Dipping Into Together

Ch 22

With a great feeling of falling, I am ripped out of sleep. Before I know what’s happening, I’m already in the water again, but I immediately notice two things. One, the water has gone down and now it’s only waist-deep, and two…my hands are free. I gasp, and then gasp again when I realize that I can gasp. Raising my hand, I feel my face. My hands skim over an open gash and then…nothing else, just skin. The gag is gone. As I’m on the verge of screaming, I literally start jumping up and down in the water, ecstatic. I have a chance now!

But as I’m jumping, my feet catch, and I splash around in the water a bit, trying to regain my footing. Sighing, I remember that my feet are still handcuffed. How did my handcuffs break? Looking down at my wrists, I realize that the force from hanging for so long and all of the other exposure and everything else must’ve been too great for them, and finally, they just snapped. They must’ve not been good handcuffs, like the one the cops use, because I don’t think they’re supposed to break that easily. The actual cuffs are still around each wrist, but that is definitely something that I can deal with.

Looking up at the storm sewer entrance, I see that it looks like dawn. Knowing that I shouldn’t stay in the water any longer, and the fact that I now have no way of keeping myself above water and rest, I must somehow muster up my strength and climb up the rungs of the ladder.

I start to make my way over to the rungs, but something in my mind stops me, a memory that now seems so distant, so far away, like it was from another time. On that day that Jonah came over to my house, and I went out to his car and found that paper, I never figured out what was on that paper, never read it. What could it have been that was so secretive and important?

But then, the reminder of Jonah, not even the thought of the paper, makes my breath catch in my throat.  I feel tears welling up in my eyes, but I’m quick, wiping them away and continuing on towards the ladder. When I get there, I start climbing up, thankful that it’s getting lighter by the second. But I know that once I start climbing down the tunnel, I won’t be able to see anything. Muscles burning, chest caving in, I heft myself up into the tunnel, which was relatively hard to do considering my feet were chained together. That was entirely more difficult than it should’ve been. Sighing, I collapsed on the cold, slightly damp cement.  A small breath escapes my lungs as I lay my head down. Something cold and hard pushes itself against my face. Raising my head up, I feel around where my head is trying to find whatever was on the cement. My hand brushes up against a thin piece of metal and I grab it, flinging it behind me into the water.

At the exact moment the little piece of metal leaves my hand, I realize my mistake.

A thin, small piece of metal.

Hm, wonder what I could do with that?

Shooting straight up, I forcefully whack my head against the ceiling of the tunnel. Cursing loudly, I flip my body over and scoot myself to the edge. Hanging my feet off, I thank God that it’s bright enough out where I can clearly. I push off and splash into the water. Wasting no time, I immediately stick my head under the water, my eyes wide open. While holding my breath, I frantically look around, but there’s dirt and sediment at the bottom, so how am I supposed to find a small piece of metal? I stand up, gasping for breath, and go back under.

Nothing, nothing, all I see is sand and dirt. Where’s that stupid piece of metal?! Cursing myself, I go up for air again. I stand there for a second, just breathing, thinking carefully about how and where I threw it. Glancing over at the tunnel that I came out from, I try to remember where I heard it splash. From calculating the angle that I threw it at and the sound that I can remember, (which is practically nonexistent, because how much sound can a thin strip of metal make dropping into the water?), it should be in the far left corner, close to the tunnel.