Odessa always felt an immediate thrill when she submerged below the surface, like she was entering somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. Another realm with its own rules, somewhere unexplored. She often liked to take a moment to just look around and appreciate the sheer vastness of what was around her. But, a black tunnel like the one that stretched out beneath her now, never let her stay still long. It pulled her down, as if there were some forbidden tune reeling her in. She wanted to know what was down there, and despite what she had said to the others about not wanting to do any deep dives, the moment she was in the water and looking at it, she felt the need as raw as hunger to just start swimming into the darkness and keep going until she reached the bottom. But thoughts like that were dangerous. Air supply was limited, consumption increased with depth, and due to the absorption of nitrogen into the blood, one could not ascend anywhere near as fast as they could descend. Not to mention, on this particularly dive, they’d chosen to use Nitrox, limiting their depth even more in exchange for a longer bottom time. Much like with climbing mountains, the hardest part was coming back. The only difference was the direction.

Odessa was the second to move. Just like her, the others liked to get a look around first. Chaser was the first. True to his name, he rarely stayed still.

‘Chaser,’ she thought. ‘Wait up.’

‘You guys can look at the view on the way back up. We’ll have plenty of time then,’ came his teasing reply to the group.

It wasn’t as loud as it had been when he’d first mindtalked with her at the surface. Evidently the water and the distance were already having some effect.

‘Albie? Bob? Can you hear us?’ Odessa tried to send her thoughts in the other direction.

‘Got you loud and clear,’ came the reply.

She smiled, and kicked her way gently downward.

The water got colder as she got further away from the surface, but her wetsuit kept her warm enough, and eventually the temperature evened out. For the first few metres, there was plenty of underwater plant life growing on the walls and in the cracks between rocks. It was almost like a little underwater jungle. But, once they reached the point past which the sunlight could penetrate, there was nothing but grey rock.

‘Hey! There’s a tunnel here.’ It was Triss’s voice this time.

Odessa swam over to where she was. Triss must have been a fast swimmer, given she’d descended a little further than Odessa had, even though she’d kicked off a little later, or perhaps she just hadn’t been as distracted by the all greenery. She’d also followed the wall down whereas Odessa had positioned herself more to the middle, just below where Rhys was running out the guide line.

‘Oh, that’s hidden. Chaser, did you see this?’ Odessa thought at him. The hole was tiny, big enough for a medium to small person but would require something known as ‘no-mount diving’ if they wished to explore it; gas tanks would have to be pushed through separately.

‘What?’ He was down below them, but he paused looked back up. All she could see of him was the shine of his light.

‘Tunnel,’ Odessa told him.

‘A good one?’

‘Looks small.’

‘No tunnel exploration,’ Rhys reminded them.

‘We’ll mark it down though.’ Nico’s thoughts added to the mix as he pulled out a dive pad, and after noting the depth on his watch, made a few scrawls on the pad.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Chaser thought back. But he didn’t seem interested in this one anyway because he turned tail and continued down.

‘Chaser, wait up,’ Rhys told him.

‘You guys are gonna mess up bottom time estimates if you don’t keep going down,’ Chaser thought back.

He was right and Odessa was already keen to keep going anyway. She dove down after Chaser, leaving the others little choice but to follow. The general rule was to dive to your deepest point first. Once there, you started the bottom timer and then you could sight see as much as you wanted, as long as you started back up long before the timer ran out. The longer you stayed down the slower you had to ascend, so it was of utmost importance to take that into account when calculating how much air you would need to make it back to the surface.

As she swam down she checked back with land support, just to see if they still had contact.

‘Bob, you still there?’

‘Rodger.’

‘No, I’m Odessa.’

‘Hah! You found a tunnel? Can you think an image to me?’

‘What? You can read images?’

‘Sort of. It’s tricky but yeah.’

‘I can try.’

She thought of what it all looked like. As she got to the 20 metre mark the hole widened out and she could see, among jagged points, lots more holes and tunnels leading away to who knew where. ‘Bob, you getting this?’

‘Mmm, sort of. It’s kind of fuzzy.’

‘Make sure you don’t get too close to the walls,’ Rhys reminded them. But he needn’t have bothered. A quick glance around showed that the others had already moved away from any sharp edges that might tear through an air hose.

Odessa found it strange being underwater and having so many voices in her head. Usually it was deathly quiet. A kind of lonely that really made her appreciate civilisation and company. She’d often wished for siblings growing up. Now she felt surrounded by the comfort of people in the most unexpected way. It was almost suffocating. She loved it.

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‘There’s heaps of them,’ Nico thought to the group. ‘How deep are we?’ He was already checking his dive watch.

Triss replied anyway. ‘Almost 30 metres.’

‘Dess, how’s your air,’ Chaser asked in a tone of thought that suggested the message was just for her.

‘We’re barely even into the dive.’ Odessa rolled her eyes but checked her air anyway. It was good to keep track of consumption rate. Damn witches, they even breathed slower, so she was always the one who ran out of air first, except when Donny was diving. Although Chaser had once remarked that she even breathed fast for a human. They were always checking on her. Chaser was good at that. He’d run off ahead often but he’d always check back in eventually and when he did he was like a mother duck counting her ducklings and making sure they were all okay. She actually kind of appreciated it. Wait, how loudly had she thought that? And where even was Chaser? They were almost at their max depth for this dive. He should be visible below her, or around somewhere.

‘Chaser, where are you?’

Silence.

‘CHASER!’

‘Ow! I heard you, I heard you.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Chaser, you better not be in any tunnels,’ Rhys added.

‘I was just taking a quick look.’

‘Chaser, you’re just supposed to stay in the main hole,’ Bob reminded him.

‘If I had a penny for every time a woman’s told me that,’ Chaser thought back without hesitation.

It was strange how Odessa could even hear his jovial teasing tone. Was that for real or just her imagination? She wondered who it was that was keeping everyone’s thoughts shared. She didn’t think it was Chaser, at least not at the moment given he’d wandered off, again. Everything felt too clear to be Bob, so probably Triss then? She was mostly quiet herself though, and Nico hadn’t said much. Was that just Triss hiding his thoughts? Could those with mindwalking powers block the thoughts of group members from the other mindwalkers? She thought she had an idea for how loud she had to think to be heard, mostly based on responses, but she had no way to be sure. Perhaps her whole mind was open to them all? It was a good thing the underwater cavern had lots of distractions or she might have let her mind wander to places it shouldn’t... like what monsters lay waiting in the dark. She gazed down at the infinitely deep expanse below her and felt a thrill. Yup, theoretical monsters were the perfect distraction.

‘Hey, guys, I think I’ve found something.’ Triss’s voice filtered through.

‘Hey, no tunnels,’ Rhys reminded them all again as Triss’s upper body dissappeared into some gap in the wall.

‘There’s something in here...’

‘What?” Odessa thought. She swam downward and closer to where Triss was.

‘Hang on, almost go it...’

Triss pulled back suddenly, along with a rapidly expanding cloud of silt. One second she had something round and dark in her hands. Then there was a glimpse of white and the next second she was gone. Was that..? Couldn’t be...

Suddenly an image flashed into Odessa’s mind of something with long arms reaching for her and a fuzzy but widening hole of shrap points. And then, just like that, it was gone. Probably just torch reflections in the silt.

‘Shit!’ came a thought over their mental channel. Odessa was so focused on the sudden loss of visibility that she didn’t recognise who it was. The silt was made worse by the torchlight that reflected off it. It had been nearly a full moon on land, but this far down, it was pitch black.

‘Give it a few minutes, it looks like reasonably heavy particles,’ Nico thought at them. He sounded calm.

‘I’m by the guide line. Make sure you keep away from the walls,’ Rhys added.

‘Helpful, Rhys,’ Odessa thought back sarcastically, momentarily forgetting that thoughts were shared now. It was kind of hard to keep away from the walls when you couldn’t see where they were, though. Likewise with finding the guide line, or Rhys, or anybody else.

‘Just stay where you are,’ Rhys told her. Another difficult task in water but Odessa tried to keep that thought to herself this time. Rhys was a safety and preparation nut on land, partly because in the heat of the moment he was the most likely one of them all to panic. She understood the instinct but she fought it. It was a delicate balance. Adrenaline kept you alive but it could also kill you.

Right now Odessa could have been spun upside down and she wouldn’t have known the difference. It didn’t faze her though. Nico was right, the cloud looked like it was made of heavier particles, which meant hopefully it would settle within a couple of minutes. All they had to do was wait. Worst case, she figured, with the mindtalking infusements, they could figure out up from down by how much louder or quieter Bob was getting. That or let a little air out and watch which way the bubbles went.

‘You there, Bob? We just got caught in a silt cloud. Nothing to worry about though, we should be able to wait it out,’ she thought upward.

There was no reply.

‘Bob?’

‘We’re probably out of range,’ Rhys thought to her. He sounded a lot calmer now than he had a moment ago.

‘Maybe.’ Odessa checked the others. ‘Chaser?’

No reply. She felt weirdly unworried about it.

‘Nico?’

A hand grabbed her wrist. She should have been surprised but she wasn’t. In fact, she felt blissfully calm.

‘Relax, it’s me.’ Nico was the one who had grabbed her arm.

‘I am relaxed,’ she thought back with confusion. Very, very relaxed.

‘You might be overdoing it a little, Nico.’ Triss’s voice filtered though their heads.

‘Oh, oops.’

Odessa felt her calmness subside and the world begin to feel sharper again. Around her the silt was already starting to clear.

Nico tugged her sideways. ‘Rhys is this way.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I could feel him panicking.’

‘I wasn’t panicking,’ Rhys complained as his shape came into view, more because the silt was clearing than because they’d gotten that much closer.

‘You were too,’ Nico replied. ‘Sorry guys, I should have asked before used my powers on you but I just didn’t want any surprise responses.’

‘I’m at the end of the guide line. I wasn’t going anywhere,’ Rhys replied.

‘No, you’re right. I’m sorry.”

‘It’s alright, I understand.’

Odessa turned away from them to look for Triss. She thought she’d recognised what the woman had pulled from the wall but she couldn’t be sure.

Triss was there, only a metre or two down. She was swimming up with something in her hand. It looked like pieces of dive equipment, a rebreather and a dive hood, and...

Odessa squinted through the watery dust. But Triss had the hood facing the wrong way. She could have sworn there had been something inside.

As Triss got closer she spun it around.

‘Oh, a rebreather and hood,’ Rhys remarked.

‘No...’ Nico started and then trailed off.

From inside the hood, was something white. Two blank sockets of a skull stared back at them. There was no mask to hide those dead eyeless holes. This was unmistakably something that had been someone once, someone who had explored this cave just like them. Someone who had never left it.

For a moment Odessa thought that maybe the mindwalking infusements had stopped working because silence filled her head and the surrounding space. She couldn’t stand it.

‘Where’s the rest of him?’ she thought lightheartedly out into the void. A weak attempt at pushing back against the heavy feeling that attempted to drown her. She was relieved when the silence was suddenly replaced with several different thoughts.

‘What the fuck!’

‘Where’s the rest of him?!’

‘How do you know it’s a him?’

‘Should we head back up?’

‘I couldn’t see any more of the body. It looked tight in there though. Whoever they were, I think they got stuck.’

'Where is Chaser?'

Silence again.

'Chaser?'

‘How do you lose half a body?” Odessa thought.

‘How did we lose Chaser again is the real question?’ Rhys wondered.

‘Oh, that one I understand. He’ll be back out. He always is,’ Odessa replied.

‘Does he do this a lot?’ Triss asked.

‘What? Disappear? Oh yeah.’

‘He’s probably waiting to jump out at us,’ Rhys added.

‘Shit!’ Nico remarked suddenly and in a very uncharacteristically stressed voice.

‘What?’ Triss asked.

‘I think I grabbed the wrong gas tank.’