And not in a good way….
The Captain nervously checked Harold’s dive suite as Harold slowly opened his eyes and began squirming. He was wearing a thick wet suit that covered him in a tight sweaty neoprene shell. He had on a face mask that was starting to fog. The Captain shoved a thick rubber mouthpiece into Harold’s mouth.
“It’s very important for you not to panic. Breathe slowly in and out with deep breathes. Use very relaxed movements. And tell them your name.” The Captain said as he quickly marched Harold into the airlock and strapped a weight belt around him. Stepping out, the Captain turned to Harold and gave him a hopeful smile. Harold still wasn’t sure what was going on.
“Good luck man,” the Captain said.
Harold began to feel the first tinge of real terror since the general anxiety he was under began to build.
“What do you mean good luck?” he said feeling a kind of lump in his chest.
He could see Patrick and the Eugene standing behind the Captain.
“Good Luck Harold.” They yelled. He heard one of them say “Poor bastard”.
“Wait”, Harold screamed as he lunged for the airlock door. The Captain slammed it shut, locking it in place. Water began to fill the compartment slowly. Even inside his suit the water felt icy. Harold bit down nervously on the regulator as the ocean steadily rose over his head.
The regulator hissed as Harold sucked in air for the first time. When he exhaled, he blew bubbles, and it startled him at first. He had his eyes closed and felt them wiggle around his beard on their way to the top of the airlock. He screamed and opened his eyes, expecting a swarm of piranhas coming to eat his face.
His own bubbles still felt a little menacing, even as he watched them race towards the top of the airlock in rapid succession.
Eugene’s voice barked out of the speaker. “You need to turn the handle on the airlock once the green light is lit.”
Harold strained to turn the tight wheel, that finally gave way with a metallic groan. With a slight push the door swung open, revealing cold, black; and he hoped, empty water.
“Make your way to the door, and just swim out. You are right over it,” Eugene said, his voice no longer angry. Harold would have preferred angry, because he sounded afraid. Harold wasn’t sure he could handle any more fear right now.
With a deep breath, Harold shuffled forward and tried not to trip over anything. He stuck his head out the door and looked down. He could feel a slight current and could see nothing but blackness.
“Guys, I don’t think I can do this,” he said backing away.
“You just need to swim down and swim back up. You are wearing my lucky weight belt, so you will be fine,” the Captain said in a voice he hoped sounded calm. “It’s going to be easy. Just push off the sub; and if you get scared, swim back,” he said in a way that made it all sound easy.
Harold shuffled out the door and sank. The Captain’s weight belt caused him to plummet away from the submarine. He tried to swim back but found the weights were too heavy. Grabbing the buckle, he tried to pry it off. His mask had a dive light on it that cut little slits into the darkness. It caught massive shapes moving underneath him. He thought they were submarines at first, before seeing the massive tails.
Panic began to take over as he struggled with the weight belt.
The sharks began circling closer, until the largest swam up from beneath Harold. It’s mouth yawned open and Harold could see rows upon rows of teeth, lining a cavernous mouth. He swam desperately against the weight belt as he drifted down farther. He felt himself land on a mountain of leathery hard flesh. He wasn’t in the mouth, but he was close. The massive shark had him perched on the tip of its massive nose.
The other sharks circled him as the one underneath him sat motionless with Harold clinging to its nose. Their eyes were large, coal black, and did not blink.
He struggled with the clasp on the belt, trying desperately to pull free.
He felt the shark start to move, and soon he was sliding off, screaming, clutching at the darkness as he felt himself pulled through the water towards death in a black suffocating cold.
He fell into something that felt like soft goo. He struggled against it. It was translucent and reflected his dive light. He sank deep and felt it seeping through the seal on his mask and into his dry suit. It seemed to swallow everything before he slowly blacked out.
The translucent liquid pulsed in swirling light, surrounded Harold for a moment, before gradually receding. The buckle on Harold’s dive belt opened and he slowly drifted up. Harold could see white bubbles and could hear a faint voice saying. “It’s all so small.”
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