Page 8 of Claimed By the Deep
I check my pressure gauge and curse silently through my regulator. The needle is in the red zone—emergency reservesonly. Either my gauge has been giving me false readings, or I've been down longer than I realized.
The regulator delivers another weak breath, then nothing.
I drop the sextant and kick hard toward the cabin opening, but my tank catches on a piece of debris. For a moment I'm stuck, trapped in a space barely larger than a coffin while my air supply fails completely.
Panic claws at my throat as I twist and pull, trying to free myself without damaging my equipment. The tank comes loose suddenly, sending me tumbling out of the cabin in a cloud of disturbed sediment.
I can't see the anchor line. The cloud of silt has reduced visibility to arm's length, and my emergency ascent has disoriented me. I could be swimming away from my boat instead of toward it.
I force myself to stop, to hover motionless while the sediment settles and my air-starved brain tries to think clearly. My emergency pony bottle should give me enough air to sort this out, but when I reach for the regulator, my numb fingers can't make the connection work properly.
The pony bottle regulator slips from my grasp and dangles uselessly while precious seconds tick away. I make another grab for it, but my coordination is already suffering from carbon dioxide buildup.
Through the clearing water, I finally spot the anchor line—fifty feet away and in the wrong direction. I must have gotten turned around in the cabin.
I kick toward it, fighting the weighted belt that's trying to drag me deeper and the wetsuit that's not providing enough buoyancy to compensate. Every stroke feels clumsy, inefficient, like I'm moving through thick oil instead of water.
The anchor line seems to get farther away instead of closer.
My vision starts to tunnel, dark spots appearing at the edges as hypoxia takes hold. I know I should drop my weight belt, should jettison anything that's dragging me down, but my hands won't cooperate with what my brain is telling them to do.
I'm still forty feet from the anchor line when my body gives up the fight.
I sink slowly toward the bottom, watching the surface light fade above me as consciousness begins to slip away. My last coherent thought is that Fergus will never know what happened to me. Deep Pockets will be found drifting empty, and my body will become part of the same ecosystem that claimed Caroline's Dream and her crew.
The irony would be funny if I had enough oxygen left to appreciate it.
Darkness closes in, and I stop fighting.
That's when something wraps around my waist.
Through my failing vision, I catch glimpses of dark red flesh, appendages that move with impossible grace and power. I should be terrified, but my oxygen-starved brain can only manage distant wonder.
The creature from my dreams is real. And it's carrying me toward the surface with smooth, powerful strokes that cover distance faster than should be possible.
Am I being saved? Or am I dead?
Meridian
FIVE
Iwake up breathing.
That's the first impossible thing. The second is that I'm not floating face-down in sixty feet of Atlantic water, which is where my last clear memory places me. The third is that I'm warm and dry, lying on what feels like smooth stone, with the sound of waves echoing around me but no water in sight.
I sit up slowly, head spinning like I've been on a three-day bender. My wetsuit is gone, replaced by a soft blanket that smells faintly of sea salt and something else I can't identify. My diving gear is nowhere to be seen, but my mesh bag with its impossible treasures sits nearby, contents intact.
The space around me doesn't make sense. I'm in what must be an underwater air pocket—a cave system where trapped air creates a breathable space beneath the surface. I've heard of them but never seen one this large or stable. The walls curve upward into darkness, smooth as glass and faintly luminescent with some kind of phosphorescent algae or mineral deposit.The air is warm and humid, with a metallic taste that coats my tongue.
Water laps at the edges of the stone platform where I'm sitting, and I can hear waves echoing through hidden passages. The whole space feels like being inside a geode that's been carved by decades of tidal action.
"You're awake."
I spin toward the voice and nearly fall off the smooth stone ledge. A man stands at the edge of the phosphorescent light, and something about him stops me cold.
He's tall, maybe six-three, with dark hair still damp from swimming. Handsome doesn't quite cover it – he's got the kind of face that makes you forget what you were saying mid-sentence. His clothes are an odd collection—faded jeans, a cable-knit sweater worn soft with age, and a heavy wool peacoat missing several buttons. Everything looks salvaged, yet somehow he makes it work like he stepped out of some high-end vintage fashion shoot.
The peacoat hangs open over the cream-colored sweater, and the way the faded denim fits his legs makes it clear he's in damn good shape. His jaw could cut glass, and those eyes – deep blue and too intense – make it hard to look away. His skin is pale, like he doesn't see much sun and his haircut reminds me of the sorts that men used to wear during my grandma's time.
