---
He looked down. The surface shone. He hated the shine. He looked up again. He tightened his arms around Fizz. The small body leaned in with a small sound that was not a word but felt like one.
"Now," John said.
He slid forward. The water climbed to his waist and then his belly and then toward his ribs. His breath tried to run. He caught it by the collar. He kept it on a leash of numbers. In. Four. Out. Four. On the next breath the water reached high enough to touch the place where memory had written its name in him.
The room tilted. The air thinned. The wooden rim under his hands went slick, not with water, but with the sensation of old panic rising from a place that did not listen to reason. A far sound that was not in the room pressed at his ears, the small roar of blood that always pretended to be laughter from long ago. His vision narrowed a fraction.
