SONDER (IV): tmr thomas

004: I should swim

Ella 4

              "Emmy," I can hear him, but I can't see him. I would reach my hands out in the dark, but they are strapped down. My mouth is filled with water, but my lungs can breathe. In and out. In and out.

Eli is holding my hand. It's one of the few things that I can feel. He is here with me. One hand tightly wrapped in mine. His fingers dry, but cold.

"It's okay," he whispers. He tucks a soaking strand of hair behind my ear. I've never let him touch me this way, though I know he has wanted to for some time. Right now, I can't resist the warm feeling that builds in me from his chilled touch. A corpse may still be human, but it is a corpse. "Just tell him what he wants, and we can go home. Please Emily."

Eli was always quick to give in to another human's temper. A flick of a switch, and Eli was docile and quiet. Towards the end of our friendship, he could finally stand up to me. Especially when we were out of reach of the Smoke Man.

"Please Emily," the Smoke Man echoes. "I need you to tell me your other name."

"Ella," I gargle the water in my mouth to tell him. I don't need to see the man to know he has a red button. With this much water on me, my skin will fry. He has never mixed water in with our sessions before, but I wouldn't put it past him.

He must be so angry at me for thwarting his plan. Eli can get off easier since he always caves into an apology. The Smoke Man wants me instead, and he will use Eli to get to me.

"That is not the name I'm looking for," the Smoke Man shakes his head back and forth.

I don't know that name. I'd forgotten it a long time ago.

"I can whisper it to you if you'd like," Eli tells me. I can see him clearly. His pale skin holding my dark hands. "That was our deal, remember? I have your name, you have mine? We even did that in the Maze too."

"Come on Emmy," I hate the Smoke Man's nickname for me. It's always been used to make me feel younger, and smaller. I'm as old as everyone else, apparently. I just haven't grown since this began.

"I don't know." The water spills out of my mouth, down on to my clothes. I'm going to get hypothermia. I can feel it creeping up on me with every passing second. I will die in here.

"It's not a trick," Eli tells me.

"Tell me," I ask Eli. My eyes are watering now. Maybe I'm underwater in a sea of my own tears.

"That's not how this works Ella," the Smoke Man argues.

Eli ignores him. "I want to, but he scares me. I've always been scared of him, you know?"

He wraps his hands tighter around me. Though he squeezes harder, my hands only get colder. He feels like ice and I am the bath. Even I am warmer than him, and I am burning up.

"Fear nothing," I try to reassure him, even though I feel the undertow which pulled me down. I soaked up water like a sponge, but I didn't soak up panic. It doesn't bind me.

The Smoke Man laughs. "Not even me?"

Eli gulps, looking back into the shadows. It's too dimly lit for me to see the Smoke Man, but I can see every strand of hair on Eli's head. Every pore is crystal clear. His nails are dirty. I wonder if he gardened in the Maze too.

"I was scared of remembering too much," Eli tells me carefully. "I don't want you to be as scared as I was. So scared that you die."

~~~

I think that this is the proudest I have ever been of a chapter. I excites me so much!