‘Down in the Depths’

Alfonso Keller-Casielles

Down in the Depths

(She nearly dies when it happens.)

Dragged beneath the waves, thrown about by the harsh currents caused by the sudden violent storm. Her lungs burn as she fights against the wreckage of her former ship, nerves sharp with fear, like a knife pressed against her jugular. The threat of an almost assured death made her want to lie still and at the same time claw and kick with all her might. Her instincts chose the latter.

It is only now, her chest aching with the effort of keeping in her last breath, that she curses her confidence; her years of sailing with her father and brothers, she blames those feelings and memories for her lack of a life-jacket. Or anything else that would have aided her in staying above water.

Clinging to the last breath trying to claw its way out of her throat, she continues to kick and swim against the water that’s grasping and pulling at her limbs, tugging her now unbound hair, curling around her ankles and wrists; invisible chains that will drag her down if she lets up for even a moment. Adrenaline is her only hope, but even that is being steadily washed away. 

Her efforts are proven worthless in the end. As good a swimmer as she is, as much as she tries to reach for the surface, her struggles only manage to slow her descent, to keep the surface just in sight as she’s tossed about. Ropes tangle around her limbs, slippery bindings that send her racing mind into a panic and cause her to thrash even harder, which only serves to entrap her further.

She knows these waters, has lived and grown in them, and as she sinks, she remembers the tales her father and other sailors had told her; of the men who fell into the depths during a storm, and knows the next time her body touches land, her soul will not be with it.

She doesn’t know how much time passes, the meaning of minutes and hours blur together in her spinning, pounding head, but eventually, inevitably; her body forces her to take a breath. Her throat, nose and chest burn as saltwater rushes in. Bubbles slip past her darkening lips to float lazily to the surface. She gasps and chokes, unable to close her mouth as she struggles for air, struggling to expel the horrid fluid, and so claws at her own throat, at her gaping mouth, salt stinging across the marks she leaves.

Of course, that doesn’t help, it doesn’t stop her own body from rebelling against her dimming mind, the damage is done and slowly, so very slowly, this child of fifteen, drowns. 

Darkness creeps across her vision as her struggles falter, shivering, she succumbs to the elements, the waters she had loved and trusted, claim her. The echo of movement, as well as the circling currents, keeps her from stilling completely, however. Limbs twitch with the fading fire of her life as the water continues to rush past and around her, twisting her limbs and tangling her hair. Deeper and deeper she slips, the frigid water that surrounds her stealing the last of her body’s warmth, and finally her eyes shut. One last bubble floats from her parted lips, and it is the last sight her eyes take in before the dark cold waters claim her.

No. (Calls a voice, a melody so familiar it hurts.) This is not where the story ends. 

Without warning, hot white light bursts like a bolt of lightning across her vision. She gasps, her eyes wide and unseeing as they roll back in her head. Cold limbs jerk painfully as somehow, more water pours and swirls in her open mouth and throat. Her abused lungs jerk in her ribcage, threatening to burst from her chest and swim back to the surface for the air they so desperately needed.

Remember. (Calls the voice. It is a command she knows she could reject, but--) Please remember, little one. Please.

She surrenders and remembers.

She sees memories from another’s eyes, for they cannot be hers. She sees places she has never seen before yet strike deeply in her soul; she knows these places, as well as she knows her own seaside home. She sees a vast sea, not unlike the one she sees every morning from her balcony window, except there, the water is bluer and shimmers like gemstones beneath a blinding sun. There are no boats, no houses, not even her own, there are no distant sounds of civilization, she is alone. She stands by the shore, surrounded by nothing but vast greenery and the soft warm sand fading into the water. 

Then suddenly, she is rushing beneath the waves, sight as clear as on a sunny day, webbed fingers twisting stones and cradling flowers, hair swirling around like a cloud of crimson, the flash of red-orange scales and sharp fins melting away to pale skin beneath.

Her oxygen deprived brain tells her these images cannot be real, that these are merely the wishes of a dying child, fantastical dreams meant to soothe her frightened mind as she drowns, but her heart, her soul says yes. Yes, this is something you had experienced, this happened.

You have lived before, and your life will not end here. (Swears the voice, sounding almost like her mothers. She believes it.) Remember child; survive as you had so long ago.

Knowledge floods her mind, the force of it causing her head to snap back in the water, her back arching with it. Images flash across her eyes; glistening scales spreading across her own pale skin, the sharp snap of bone as her body shifted, the gentle brush of crimson hair against sensitive gills, fins waving from the sides of her head, webbed fingers reaching out, powerful fin-laced legs kicking, pushing her onward deeper an deeper into the blue.

She cannot fight these sensations, nor does she truly want to; they promise freedom and power and survival. The strange, yet familiar energy surges, scorching her frozen veins, promising her the strength to return home. She wouldn’t have refused even if she could have. 

Fresh agony strikes anew all over her body, rushing through her in seemingly never-ending waves as she screams silently, the water swallowing the sounds and bubbles rushing from her mouth, carrying her cries in their soft spheres as they rise higher and higher in clusters.

As the final wave fades, she gasps again, and starts at the realization that she can breathe. She blinks rapidly and gulps down water and air instinctively until her vision returns, and she finds herself still staring into the murkiness of the ocean. She coughs, saliva and water and bubbles mixing as her hands fly to her abused throat. She feels large fragile slits with waving slips of flesh opening and closing with every breath on the sides of her neck and for a moment, she wonders if she has already died and this is the afterlife; where she will remain trapped beneath the waves, bound to never-ending water for eternity. She’s not sure if that would be a reward or punishment. 

She prods at the slits, (because they can’t be gills, she can’t have remembered a life where she had shapeshifted into a sea creature. Where she had grown into an adult in the wild. Where she had died –) and tries to recall if she had really torn open her own throat before she succumbed, or if she remembered a piece of debris cutting across the tender flesh before the darkness had swallowed her. 

She couldn’t. 

Thoughts whirling and spiraling down, threatening to drag her deeper into a more frightening and crushing dark, fear rising like an underwater volcano waiting to erupt, she stops. She hovers in the water, taking deep impossible breaths, and counts down from ten to calm herself as her mother had taught her, shutting her wide roaming eyes from the murky dimness. All is quiet, except for the dim roar of the currents and her own uneven breathing. She strains to hear anything other than the maddening forcefully calm silence, her ears twitch (something that’s never happened before, not that anything in the last while has happened before but still) and she raises a hand to one, immediately jerking away from the thing on the side of her head that is clearly not an ear. 

Her eyes remain shut tight as she takes more deep breaths, and slowly, shakily, she returns her hand to the space where her ear should be, only to brush over what is clearly some type of ornate fin that has replaced her ear. Which isn’t possible. 

(Except that is it, because she feels it.)

Both hands rise, fingers prodding and rubbing against the new delicate flesh, at the small smooth fins that twitch under the barest amount of contact. Retracting her hand, she takes another deep breath, her deepest one yet, and concentrates on the feeling of the water entering her gills – god she has gills and she feels ones on her sides too, and longer fins twitching on her calves, dear god what is happening — the wonderful sensation of her continuing existence, the sweet taste of oxygen and the expulsion of water. 

She rests for a time, rocked gently by the currents, limbs brushing against the wreckage of her boats shattered remains still floating around her, breathing deeply. How long she stays like that she’s not sure, she only knows enough time passes for her to get used to this new version of breathing she now has to deal with. 

For a brief, hysterical moment, she marvels at the transformation; she’s a creature of the sea, something she’s dreamt of before, which does nothing but make her believe even more that this is either an elaborate dream, or that she’s really dead.

As if her emotions were waiting for that thought alone, she’s sucker punched with the vivid recent memory of how she came to be in this situation. The sudden storm – loosing control of her boat, though she’d fought with all her might – the slippery rope tearing across her palms, slipping from her grasp as her sails whipped wildly in the wind – the water rising and falling into her eyes, saltwater surging from below, nearly causing her to loose her footing – that final wave backed by the loudest boom of thunder she’d ever heard and a bright flash of lightning – and finally, being thrown from her deck, that brief moment of weightlessness, before she fell into the water with a back-breaking splash, where she’d then been dragged deeper and deeper and – 

Panic surges up in her again, the ghost sensation of drowning accompanied by the water circulating in her throat and chest causes her to choke and claw at her throat again. The twitching gills frighten her even more, and with her pulse pounding in her head, a racing, consuming lub dub, she loses herself, another soundless scream bursting from her lips. She screams and cries, the space behind her eyes burning almost as much as her abused throat as her emotions push and pound her skull like the previous storm.

Eventually, she manages to calm herself, her mental logic forces its way to the forefront of her whirling mind, instructing her and pulling her back from the brink of madness and into a cool numbness. (The voice sounds like the rumble of her father’s, which helps more than she’d care to admit.) 

After she gains just enough control, she decides to try to get to the surface before she has another panic attack, which when she opens her eyes again and looks up, she can faintly see far above her. Past the remaining drifting wood and floating supplies she’d had on board, consistent dull light flickers, reflecting off the water, the storm seeming to have passed. She attempts to move up, only to be reminded of the debris wrapped around her. How had see forgotten that?

With a growl she digs her palms into the sandy bottom – oh wow she’s that deep, that’s not good, how did she get that deep without noticing – shakes the panic clawing up her throat and shoves off the bottom, thrusting up with a powerful kick. Her efforts are cut short by the rope still wrapped around her form, caught tighter from her sudden movement. She spends the next while twisting and unwinding the rope that had ensnared her, the cause of her eventual loss against the water. Slipping free with a smirk, flashing large sharp teeth unknowingly, she turns and levels a bright-eyed glare at the outlined remains of her former vessel.

For a split second, she mourns the destroyed boat, then the rage and horror at her previous drowning rears its head and she suddenly couldn’t care less about the shattered collection of wood and metal. Not even the thought of her parents almost certain anger and disappointment can change her feelings. 

With a mighty kick, she turns and swims up towards her goal. She wastes no time with further thought as she swims. For now, she will ignore the changes, ignore how easily she moves through the water, how free and powerful she feels as she races towards the surface, how much a part of her is saddened by the idea of dry land. She will ignore everything; she will waste this unbelievable and impossible opportunity over the chance of returning home and will hope against hope that all this will be but a strange dream. That she will wake up in her bed to the sounds of birds, the lapping of water and the warm voices of her family.

All she wants to do, is go home.

So she swims, racing towards the image of her mother’s warm embrace and brilliant smile, to her father’s steadfast kindness and endless strength, to her two older brother’s contagious laughter and unwavering support. To the house by the seaside that her father had built with her mother, to her family’s special cove hidden by jagged rock, untouchable unless you were willing to get wet, and the beach she and her brothers had been raised upon. The sun-warmed sand that had embraced her and cradled her toes when she’d explored the edges of its blue companion. The pale grains that brought her treasure from the depths and let themselves be thrown about and reformed into structures that made sense only to the mind of a child.

She rises with a splash, the wind carried across the waters surface causes goosebumps to rise on her pale skin. She shivers, resisting the urge to return below, to the blue that seemed so much warmer now. After being under so long, the light of the oncoming sunrise burns her eyes, but she doesn’t care. She just squints, lips stretching until her cheeks hurt from smiling and simply floats, shutting her eyes as she breathes the fresh cool air. 

Then, she turns, gaze immediately set towards the beach, to the bright outline of her home, and kicks off with a loud splash. She swims, racing across the blue with ease and does not stop until she feels the sand beneath her feet, sucking at her toes in welcome. Her chest clenches, lungs burning and pulse roaring in her ears. Still, she smiles. 

Slowly, limbs heavy with exhaustion and relief, she drags herself onto the beach, nails clawing into the wet sand before collapsing upon the soft dry powder further on, managing to roll onto her back before her strength gives out, because as grateful as she is to be back, having sand in your mouth is still disgusting. She lays there, breathing (god breathing is so wonderful) and staring up into the beautiful sky lightening to that brilliant whit dotted blue she loved as the waves nipped at her heels. Then, she hears someone call her name. Loudly.

“Marina!” She rolls back onto her belly, raising herself onto her forearms, turning her head to the direction of the familiar voice. Somehow, her smiles widens even more as she watches her mother sprint down the path and across the grass and sand towards her. Marina rises, to her shaking knees, and watches her mother’s unbound wavy red hair whip behind her, green eyes bright with concern, the same color she alone had inherited.

“Oh, my baby.” Her mother cries, eyes ringed red and beginning to water anew, before dropping to her knees and skidding in the sand, her calloused hands reach out, hovering, uncertain, bright dilated eyes darting over her child’s form, searching for injuries. Finding none, she wraps her hands around Marina’s trembling arms, leaning close, searching the younger’s face, as if she would find her answers there. 

“What happened?! You’ve been gone for hours, you had us all so worried!” Her mother cries, throwing her gaze briefly over Marina’s shoulder, searching the horizon, nose scrunching when she finds no trace of her daughters’ small boat before returning to her daughter’s face, brow furrowed. She opens her mouth, only to close it again as she takes in Marina’s wobbling pale lips.

“…Mom.” Is all that manages to pass Marina’s lips before her voice cracks. Tears burn in her own eyes and begin flowing down her pale cheeks. Marina trembles, opening her mouth to explain – to offer something – only to find she can manage no more than squeaks and whimpers. Her mother manages a strained smile and caresses Marina’s dripping sandy hair, and that is where the dam breaks. 

With a violent cry, Marina collapses against her mother, clutching with white knuckles at the dry cloth of her shirt, pressing her face into her mother’s soft chest. Sobs bubbling from her throat as warm strong arms slip around and hold her close. 

It’s not until she’s been led back inside, carried in her mother’s unwavering grip and set down on one of the kitchen chairs, upon which her mother races off for towels that she notices the gills and fins are gone. Her flesh is once again scale less and pale, made even paler by the cold. Only goosebumps and freckles paint her skin now. She bares no marks, as if the last few hours hadn’t happened. (She’s not sure what to do with these waring feelings of relief and disappointment. She’s not sure if she wants to know.)

Marina whips her head up at the sound of shuffling feet in the doorway leading deeper into the house and immediately sees the heavy shadowed eyes of her father. She opens her mouth to call his name, but all that passes is another strained whimper. But she knows he knows, sees the look in his eye that tells her; any explanation can wait. Her eyes burn and spill again as her father – her big, strong, never-faltering, wonderful father – marches over and pulls Marina into his arms, encircling her with his furnace warmth and his familiar sea salt and wood smell as she sobs anew. 

That’s how her mother finds them; clutching at each other as if letting go would shatter them both. (Marina misses the look her father shoots her mother, misses the worry and steel in her father’s gaze. She doesn’t see the hopeful fear in her mother’s eyes.) Her father will back off long enough for her mother to wrap her in thick towels and start scrubbing at her hair and skin before her brother’s appear at her sides. A whimper of relief will sound – because she is home, she is safe, her family will know what to do. They have to – and she will be nearly knocked over by the rush of arms coming to hold her.

------

Later, she will tell her mother and father what happened; she will sob and bark and tell her terrible fantastical tale with trembling lips as she fights the agonising panic clawing at the bone cage of her ribs. She will sob between her brother’s arms and will be talked through another panic attack.

 Later still, Marina will miss the way her mother’s eyes gloss over with sorrow of a different kind, as similar bright green orbs shine with guilt and anger as Marina’s helped into a quick shower and wrapped in soft and warmed blankets before being put to bed. Her brother’s sandwiching her between them. Marina will not be awake to hear her mother’s curses and cries as her father holds her close. She will not hear the words she mother spits in sudden, heartbreaking anger:

“We should have told her sooner. Damn the rules – she needs to know.” 

Her father won’t have the will to disagree.

Even later, when daylight breaks again, Marina will wake alone and be forced to bitterly accept the reality of her near-death experience. She will lay in bed and breathe deeply, for that will be all she can do until the nightmares (memories) of drowning fade deep enough into her head for her to shake off numbing hands of paralysis. Then she will remember the thrill and horror or her transformation, and her siblings will find her curled on her side sobbing because of emotions she doesn’t understand. Emotions she’s not sure are her own.

Marina will be sat on the couch between her brother’s as her mother tells her own fantastical tale. Of her mother’s hidden bloodline. Of a cycle of reincarnation and a prophecy her mother had always known by heart and hated with all her being. (Marina will try to hate them too, but deep in her soul she knows her anger will not last. The voice from before assures it.) One that has chosen Marina to one day set out and accomplish seemingly impossible tasks and lose things she does not yet have. A tragic and horrifying story Marina has no choice but to participate in. (But that is a tale for another time.)

Her mother will tell – and show – that she has the same abilities. Her mother will tell Marina that they are different, her brothers carry no power, and she will be given a name – sea shapeshifters. For while she may appear human, and will look as such down to her bones, her blood will always be called to the water, will change for it. Whether she agrees or not.

--------

For the present moment though, she will simply allow herself to be a scared child attempting to drawn strength and reason from her family’s love, from the warm bodies encircling her as her mother and father pepper her skin with wet kisses. 

Here and now, tomorrow is distant. (Even if her memories, new an ancient, are not.)

Rachel Racette, Metis, born 1999, in Balcarres, Saskatchewan. Interested in creating her own world and characters. Writes science-fiction and fantasy. She has always loved books of fantasy and science fiction as well as comics. Lives with her supportive family and cat, Cheshire. Lives vicariously in fantasy settings of her own making. Website: www.racheldotsdot.wordpress.com Twitter: Rachel S Racette - Author