Undercurrent

One

I was dreaming of the day he died. Again.

Diamonds shimmered across the unnaturally blue surface of the old rock quarry that had filled up with rainwater and underground aquifers over the years that it had been abandoned.

No one in the quaint town of Bauxite in small town America had ever questioned its striking hue, most simply chalking up the mystery of its color to the abundance of minerals of the town's namesake coursing through the currents hidden below that had been stirred up during the rock mining process.

"Come on Ray-Ray, you can't seriously chicken out after we walked all this way through the woods!"

Adam Anderson, the better half of the Anderson twins, shouted across the sparkling surface towards my shaking body, taunting me to follow in his adventurous ways and dive off of the rock feature and into the deep blue below.

"It's not called chickening out if I never agreed to this in the first place! I just wanted to go swimming!"

My voice escaped me in a high pitched whine and although I knew I was being a bit of a 'chicken' about it as he had put it, there was just something about the deep water staring back at me that had me on edge.

The humid summer breeze tickled my skin and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge as the trees to my left began rustling with an ominous song that forced my heart to skip in my chest.

There was a thickening in the atmosphere that set my nerves alight with anticipation of something dark and powerful, a beautifully dangerous premonition of a fierce storm about to make its presence known.

I made my decision the second the first sprinkling rain hit my flushed skin, and then I was flying high, a bird breaking free across the murky shadowed clouds in a dive that would penetrate the still and cool waters below.

I tensed up as my body descended into the swimming hole as if I weighed nothing-the frigid water cooling off my temperature from the late August heat.

A stray beam of remaining sunshine slithered through the barrier of the water and lit up the murky depths below me as I attempted to slow myself down from the steep dive that I had just completed. With eyes wide open, there was no end in sight to the blue hole underneath me, the only other thing visible in the old rock quarry being that of the body of my best friend.

At first, I thought he was just playing around with me and at any moment would regain his rigidity and come swimming right for me, but his body was still and flowing with the strong undercurrent of the deep waters, a sure sign that he was unconscious.

I immediately swam with all of my might towards his fading body as it quickly sunk down ten feet, then fifteen.

I could feel the oxygen deprivation begin to affect my senses as everything became murky and blurry, the disorientation only pushing me further on to save my best friend from the treacherous mysterious current.

Minerals infecting the water created swirling orbs of light in my line of vision combining with my swirling black hair around my face and in my incapacitated state I focused too much of my attention on a larger speck of rock that managed to swim directly into my line of sight and suddenly I lost all sight of Adam.

His chestnut brown hair and eyes as deep blue as the swimming hole he was dying in invaded my mind and despair clutched me with a force I couldn't comprehend fully in that moment.

It was only when a strong, painful iron grip wrapped around my forearm did the sense of pure, unadulterated terror consume me with a disgusting need to die along with Adam if I couldn't save him.