My Modern Kaidan: Meibatsu

Chapter 14

I try to unsubmerge myself from the water, but the hand has other plans, anchoring me deep below the surface. I yank my arm with the desperate amount of strength I have left, finally pulling free. My relief is short-lived as I swim towards the surface and realize there isn't one.

We're completely submerged now.

I reach out for Kenji and make contact with his face. I can't see but I can tell his head is hanging loosely, moving with the sway of the water. He's unconscious, or worse.

I know I should leave him, try to find the rope with what little air I have left but I don't move. It's too late. Everything is too late.

My whole world begins to fade to a darker black than the waters around me, a darkness that's more permanent, and I clasp Kenji's lifeless hand in mine just as I feel myself pulled, gently at first, and then with a force so great I lose my grip on Kenji altogether.

My body whirls through the water like I'm a doll in a giant washing machine. I'm slammed into the rocks like a ragdoll before slamming into solid ground.

Water rushes over me in waves before Kenji's body slams into my own, pinwheeling to a stop feet away. We're somehow outside now, in the bed of a creek, and I gaze up at a hatch in the side of the hill that's come open, a broken dam in the form of a large metal door. I turn my attention back to Kenji and crawl forward, huffing and sputtering in panic.

"Kenji," I choke out. His lips are a sickly shade of blue that makes my stomach heave.

I hover over him, blowing into his mouth with breath that's barely my own, then pumping on his chest with both of my hands. I go back and forth between these two actions over and over but there's no response.

"No," I whisper. "No, no, no."

There's a flopping sound behind me, like something else has washed out of the cave.

I crane my head back and what I see turns my next words into a scream.