
"Why did you have that kind of clothes in your bag? I didn't tell you where we were going nor what I would be doing."
"When you went out to check things out, I followed you."
At least she had the decency to be embarrassed as she turned her head to the side.
*Sigh* "Keep up."
As she watched Lucas jump into the sea, Estrella hurriedly took her own oxygen bottle and followed him down.
The empty boat stayed in place for the moment as it danced to the tune of the waves, giving a tranquil feeling. Who knew when those same waves would become its tragedy.
Was it stupid and redundant to abandon the ship and use a little boat to come to a point just a few dozen meters away? Maybe... Certainly. Did Lucas care? Not in the least. So long as he was happy. Was Estrella bothered? Why would she? She got bigger troubles in her mind, the existential kind.
So the lonely vessel was left to display a life lesson: only you really care about yourself.
********
In the water, as Lucas enjoyed its cool and comfort, he took just a moment to have his eyes adjusted to its ubiquitous presence. Normal people could do it and he could only be better.
He turned around and his heart skipped a beat as Estrella displaced the water on her way down to him, with the distorted light rays making her look like a fairy, pushing one to try to reach out to her. As she arrived beside him during his short moment of daze, he focused before starting to dive toward his objective.
Mariana trench. Humans have always liked boasting about overcoming nature. What with fighting a lion or a bear barehanded or scaling the highest peak. This place was just one of the many where humans fascinating, desire or thirst of knowledge pushed them to try and know all about it, its past and future or challenge it, with some succeeding and others turning around or failing, some to the point of crippling themselves economically or physically or ultimately, giving their life to nature as the price of challenging it.
Mariana trench was just one of the magnificent sceneries of the underwater world. Unfortunately, humans were not built to enjoy it. At least not the normal ones.
As Lucas was going deeper, he didn't feel any difference in the surrounding pressure just like during his last few tests. It should be noted that just to push the diving record to a little more than 300 meters, with equipment, intensive training had been needed and the said equipment was the cream of the crop, with the gas to sustain the diver specifically prepared and mixed. And that was only to challenge 30 times the atmospheric pressure.
That was to say something about the new build of Lucas and his companion since with just some basic tools, they had already pushed their effortless descent to a few thousands meters.
The place he was aiming for was the recorded deepest part of the ocean. But as he was going down, he kept in mind that as humans knew more about the moon and space than their own ocean, maybe, just maybe the point almost 11 km down there might not be his destination.
They pushed forward in the Challenger deep and from time to time, he would turn around to check how Estrella was coping with the pressure. It was all around, kissing every inch of the body and while theoretically the bones would be crushed at something like 17 km down, his had been rebuilt. As he did not know the full extent of her enhancement, he was worried about whether she could take the worsening conditions.
As the descent was not as troublesome as the ascent, they were fast and less than an hour later, they landed on a floor humans had only seen through screens or windows previously. Without light from the sun here, they could only take out lamps to make orientation easier. Fortunately, his unevolved eyes were still better than normal so without needing to dial the brightness to the peak, he could see just enough.
He looked at Estrella and seeing that she was having more trouble, he went closer and took her hand.
'Not a bad place for a date.'
Lucas smiled a little inside before starting to explore the place. Like in Antarctica, he felt a reaction from his body. The two opposites inside him seemed to calm down just a little and as the almost 10 tons per square inch of pressure was compressing him, he felt like it was actually compressing the essences in his body.
Following the sensation as he felt smoother, he went forward till he found a little slop oriented downward. The opening could take three adults at the same time and it became wider, like a whole new world opening up.
Lucas frowned as he felt the sensation become stronger the closer to the hole. Even he, with all his new confidence, felt uncomfortable. Humans' probes have not managed to know about this and he didn't like the feeling it was giving him. Maybe some of the many casualties in the ocean have happened or ended here.
'The sea and the unknown, a bad combination for the heart. What is down there? Humans really don't know what they have under the ass but they try to see farther and farther.'
He turned around and guided Estrella a few meters away. He looked at the hole and deliberated for what felt like a long time. He was not fearing the baptism but rather that hole that seemed like it would swallow him. After the opening, the light he shined inside disappeared just like that, like a law was forbidding its presence in those depths it had never been to.
Finally making the difficult choice between betting his life right now for more or less known returns or running away while praying for things to be better, he signaled his companion to get her attention before he crouched down to write his instructions.
"Keep calm no matter what. Kiss me when I start changing."
He looked at her to see if she understood, and after getting her ascent, he took a deep breath before going back to the hole.
Ignoring the sensation he had of being spied on, he turned his back to the object of his discomfort and, looking at Estrella, he smiled, took one last breath from his oxygen bottle, then let it go.