Deadwater
We're spread out across about six small-ish rocks, each one able to hold two or three people, and do a quick headcount while watching for danger. Thankfully, we've managed to somehow keep ourselves together even amidst the chaos, but the fall has put us in a desperate situation.
As if our group weren't already injured and banged up enough, we've just been absolutely ruined by the Wyrm and the fall.
Half of the group's pretty much out of action. Mist's stomach wound has reopened completely, and the salt-mineral water is causing her burning, screaming pain. She's barely conscious and gasping, choking from air, her hands trembling.
Elemental's also had some sort of hit to his lungs, due to his already mangled ribs, and every breath he takes sounds like he's got a windpipe full of glass.
Ronin's shoulder is about as I expected, and I feel sick just looking at it. It's been contaminated by this rancid water, and the scraping of the fall earlier has reduced his shoulder and arm to a useless hunk of flesh. He's passed out from blood loss.
Kino, Artee and me inhaled a bunch of water after nearly drowning, so now all three of us and a bunch of the others all have non-stop, racking, coughing fits, like there's a scorpion scratching around in my throat.
Dread's arm is useless like Ronin's, and as for Jora her leg's broken from the fall, but I can see in her eyes that's she's freaking out. Nyx is starting to wake up, but her body temperature's dropped drastically, way further than anyone else's, and with her body long at its limit she'll die soon if we don't do anything.
That leaves me, Luc, Leon, Krim and Neo as the only members of our group that can fight, carry everyone, or generally do anything.
"This is insane," Krim says, wringing water from his shirt. "We can't travel like this. We can't do anything like this."
He's angry, frustrated, furious. I get why.
"We'll have to leave them all behind," Krim folds his arms and glances at us. "It's a matter of common sense now."
"We have to!" Leon snaps, voice breaking but standing his ground. "We all stay together."
"Yeah, and what?" Luc scoffs, joining Krim. "We drag eight breathing corpses through this fuckin' ocean in the pitch black? Look at Mist - she's done. Artee's done. Ronin's done. Kino's done. Jora's can't move. Dread's arm is a fucking noodle. You're bleeding out, Leon."
"It doesn't matter."
Luc steps towards him menacingly.
"We leave the dead weight, now. Before, it was different because everyone had a chance. But now, there's none. Right now, this is it. This is life or death."
Leon staggers to his feet, shaking, soaked, but hatchet in hand and eyes furious as hell.
"You drop ANYONE, I'll drown you myself."
Luc laughs. He tips his head back and bellows out an actual laugh.
"You? You can't even stand straight right now."
Leon raises his weapon.
"Try me."
The tension is sickeningly horrible. Me and Neo are standing to the side, afraid to get between them. Everyone's injured, miserable and freezing, and these guys are tearing each other's heads off.
"He's right, Leon," Krim looks pained. "This isn't even choice now. It's math."
The air chills even more. Leon looks like he wants to tear them apart barehanded.
I hate this.
I hate yelling.
I hate that Leon is right and Krim is right and Luc is right and no one is right because no one should ever should have to make this choice.
Mist coughs weakly beside me, barely able to speak, but my eyes meet hers. She's begging me.
I stand between the three of them and yell with all the strength in my lungs.
"SHUT UPPPPP!!!"
Everyone freezes. Luc blinks.
"Did you just shout?"
"I'm serious!" my voice suddenly cracks embarrassingly and it goes down to shit. "We're all half dead. We're freezing! We're starving and thirsty and angry and frustrated! And you're wasting energy bickering instead of trying to get out of here!?"
"He's lost it," Neo whispers, and I ignore him.
"The Facility - this shitty place - doesn't care if we're carrying people or not - it'll try kill us either way. If we split, we die, if we leave by ourselves, we'll probably die too. But instead of turning to your final solutions shouldn't you consider all the others first!?"
Leon exhales shakily. Krim rubs his face.
"You're annoying, Sword," he says.
"That means I'm right," I snap.
Luc mutters, "You're lucky I'm too cold to fight you."
Good, I'll take it.
"So… what's your idea?" Leon asks.
"We'll find a way out," I say. "You guys stay here and do anything possible to keep them alive."
"Who's we?" Neo asks from behind me.
I look at him, and he looks at me.
"Fuck," he says.
***
"Neo, with me," I say, grabbing the cave wall and peering into the dark, ice cold, terrifying water. "We find an escape. There has to be something."
"If we get torn to bits and eaten, I'm haunting you in your dreams."
"That's assuming if I ever get to have a dream again."
"Are you really doing this?" Krim asks incredulously, staring at the uninviting dark water.
"Yes," I say. "We need to hurry. Anyone got a rope?"
"Most of our shit was destroyed or ruined in the fall," Luc replies.
"I've got some," Leon offers, handing me a length of mouldy rope.
It's fraying, but when I pull it holds. It'll be enough.
"Neo, tie this around your waist. Luc, don't let go of your end, and keep feeding it through to us."
"Fine."
I tie the other end around my own waist, and look at the rippling, pitch-black water. I'm scared, but I take a deep breath and steel my nerves. I hate it, but someone's gotta take the lead, right?
"Let's go."
I dive into the water.
The cold hits me again like a shockwave, and it stings and jabs at my skin. My muscles start clamping up instantly, but I force them to move as we swim through the black, Neo sputtering behind me.
"I'm - dying -" he coughs.
The saltwater is making my cuts and scrapes sting like crazy.
The cavern is deathly silent except for our breaths and the gentle ripple of water as we glide through it, searching. Sometimes I think I see eerie shapes, twisting and turning below me.
"You with me?" I whisper.
"Yeah," Neo replies from directly behind me.
"Anything?"
"No."
We move towards a darker area, which I didn't think was possible, but suddenly my foot strikes something hard and my ankle almost breaks.
"Stop," I say.
"What?"
I feel around with my foot and suddenly I'm standing upright, the water up to my waist, a stone platform under the water. Neo joins me.
"A shallow part?"
"Must be an underwater ledge," I say. "We can use this."
We wade through the area, the roof closing in on us, until Neo tugs on my sleeve.
"Sword, Sword over there."
I look in the direction he's motioning and see it - a glowing slit in the rock. We wade closer and a wave of warmth hits me.
"Holy shit," I mutter under my breath. "Fuckin' jackpot."
Lines of pulsing bioluminescent moss fill a narrow crack in the stone face, half-flooded with roots hanging from the roof. It's probably only big enough for one person at a time but it's a godsend. Someone further in, I can hear gushing water, like waterfall.
"Y'know what this stuff is?" I ask, grabbing a handful of the glowing stuff and feeling the heat between my fingers. "Heartburn moss. Eat it."
"Huh?" Neo asks, spreadeagled against the moss wall, enjoying the heat its giving off.
"Eat it," I repeat, shoving a handful in his face.
I don't want to, but if I want to have a chance in this freezing water there's no other choice. I close my eyes and shove a handful of the slimy stuff down my throat.
It burns. It feels like my whole body is on fire, and it burns and sears my stomach and throat. Pain rises up my chest and I spit out a few clods of blood. When it dies down, I feel warmth coursing through me. It hurts pretty bad but compared to that pain from the Pale Viper venom, this is fucking mild. Neo clearly doesn't think the same, cuz he's coughing, hacking, gagging, wheezing and choking next to me.
"I have an idea," I say, as I wait for him to stop convulsing. "Let's go back to the others."
***
"Absolutely not," Krim says.
"Are you for real?" Luc asks.
"I thought you were on my side!?" Leon demands.
"Are you crazy?" Krim demands.
Nice reactions to my plan, I'm still optimistic.
"Eat this," I say, thrusting the moss forwards. "I would've fed it to the others but with their injuries that's not a great idea. Feed this to Nyx."
Leon does so, while Krim keeps disagreeing.
"It's a three-foot wide drop chute!" he's saying. "Half of us can't even swim and you want to jump down a waterfall!?"
"They're sturdier than they look," I say. "It's our only option, unless you want to swim through this place."
Krim's having none of it, but then Luc speaks up.
"I like this idea," he grins, mashing his fists together. "Didn't think you were gutsy like that but I like it!"
"You SHUT UP!" Krim yells. "Fucking musclehead-"
"It's a good idea," Elemental suddenly says, awake. "I won't die from that, so let's do it."
Krim stares at him in distaste, then looks around at us.
"We'll make it work," I continue. "We'll tie ourselves together like me and Neo just did and then jump down."
"You think we're horses?" Krim demands.
"I like horses," Luc offers.
"This is the worst idea ever."
I'm already preparing the rope, and Luc's already stretching, a giant grin on his face.
"We're doing this. We're really doing this."
"Yeah," Neo agrees. "We're stupid."
Luc leads, treading water slowly, pulling Ronin and Mist directly behind him, letting them float on the surface, and then we follow, using those of us who can still swim and move, including somehow Elemental, as sort of intervals to keep the injured between us. Even with the moss, the cold still bites through, clamming up my muscles and turning my whole body numb. Soon I won't be able to move, and I can already feel the aftereffects of the Heartburn - a heavy fever, couple with my consciousness slowly dimming by the second.
Part of me regrets brashly jumping in with this idea. Who knows how deep the waterfall is? What if we fall and are dashed to bits on rocks?
But it's too late now. It's too late to turn back. We have to keep pressing forwards.
The journey to the glowing tunnel feels much longer with everyone moving as effectively one unit. I'm slowly moving Artee through the water, listening to his ragged breathing. At some point his eyelids flutter once, but he doesn't wake up.
Eventually, when we reach our target, we untie each other (cuz we'd all get dragged down instantly by Luc), wish each other luck and head into the tunnel. It snakes inwards for about thirty feet, and thankfully there's zero current so we don't have to worry about anyone splitting their heads open against the rocky sides.
Somewhere ahead Luc calls,
"I'm looking at the 'waterfall'. It's too dark to see how far down it goes."
Krim curses, but then Luc tells us he's going for it, picks up Mist and Ronin and disappears. A second later there's a splash.
"IT'S FINE!!" he yells back up, voice bouncing around. "COME DOWN!!"
Leon goes next, then me, then Elemental, Neo and Krim bringing up the rear.
We end up in a small plunge pool seconds below the waterfall, illuminated by glowing algae and more moss. The water down here is even colder, a cruel, biting cold that sinks straight through clothes and into bone. I drag myself onto a slick rock shelf, shivering violently and teeth clinking like machine gun fire.
Mist and Ronin cough beside Luc, barely alive. Elemental tries to sit up and immediately winces, clutching his ribs.
"Alright," Krim pants, rubbing water out of his eyes. "We need to move deeper in, away from the spray and find a dry patch."
We shuffle forward, going around the plunge pool, but then we're met with strange shapes looming out of the dark.
At first, it just looks like tangled shadows. Then we make out thick ropes of something hanging from the low ceiling, draped all the way down the cave wall and into the water, forming a sort of curtain in front of us. Slow waves ripple through them as the waterfall mist drags across.
Leon squints and mutters, "Hold up. Are those… vines?"
Neo sticks his hand out, and Krim begins,
"Bro don't touch-"
Too late.
The "vine" shifts.
Just slightly.
Something brushes his fingers and suddenly he jerks back so violently he slips on the wet rock and falls on his ass.
"What the hell-!" he yelps. "That's - that's a PERSON!"
Krim whirls, eyes widening, because now that we're chasing the shapes with our eyes, we're seeing it all.
Corpses.
Dozens of them. Scores of them.
Half-submerged in the water, tangles in the knotty roots.
Faces warped in pain.
Mouths frozen open.
Hands clawing at nothing.
Neo lets out a little whimper through his teeth.
Luc mutters, "What the actual hell."
One corpse shifts, only a little, and a head rolls toward us, hair drifting like drowned weeds… the eyes open.
They're cloudy, unfocused, unseeing.
But the movement is enough to make Neo lose it and stumble backward into the water.
"IT'S NOT MOVING," Elemental snarls through pain, forcing himself upright. "It's dead."
I swallow, sweat running down my neck even though its cold. How many people is that?
"This place reeks," Luc grumbles, grimacing. "Smells like gas. Probably cuz they've been rotting here all this time."
"Gas?" I say.
Yeah. Gas.
It hits me like a punch.
These people didn't drown, or starve, or get murdered, or get eaten.
They suffocated.
Before I can do anything my lungs start to lock and my chest tightens like a fist squeezing my ribs. All the strength in my body leaves me as I collapse, trying to breathe. Luc whirls around, but it's too late. Leon falls on one knee, hand over his mouth, but he's already inhaled it. My senses are dulling, my eyesight's blurring, and I barely make out Krim and Luc's shapes moving.
Krim's voice is slurring through a haze.
"Everyone— back— get back— get—"
I gasp but no air comes.
It's like the entire cave is closing in. Walls shrinking. Roots tightening.
Air disappearing.
I try to move, but the darkness swallows my vision.
Everything swims and tilts sideways. Shapes blur completely.
The corpses seem like they're watching us. Neo wheezes something.
Krim grabs my shirt and tries dragging me. I can't hear them anymore.
Only a rush of blood.
How could I have been so stupid?
A colourless gas sitting low over the water, choking these people silently, killing them while they were tangled and exhausted and too slow to escape. And me, the team's scientist and know-it-all, fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Hands grab my shoulders and a voice rings out right above me, shouting something muffled.
But it's too late.
The world folds and everything goes black.