Kraken Orbital

by James J. Stubbs

  Chapter 17

  Drowning

  With as much effort as I can muster, I keep rolling my shoulders and shifting the weight of my body about my knees, and move forward. The surface of the vent is smooth but my disgusting leather apron sticks to it regardless.

  Looking down through the grate in the next section of the vent immediately makes me feel less claustrophobic. But I almost throw up when I see the body floating in the water below. I hadn’t seen it before. Was it because I just frantically made it to the air pocket and then the vent afterwards? Or was it that the person had just drowned and floated down the desolate hall?

  In the light that danced through the currents of water, I can make out the uniform. It’s a guard from the mine. No doubt about it. But before I can make any further assessment of it, the body of what I now realize to be a young woman, starts to convulse. She violently wretches back and forth, twisting from the middle down to her knees and back again. Her eyes spring open and immediately, with a deeply horrifyingly pleading look upon them, lock onto mine. Wide. Pale blue and scared.

  I ball up my fist and immediately start slamming them down hard on the vent cover. I would have watched them die before. I killed them myself. But that was a different me. That me was gone. I killed him too. I was going to save her. Just like I was going to save Lucy.

  With all the fury and passion inside of me I bang harder and harder upon the cold metal grate until it became dislodged and sunk to the bottom of the abandoned hall. I swing out an outstretched hand to the desperate girl and grab her palm with mine. I feel the life in her. I feel the struggle and the need in her. Just with that fraction of skin contact.

  I can see her pain and her fear. I grip as hard as I can as the water fights hard against me and pull her slowly relaxing palm towards me.

  I’m not strong enough. I feel, to my horror and hers, her grip relax completely around my tired and brittle fingers. Her body goes limp but I have just enough time to pull her head closer to mine.

  I take in a long gulp of air and instinctively pushed my lips against hers and blew hard into her lungs. Something must have worked because she snaps out of it and starts convulsing again. No more time to think. I slide out of the vent and back into the oddly comforting embrace of the still warm water.

  I grab the thrashing and scared body, pull it close to me and start to swim frantically down the hall. The effort is immense but I think the new me has a Hell of a lot more bravado than the old me. She is thin with a boyish frame. No curvy features but she was still pretty. I wish I could tell her to relax but I can’t. She’s fraught with panic and her body still thrashes around. I wish she would calm but instead she just keeps fighting.

  It’s not helping. I finally reach the end of the hall where I come upon a locked door. The same spinning lock as all of the others held two partitions of a large cargo door locked together. My access card! I let go of her with one hand and calmly reach for it in my pocket. I hold it against the door and with a surge of relief it opens.

  The water drains out from the flooded hall immediately and the current washes the two of us through the gap and out into safety.

  I cough and splutter hard. So does the girl I have saved. But at least I have saved her.