Hollows In Time (✔️) | 'Hollows' Book Ⅱ

Chapter Fifty-Three

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H o l l o w s   I n
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They say that the instinct not to breathe underwater is so strong that it overcomes the agony of running out of air. No matter how desperate the drowning person is, they don't inhale until they're on the verge of losing consciousness. After a while, the brain knows that holding our breath is killing us, and breathing in might not kill us, so we might as well breathe in.

When this first involuntary breath occurs, most people are still conscious. Apparently, it's horrid, because the only thing more unpleasant than running out of air is breathing in water.

The clock is running down now; you're about to die. The person, half-conscious and weakened by the amount of oxygen lost, is in no position to fight their way back up to the surface. The very process of drowning makes it harder and harder not to drown.

It's either brutal or euphoric. But either way, unless someone comes to save you, you die. Your lungs fill up with water and your limp body falls down into the depths of the lonely waters. Shadows break out from all around you, and there really is no escape. You may remember the sun being out before you started to drown, but you can no longer see it anymore. In fact, you can't see anything. You're looking, searching, but there's nothing to be found. Because you're trapped in a prison of water.

And then you're gone.

It's funny, though, because your oxygen deprived mind plays all kinds of tricks on you. And that's what mine did.

I was fifteen again.

Alexi thrusted an ice cream into my hands, but what she said to me didn't sound coherent. I frowned but accepted the ice cream nonetheless and started to eat from it.

Carter stood on the top of a ladder, pulling string lights across the top of our barbecue tent. Alexi seemed to shout something over to Carter, and he appeared to be laughing in response. But I couldn't hear very well. It's like someone stuck clumps of tissue in my ears and left them there.

So I told Alexi and Carter this. But nothing came out. My lips parted, but nothing happened.

Everyone around me was laughing. But I wasn't where I was supposed to be. I was at my house. But that felt odd, and I didn't know why. It was as if I was missing someone's presence.

And then I started to swim upwards. I had found the light.

The oxygen hit me like a truck. But I couldn't comprehend it properly. I felt something pumping into my chest repeatedly, then a firm push onto what I assumed were my numb lips. Then I felt it. I coughed and spluttered for what seemed like hours. The feeling of water shooting up from my lungs being the worst pain I have ever experienced. It felt like someone was carving out my insides with a shiv.

When I opened my eyes, I was greeted by two blurry faces. I closed my eyes again and listened to the incoherent voices for a while. Someone was shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes to be blinded by the sunlight, until someone moved their head to block it.

At first, the figures above me looked like blurred shadows. The water that had found its way into my lungs started to burn, and I started to cough it up. Someone supported me as I rolled onto my side, beginning to cough and splutter water everywhere again. When I was done, I squeezed my eyes shut as the pain of the sharp water still struck me.

I laid back down and kept my eyes shut for a few moments. Then, when I opened them, I was most surprised by the faces that I had recognised. I frowned up at them.