Splash!

Harley hit the cold water like a polar ice bath. Her body tensed up and she sank, her descent faster than a lead weight through water. She opened her eyes as her feet found the bottom but with no light to aid in finding a direction, she was blind.

Swim! thought Harley. Swim anywhere!

She lifted her arms but her body struggled in coordination. Her mind struggled to think. No swim practice had prepared her for this situation. And how could it? With a panicked mind, her actions were instinct as her lungs called for fresh air. She fought the current but was powerless to stop it.

The rocks were unkind. She felt a sharp pain across the palm of her hand, then a blunt pain in her shin. She knocked her ankle against a hard object, but kicking off it, Harley felt her face rise above the water. She gasped for air.

Breathe! Swim! Survive!

Quickly she turned on her back and stretched out her limbs. With her school bag still around her shoulders and soaked low-tops on her feet, she rapidly kicked her legs to stay afloat. The water responded, kerplunking and crashing and dripping and splashing.

Help!

Pleading for help in her mind, she swam. She had no breath to scream, and although the current would not allow an escape, mouthfuls of water were hers to taste. It reminded her of home, of lakes and ponds, of swim meets at her school’s freshwater natatorium.

Just keep on swimming.

She gathered her wits, then gathered the strength to keep going. Floating was her focus. Like a rudderless ship searching for land, she went along with the current, and prepared herself for the eventual grounding.

Her anticipation was rewarded. The heel of her shoe hit something and immediately she reached out her right hand to grab it. Her fingers gripped a rocky ledge and her body stretched long as the current pulled her downstream. Harley flipped onto her belly and reached out with her left hand. Another ledge lent itself for grabbing, and her fingers held firmly on the rock.

Pull.

She grunted, pulling herself forward with all her might, and eventually her body escaped the current. Stretching her arms out further for a new grip, she took a new breath and began a new pull.

At the end of the second pull, her body was entirely out of the water and onto the rock. She curled up her legs tight, knees touching her torso.

Thank God, oh thank God I’m still alive. Thank you legs, thank you feet, thank you hands. I’m not dead yet. Oh God, I’m not dead.

She stayed on her side, praising, thanking, praying, and caught her breath. She rested her cheek against the wet ground and the earthy tones welcomed her. She had survived—for now.

The water did not rest. It came for her with a violent splash and Harley jolted back to reality. She moved away from the sound, and reached into her pocket for her phone.

“Please please please please please,” Harley whispered into the dark.

Her fingers moved across the familiar edges of her phone and she turned it on.

Light!

The glow of the screen banished the darkness and her face lit up with an euphoric smile. A shriek of joy gave way to sobbing, and as tears fell down her cheeks, Harley sat down on the rock and cradled her phone with both hands.

This will save me.

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Call Mom, thought Harley and she tried that first. Next she called Dad, then Taylor, then Marcie, and finally Rushi. Nothing worked.

I’ll call 9-1-1, she thought, trying that too. There was no connection—not even a ring. Harley tried all manner of methods to fix it and after a while all the phone settings had been configured and reconfigured and configured back again. She even tried what Dad always said—turning it off and back on.

“It’s not working!” she grumbled.

Harley considered punching the wall, but stopped when she saw the blood already staining her hand. The pain from before was obvious now; she had a cut across her palm.

Oh my God. It’s really deep.

A drop of blood dripped to the ground. Harley clenched her hand back into a fist then released the pressure, repeating it several times to see how fast the blood came back. Finally, she dipped her hand into the water to clean it while considering her options.

Even if someone picked up my call, they wouldn’t know where to find me. I don’t even know where I am. At least I can try to figure that out.

Harley used her phone’s flashlight and surveyed her location. She was underground, she figured as much, but nothing around her looked normal, and certainly none of it was familiar. The white and gray rock swirled together like mixed paint and the passages burrowed like wormholes in several directions.

There was something eerie about this place, the white stone that looked like melted candles, the air that smelled like a gym locker room. She held her phone at her side and beamed light into water that formed an isolated pool. Pale rocks grew from the water like mushrooms out of the dirt. She imagined James and Johan in the water, their bodies motionless beside the pale rock, and she shivered at the terrible thought.

The school bag of waterlogged books was a burden on her shoulders so she set it down on the ledge. She cursed her outfit; a pair of jeans and a dark denim jacket made a terrible wetsuit. She cursed her luck and she cursed the cold, and after that got her nowhere she cursed herself for stopping—she needed to keep moving while she still had the strength.

Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. Her white low-tops announced her each and every step as she carefully walked a narrow rock ledge. Thoughts came and went about where she was going, and if she would ever see James and Johan again, or her Mom and her Dad, or Taylor and the rest of her friends. She wondered if Marcie noticed she wasn’t in homeroom, and if Mr. Horner had marked her absent on her algebra quiz. She figured he had, and then she decided missing the quiz was the only good thing that might happen to her today.

The ledge opened to an enormous cave with crystal clear water and flowing white walls. If not for the present danger she might have remarked at its beauty, but nothing was beautiful anymore, not like this, and she kicked the pebbles off the ledge, sentencing them forever to the water for the crime of being in her way.

Harley continued for a little while longer, but the ledge went no further than the back of the cave. She looked for another passage. The white sheet of rock was porous and cracked and there were many small openings at the fractures, although none big enough for her, and so she sat on her heels and leaned over the ledge. Even though the water was clear, she could only see the bottom near the wall, and past that the depth increased sharply.

“So that’s where everything goes,” Harley mumbled to herself. She pictured a deep chasm and at the bottom lay all the things she ever lost, and she sank into a disturbed mood.

That’s it for me. I'm dead. Dead like Nona and the old black tomcat. An empty casket, a tiny grave. A wasted life. No more birthdays, no sweet sixteen, no drivers license… and forget ever driving the van, or having my own car, forget graduation day and the end of school parties, and so much for going to college with Taylor and Marcie. Everything’s ruined. And why? For what? To save a bird? No, forget that. Forget all of that. I won’t die because of a stupid bird. I’m going to live. I don’t care. I’ll swim out. To hell with it all.

Skinny rocks jutted out from the wall like iron rods. Harley yanked and cursed and tried to break them. She took off her shoe and used it as a hammer, and pounded the rock with whacks from the sole. Small fragments of rock broke off and scattered onto the ground.

She grinned.

Come here my little rock friends. You’re going to show me how to get out of here.

Harley gathered up the smallest fragments and when her hands could collect no more, she dropped them all into the water. The splash was unremarkable, but the experiment went as she thought: as the larger rocks sank, the lighter rocks escaped with the current.

She now knew the way.

I can probably hold my breath for three minutes—maybe four if I’m calm.

She imagined Marcie poking her with the eraser tip of a pencil as they took turns holding their breath in Mrs. Edward’s class.

First one to breathe loses.

Harley took off her other shoe and stood barefoot on the edge of the ledge. She stared into the deep water, the lightless abyss her main enemy. Her phone fit neatly in the front pocket of her denim jacket, the light exposed at the pocket flap, and the white beam repelled the darkness. She rotated her arms up and over and around in stretches, the familiar motions of warmup, and she imagined her parents in the stands, and the announcer on the loudspeaker.

“Lane five, Harley Novak, Risanburg Wolves,” she whispered.

The water rippled beneath her feet.

“God help me.”