Underwater

• Felix Donahoo-andrusiak, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2016

It was dark. The pitch of the night spread across the sky like an unforgiving blanket of eyes, peering down at us. I wasn’t cold, and yet, I was shivering, not from excitement, but from adrenaline.

We, my mother and I, drove down the desolate stretch of tarmac. Filled with nervous energy, I watched as hills rolled by, and the road cut through the landscape like a hot knife through butter. My gear rattled in the boot of the car, the sound accompanied only by the roar of the engine and the steady tearing of the tires across the toll way. The road was dead. Not a soul stirred. Slowly, the sun poked its head over the horizon, greeting us with its warm light. It was cool. The kind of temperature that wraps around you and squeezes your lungs and makes your eyes pop. Not frosty, just cool.

We arrived at the pier as dawn was shining through the stout trees. The bustling noise of the dock was now accompanied by two figures weaving diving gear in and out of parked cars, pebbles crackling under them.

As I slid into the glossy black wetsuit, I could smell the salty air and the distant crashing of the waves, and the sonorous roar of machinery, as fierce and hungry as ever. My group of divers started walking, and I followed suit, weights and clips chinking as we walked. The sun was beginning to get harsher now, beating down and cooking us in our suits with its unrelenting gaze. Finally making it to the pier, I slumped in a heap and began dangling my feet off the edge, cooling off my blistering feet.

It was time.

Splash! The shock of the water hit me like an iceberg. I started to suck in air from my rubber mouthpiece greedily, as it was my only supply of oxygen. My lifeline. It was quiet, except for the subtle noise of my breathing and the crashing of distant waves; they were one thousand miles away. We swam in between gargantuan pillars, which held up the pier, and rainbows of coral running up and down them. Huge fish brushed past us as we dove further into the abyss. It was terrifying. It was awe-inspiring. It was, in the true sense, awesome. At times I would come to my senses and reality would smack me in the face…

I shouldn’t be here,

But this mentality was quickly swallowed, like the darkest depths of the oceans swallowed light. The sheer scale could not be described in words. Size, on it’s own, isn’t a tangible thing, but I can stress just how vast it was. It was alien. I was on a different planet.

Ascending, leaving this alien planet and returning to my own world was sobering. The expanse of water I had just traversed had been nothing short of overwhelming. As I returned to the shore, and the cawing of the gulls, I felt ecstatic.

I had done it.