Hold Your Breath by Sarah Macallister

Underwater light flickers and dapples the sea floor, glowing through seaweed drifting in the current. Miles of sand undulate into shadow. The goggles bite hard into Colin’s cheekbones and behind his ears, but they do not leak. Colin swims deeper, releasing bubbles as he descends.

His chest tightens but the sand is close now. He stretches his fingers out.

Something slithers over his hand and he recoils, twisting around in the water. An eel, lithe and dark with ancient eyes and rotting lips. It squirms through a hole in the struts of the pier.

Colin sinks his fingers into the gritty sand. He rolls over and kicks off the bottom, pulling water back from his path to the glittering surface.

His lungs are burning. He wants to open his mouth. Bright shapes squiggle across his eyes like tadpoles or sperm, brilliant parasites of pure energy and light.

Colin gulps and chokes as he inhales a mixture of seawater and air.

“Wahey! You’re alive!” Magnus sits on the edge of the pier, dangling his legs and wearing a big grin. He chucks himself in and splashes over to Colin, holding his head above the waves like a lifeguard dummy.

The beach beyond is deserted except for a black dog crashing into the waves for a stick. The owner trudges along behind, head downturned against the sand whipping his face.

“Did you reach the bottom, goggle-eyes?”

“Ye-ep.”

“Cool. My turn. Bet I’m faster.”

Magnus pulls Colin, still spluttering, over to the pier scaffolding and leaves him bobbing along the kelp encrusted pillar, while he hauls himself out of the water and climbs to the wooden planks.

“So long sucker!” Magnus leaps into a dive and is swallowed whole by the churning sea.

Colin starts counting and shudders as the cool, green water laps his shoulders. He tries to climb, but slips on the bubbly kelp and remains bobbing like a buoy. As cold as the seaweed. His skin is grey and his lips are a bruised line. The sky is swollen with clouds that smother the sun.

Wine-dark sea. Colin feels light-headed. Drunk on saltwater. What is taking Magnus so long?

A straggly shape bursts free of a wave and Colin’s heart lifts, but it is only a seabird, a cormorant or a shag, he can never tell them apart.

That’s two minutes now.

Rain spits from the darkening sky. Colin sighs. Their clothes. They’d left them in a heap on the pier. Colin’s feet are numb and he isn’t sure he can use his limbs anymore. The metal struts of the pier are cold, hard and slimy.

Four minutes.

Magnus should be back. Colin searches the seething water. There is no sign of Magnus. He dips his head under, but the water is murkier and darker now the sun has gone.

Five minutes. Colin stops counting and fear crawls into his throat. He takes his goggles off to look over the trembling water, while waves pull gently at him, beckoning him from his holdfast. The wind comes from across the ocean and fetches tears from his eyes. He cannot hear the gulls, only the ceaseless, grumbling waters that look oily grey in this light. There is movement without life here.

Something grips his shoulders, hauling him underwater. Colin thrashes and kicks against a smooth hard body. It lets go. Colin crawls away from the pier in a stuttering line, glancing around, he sees his goggles being carried out to sea.

Magnus waves, hanging from the metal underbelly of the pier. He’s already out of the water. “Scared you, didn’t I?”

Suspended like a starfish, rain patters Colin’s cheeks as he drifts past the end of the pier. A strong current clutches him, and he is carried further.

“Come back, you idiot! Watch out for the riptide!” Magnus’s shouts are caught by the wind and fade away. Colin half-expects Magnus to dive after him, laughing madly, but instead sees his pale body mount the struts, grab his clothes and run down the pier towards land. Between waves, he sees the naked boy shrinking until he’s a point on the horizon, joining grains of sand on the shore.

Colin floats on his back, blinks in the rain and whispers as the waves hold him tight and hurry him away from land. “Too late.”

A sob strikes him like a sneeze, and he no longer balances upon the meniscus between air and water. The salt enraged sea reclaims him. Colin’s throat rattles shut. He opens his eyes and they are burning, brine scorched, but he can’t bear to close them yet. Through the stinging water, seaweed blossoms towards him, reaching out with tender fingers and stroking his bare legs.

Colin struggles and kicks his legs in blind panic. Against the lift of a wave he returns to the surface, blasting water from his lungs like white sick, with tears streaming from his burnt eyes. He rolls onto his back and kicks harder and faster, because his legs will not stop, cannot stop, even if he doesn’t know where they’re taking him. He forces his arms to wheel through the water, breaking the rigidity of his cold-entombed muscles. Every breath wrings his chest. His legs are growing tired, acid building up in the fibres straining to assault the water.

An arm lets him down first. His left arm won’t rise. It flops insolently by his side, ignoring the furious thrashes of the other limbs. To stop himself spinning in a circle, Colin permits the right arm to yield to exhaustion too. The legs persist. They are more used to hard work.

At last, his legs grow heavy and leaden, sinking further with each beat, until his near constant thrashing splutters to a halt. Colin can hear the roaring bellows of what he was trying to fight. An immense ocean filled with water-breathing beasts, with him resting on its surface, a speck of dust waiting to sink. Colin closes his eyes.

Wind stings his wet face, but under his head there is something different. Something solid. He twists his neck around. The solid feeling gives way to water again. Colin sighs and tries to flutter his legs. His heels dig into soft, wet sand. A wave pulls him back up and there, moulded beneath his head and shoulders, he feels the semi-solid wet sand.

A dog barks.

Colin turns his aching neck to one side. Three land-born creatures are running towards him. A black Labrador and its owner, and Magnus, fully-clothed.

Sarah Macallister

Banner Image: Pixabay.com – A pier stretching out to see with a cloudy silvered sky above.