Dipping Into Together

Ch 21

Shrieking, my voice loud and shrill, I strain my whole body, trying desperately to somehow pull myself upwards. A noise that I had once drowned out was now becoming quite loud. It was running, dripping water. Glancing over to the entrance of the storm sewer, I saw that it was pouring down rain. The room was filling up more than it already was. Looking down at my feet, I notice that already the water is up to mid-calf. Almost passing out in fear, I almost don’t feel the skin around my wrists tearing. A drip of blood seeps out, and runs down my arm. Staring up, my eyes lock onto it, and then looking farther up, lock onto Uncle’s gaze. Widening my eyes, I try to convey my message, convey my pleading with him. I can’t communicate, so I just look at him, hoping that he still has human feelings and will sympathize with me. But instead I am met with cold, hard eyes, and an evil smile. 

“It took me a long time to realize this, but now I get that you’re not even worth all of this trouble,” Uncle says, still smiling. Giving a hollow, humorless laugh, he continues, “You’re worthless. You’re nothing. I’m doing the world a favor by disposing of you; it has enough worthless people already, just filling up the space.”

I squeal and widen my eyes even more. He’s going to kill me?

“You’ll just go plop into the water, and everything will be washed away. And in a couple of days when your body causes a clog they’ll come down here to check, and all they’ll find is a shriveled up prune.” He pauses, his smile momentarily disappearing from his face. He smiles again, but this time it’s different, angry. “You stupid, stupid bitch. You just couldn’t keep your hands of Jonah, could you? Such a little slut. Such a stupid fucking whore. You deserve to burn in hell.” His statement ended in hard, robotic words, as if he was forcing himself to say it. As if he had so much anger that he couldn’t even formulate the words, could barely speak. Looking into his eyes, I saw a flash of something: regret. But then it was filled with a crazy look, and that’s when I realized it.

Although it might’ve been obvious, it never occurred to me that Uncle was crazy. And I’m not talking about the fact that he kidnapped me, I mean he’s actually insane. Belongs-in-a-loony-bin insane. He probably doesn’t comprehend what he’s doing, or for that matter, what he’s about to do.

But I do.

I scream at the same moment that Uncle releases his grip on the chain. I look into his eyes as I fall. And for the second time, it’s as if everything’s in slow motion. I know what I probably look like: eyes widened in terror, mouth open in a scream that was cut off, hands reaching but only grasping air, hollow cheeks, and smeared in blood. Before I’m engulfed in water, for the last time, I look into Uncle’s eyes, but the crazy look is gone, and all that’s left is hatred.

All at once I’m crashing into ice cold water that wraps around me like a blanket, suffocating me. My eyes are still open, but all I see is murky water. I struggle to swim to the surface, but I’m so restricted, that I can barely move. Kicking my legs like a mermaid, I splash out of the water, thrashing about. I open my mouth to gasp in air, but I can’t breathe. The gag is soaking wet, so all I inhale is water. Choking, gasping, the water sucks me back in. It’s like I’m a bolder, I sink to the bottom, but when I reach there, I use it to my advantage, propel myself up, bursting out of the water for the second time. I immediately start breathing through my nose.

But the strength to stay above water just isn’t there. I’m so weak; I haven’t eaten in so long. My body has nothing to run on, just pure adrenaline. Before I get pulled under again, I take a quick second to glance around, trying to find something to hold onto. That’s when I see the rungs going up towards the sewer above. I have to grab onto there, I realize.

I start to kick my way in that direction, but just then, just like I was under a waterfall, buckets of water pour over my head, sending me down, down, down. Feeling the burning in my chest, I realize that I don’t have much left to give.

I feel it then: defeat. It settles over me, swallows me whole. It would be so easy, so painfully easy just to give up. To say that I wasn’t supposed to live, and that my time has come. And maybe I should do that, but there’s something inside me, something breathing and alive and angry that’s telling me that I need to keep fighting. I make a quick promise to God that if he lets me live through this, if he lets me see my mother one last time, then I will devout my life to him. I will find the truth, whatever that may be, and set my life straight.

A bolt of energy shoots through me, and I give one last push, thrashing my legs out. Stretching my hands out in front of me, I spread my fingers out, trying to grasp something. And then, there’s something there, in my hand. Something hard. Something a lot like metal. Gripping the rung, I yank myself towards it, and then up. This time when I come out of the water, I’m coughing, heaving, practically dying.

But I’m not. I’m not dying. I’m here, clinging to this rung. Alive. Outside the rain pours, it is getting dark, and I am alone. For a fraction of a second it doesn’t matter that no one knows I’m down here or that I’ve possibly lost Jonah forever or even the fact that I almost just died. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is that I have this beautiful, cold, hard rung to hold onto, and that is the only thing keeping me alive at the moment.

Yet nothing can last forever, and soon, dread fills me as I realize that I’m not strong enough to hold onto this rung for a long time; and for the time being, I’m certainly not strong enough to climb up the ladder. So, glancing around, I try to find some something that would help me in any shape or form.

And then, magically, I do.

And it’s close to me.

There, sticking out of the wall where the storm sewer drains, is a thin iron pole sticking out, looking like it used to be a rung but it was broken, and now all that’s left is a pole.

Maybe, I think, I can just hang myself up. Even though that sounds crazy, it’ll take all of the pressure off, and I won’t drown, hopefully. Judging the distance, I can probably jump, and if I’m lucky, just land perfectly to where it connects with the handcuffs.

And I try to do just that.

Propelling myself through the air, I put a little too much force, if you can believe it, and I end up coming down close to my face. So, while in the air, I put my hands close to my face, trying to loop the handcuffs so that it’ll catch on the pole, and I’ll be hanging. But instead, the pole slices the side of my face before I finish falling. The end product is me, hanging up, arms above my head, in the water from the waist down, facing the wall, gash on my cheek.

I start to cry, for some reason. And once I get started, I can’t stop. All of the thoughts overwhelm me, and I suddenly feel so scared. Visions of Uncle’s mocking face invade my mind and flood my veins. Big, choking, gasping sobs rack my body, and were it not for the handcuffs holding me up, I know that I would have fallen to my knees in despair.

And with only the cold cement walls to look at and the echoes of my cries ringing in my ears, my vision eventually starts to darken, until there is nothing left. Nothing in my mind. No thoughts, no worries. All is silent. I have finally found rest.

**************************************ATTENTION****************************************

Welp, now that I have your attention, I'll go ahead and tell you that, I'm sorry this is such a short chapter. (Please don't throw tomatoes at me!) But I wanted to give you something. Maybe I'll work on it tomorrow, but I'm going to be a tinsy bit busy. However it's on my to-do list to write and upload a longer chapter within the next couple of days.