by Nick Thacker
By the time the water was at Ben’s waist, they’d reached the end of the narrow shaft. He could barely see the source of the water in the dying light. It spilled out from a small, rectangular slit in the ceiling, one that disappeared upward into the rock.
“Have you seen this before?” Ben yelled. The water was crashing out of the hole with a fury, and he knew they had only minutes before it would completely consume this shaft.
“No,” she said. “But I wasn’t privy to much of it. He only showed me a few of the main rooms before he…”
Before he took over her mind, Ben thought, finishing the sentence for her. Before he took his own daughter’s mind and turned it into his slave.
Ben turned to the rest of the group and shouted over the din of the pouring water. “Best guess, we’ve got a minute before this whole place is an underwater tomb. That means we can’t head back the way we came — it’s already underwater.
“And we have nowhere else to go, unless it’s up.”
“But that means —”
“That means we have to wait until the water’s done pouring into this shaft, then swim up into it.”
“And we’ll be holding our breaths the whole time.”
Ben nodded. “And we’ll have to hold our breath.”
One of the Peruvian men in their group spoke to Victoria. She tuned to Ben. “How do we know there’s open air up there?”
Ben looked around, just as the water level rose to his shoulders. The current had slowed, so he found it relatively easy to keep his balance. The Peruvian woman, a whole head shorter than Ben, was treading water and holding onto the shoulders of the man next to her.
“Guys — we don’t. We don’t know anything. We’re just hoping now, that’s all. This little ventilation shaft — whatever it is — might be our only way out.”
He paused, looked around his team and the villagers they’d picked up along the way, wondering if this would be the last time he saw them.
“Or it might be the end.”
75
Ben
The water had reached Ben’s eyes. The Peruvian men and woman were treading water, their lips pursed and pointed upward as their heads barely breached the surface. Julie was treading water as well, but Reggie and Mrs. E were still able to touch the ground.
“Julie, you go first with two of the villagers,” Ben shouted. “Then Mrs. E and the other two. You two are their lifelines — got it?”
Julie and Mrs. E nodded. “Keep them in front of you, and push them if you need to. Remember, Reggie and I are last, so we’ll be holding our breaths the longest.”
Julie swam over to Ben.
“Ben,” she said, softly, speaking into his ear so the others couldn’t hear. “Let me go last. I can hold my breath —”
“No.”
He didn’t argue, he didn’t even look at her.
“Ben…”
He grabbed her hand underwater, pulling her closer. “I love you, Jules. I’m not arguing. Get these people out, and wait for me.”
She nodded. It looked like there was a tear falling down her face, but their faces were all covered with splashes of water.
“Thirty seconds!” Reggie yelled. Victoria translated, asked the villagers if they needed any other instructions. They shook their heads.
Suddenly the water was at the ceiling. Ben pushed his lungs free, expelling all the air from them, then sucked in the deepest breath he was able. Next to him Julie and Reggie did the same.
Before he’d even pulled his head completely underwater Mrs. E was pushing forward, nearly throwing the first two villagers into the rectangular ventilation shaft. She violently kicked and shoved the three of them up against the slowing current.
In a few seconds she was gone, and Julie was in her place, working the two remaining villagers into position. She swam with them, having an easier time of it as the water had finally stopped pushing against them and these two villagers were capable of pulling themselves along.
And then Reggie went.
Ben’s breath was still in his lungs, but it was beginning to poison him. He felt the burning sting of the air souring, his body beginning to fight back against it, willing him to open his mouth, and then —
It was his turn.
Reggie’s feet were in his face, but Ben wasn’t about to wait another second. He kicked with everything he had, using energy that meant it was directly working against his ability to hold his breath. He pulled with his arms, the rectangular slit not wide enough for him to move forward with his arms fully extended, while continuing to kick with his legs.
He made progress, but it was too slow.
His lungs were about to burst, the involuntary desire to breathe growing as strong as his voluntary ability to prevent it. It was a balancing act, but it was one he would eventually lose. The human body was incapable of preventing its most basic needs, and breathing ranked high on the list of things that were required.
There was no light.
The darkness of the shaft penetrated his soul, and the water consuming him caused him to feel as though he were weightless, lying at a diagonal in the center of a black hole. He focused on the walls, focused on the smooth, hand-cut stone blocks, the gaps between them nearly unnoticeable.
But it still wasn’t enough.
The darkness deepened somehow, his throat and mind constricting, and he knew he wouldn’t make it.
He reached forward, knowing that if he could just feel Reggie’s boot, grab his friends ankle for just a moment, it would be enough. He would find a bit more strength and stamina there.
But there was no boot. There was no ankle to grab hold of; Reggie was gone.
76
Ben
Ben was alone now, floating in his black hole, fighting the slip into unconsciousness.
He’d read somewhere that death by drowning was one of the better ways to go — your mind experiences a state of euphoria, of an elated sense of self. The problem was that he’d also read that the moments before death — the period during which the body tries desperately to stay alive — is severely uncomfortable. The body sucks in gasps of water, screams as it realizes there is no air with which it can breathe, and then struggles in vain to get to the surface.
Ben was experiencing this now. Bubbles escaped the corners of his mouth, his lips barely strong enough to keep in the last of the life-giving air. He also knew that life-giving air was now mostly carbon dioxide, and it was this that his body was trying to expel.
He flailed, feeling the helplessness and terror set in.
I’m not going to make it.
Ben fought, hard, against the darkness, but he no longer knew which way was up. The walls seemed to disappear, taunting him as he strained to reach them.
He let out another burst of carbon dioxide. The bubbles tickled his face, his nose. He wanted to scream, and so he did.
The last gasp of air left his mouth and was immediately replaced by water. Cold, sweet death. It fell into him, covering his throat and his lungs and his mind. Water everywhere, and yet he continued screaming and struggling and fighting until…
Everything stopped.
Everything fell silent.
His mind felt the elation. The true euphoria of near-death setting in. He saw lights — gold, silver, greens and blues — dancing across his vision. Were his eyes even open?
He remembered something, something that seemed distant now. Swim toward the light, he thought. Was that just a saying? Something he should actually do?
He decided not to. Everything was perfect in here, everything calm and still and perfect. He liked it. This was true bliss, and yet he knew the end had come. Was this, then, a transition? Something that would lead to something else? Or was this it?
Was this all it was at the end?
He didn’t know. Didn’t care. His mind was racing along, but it was no longer his own. He was in control of nothing, and finally, he didn’t care.
He let himself be pulled along by death,
allowed himself the sweet satisfaction on not having to worry anymore — about anything.
Ben smiled. Or thought he did. He didn’t know, nor did he care. This is it, he thought. My final thought. And my final wish.
No. There was more. He was still in the black hole, in the tunnel of lights, but now there was something else. Julie. He felt her lips, felt her caress.
My wife. He was dreaming of her, reaching out to her.
Julie. He wanted to say her name. He wanted to grab her hand, to pull her in close and kiss her back, but he couldn’t do a thing.
Death had set in, and he was now merely a spectator to his own end. To whatever transition there was. He believed there was something else, something more, but he had the realization that if there were something else, it was taking a long time to get here.
He felt himself swallow, then — something lunged out of him and some of the lights disappeared. The blues and greens were gone, the golds and silvers still there. The darkness still covered all of it.
He thought he could feel his body again, a gentle tingling sensation as it moved and shook. He felt Julie’s lips, soft and warm, a real feeling.
They were gone, and then they returned once again.
Julie.
He tried saying it aloud. Forced everything he had to form the words.
“Julie.”
It was a whisper, but he knew he’d heard it. Sound. It had been real.
“Julie — lips.”
And then his eyes opened. There was gold, and silver, the lights he’d seen. Blues and greens shifted into the form of humans and water and whatever sat behind them.
And there, right in front of his face, were lips.
He felt something pushing against him, against his chest and lungs. He could breathe, but it hurt.
He blinked, allowing the lips to come into focus.
They belonged to Reggie.
He was laying on his back on the stone floor, the water seeping out of him and around him. He was cold. Reggie smiled back down at him as he stopped compressing his chest.
“Man,” Reggie said. “I knew you had a thing for me.”
77
Julie
Julie was crying, but also trying to watch Reggie work. It was a constant battle between wiping away tears and trying to stop shaking. Victoria was holding her, and the four villagers were standing behind them. The woman had her hands on Julie’s shoulders.
Mrs. E, for her part, was kneeling next to Reggie, ready to take over the CPR as soon as Reggie needed a break. Julie couldn’t see clearly through her own tears, but it seemed as though the other two members of her group — the closest friends she had in the world — were also struggling to keep it together.
And then, with a sputtering splash of water that began inside Ben’s mouth and ended on Reggie’s face, Ben came back to life.
“Julie — lips.”
“I knew you always had a thing for me,” Reggie said, wiping his face with a sleeve.
She smiled.
Reggie laughed, then spoke quietly to Ben. She moved over to her husband and kissed him, but Reggie gently pulled her back.
“You might want to stand back, Jules,” he said. “There’s usually another —”
On cue, Ben rolled to his side and coughed out another bucketful of water, mixed with vomit and spit and bile. It splashed her knees, but she didn’t move. She went back in for another kiss.
“Ben,” she said. “I love you. I love you. I thought —”
“I was — I was dead,” Ben said.
“Yeah, because you’re an idiot,” Reggie said. “You were three inches from the surface, but you kept sinking back under. I had to stick my whole upper body into the hole to grab you, or you would’ve sunk back to the other shaft.”
“Th — thanks, man.”
“Eh, don’t worry about.” He held up his right arm. “You’d better hope this thing is waterproof, though. Or it’s gonna cost you another one.”
Ben smiled. Julie hugged him.
“What happened?” Ben asked. “Where are we?”
“Well, we all got out and waited. We never saw you come up completely, but Reggie ducked back in and found your arms.”
“You might… have a bit of a bruise,” Reggie said. “You were a bit slippery.”
Julie saw Ben rubbing the area of his wrist where Reggie had clamped his prosthetic arm around it.
“And to answer your second question,” Julie continued. “I think we found out where those ventilation shafts end up.”
Julie looked around once again at the space they’d ended up in. The shafts that hadn’t been filled in over the course of centuries sent pinpricks of light down to the center of the chamber. The space was shaped like the upper half of a diamond, a six-sided pyramid. The room had been carved into the interior of the mountain’s peak, and each of the shafts that were visible seemed to end on a different face of the mountain.
It was miraculous — they’d found a hidden room inside the mountain, one that had been filled completely with water, thanks to a natural spring that trickled water down one wall.
“Whoa,” Ben said. “This is… something else.”
“It’s the hidden chamber,” Julie said. “The Hall of Records.”
“It was totally filled in with water,” Reggie said. “When Sturdivant bombed the exits, it caused instability up here and something broke. The water fell to the lower levels.”
Ben slowly sat up. “Why was it filled with water?” Ben asked.
“Come here,” Julie said. She helped him stand, then guided him a few feet to his right. “Look around.”
She followed his gaze, watching his expression as he realized where they were. While the overall shape of the room was that of a diamond, the floor they were standing on was circular. About fifteen feet in diameter, they were standing on a circular crop of stone. Outside of that circular rock, a ring of six inch-deep water encircled them, followed by two more rings of stone and water.
Scattered amongst the concentric circles, on the stone rings, were etchings and carved writings. They looked familiar, and Julie knew Ben recognized the writing as the same that they had discovered in the temples in the valley just outside this mountain.
“It’s… Atlantis,” Ben said softly. “Their city was built in concentric circles, allowing them protection from invaders.”
“Exactly,” Julie said. “It’s a replica of their original world. Their entire history is probably here, written in stone.”
“Something that water wouldn’t destroy.”
“Something no one would find, unless they knew exactly where to look.”
“Their goal was to reseed the world with their knowledge. After the flood, they spread out to every corner of the globe and taught civilization. They gave us farming, art, and laws.”
“And they recorded it all here. In their Hall of Records.”
“Julie — guys — this is incredible. This is one of the biggest finds of the century… of all time.”
Julie smiled. “Well, it was your idea.”
Ben shrugged. “I just really didn’t want to die.”
“And neither did they. It’s why they built this place. They were fugitives from their homeland, but they refused to go quietly. They helped kickstart the world once again, knowing that if they were ever needed again it would be because of a major catastrophe.”
Ben looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought.
“What’s up?” Julie asked.
“It’s just… why put your secret Hall of Records above your city, then fill it with water? Doesn’t it seem a bit… masochistic?”
Reggie walked over. “Or symbolic.”
“How so?”
“Think about it — these guys were chased from their homeland by a cataclysmic wall of water, which completely drowned their original city. We saw that in Santorini. They moved to Egypt, but there was always unrest and uneasiness there, and they were eventually chased from there, too.
“Then they finally found a home here, in the Chachapoyas Valley of Peru. The ‘light-skinned natives,’ the Spanish called them. The Spanish were always on the search for gold and silver, and treasures, and essentially destroyed the Inca for it.”
“But this was the treasure the whole time,” Ben said. “The record of their life. What they used as their library, to spread their culture again. They reached the Egyptians, the Vikings, the Native Americans, and the Inca, Aztecs, and Maya here.”
“So it’s symbolic that the only time they’d need to access this vault of information is if and when something cataclysmic happened. Or, in other words, they set this up as the cataclysm.”
“They would flood their home to access the Hall of Records once again,” Ben finished.
“And then move somewhere else, and start over.”
“Exactly. They were always oppressed. The misunderstood ‘daughters of Cain’ from scripture, the race that led to giants, the first murders, and eventually the flood itself. They were said to be descended from Cain, bred with fallen angels. Certainly not a favored people in God’s eyes.”
“Right,” Julie said. “I remember that. They strayed from God’s commands and sought other knowledge, much like Eve in the Garden of Eden. That eventually led to their understanding of mathematics and engineering, which gave them a leg up on the rest of civilization.”
It all made sense to her. The Daughters of Cain, as they were sometimes referred to, were seen as the original group of rebels that included the nephilim, the race of giants from which the storied Goliath descended. Their cousins were thought to be the titans that wrestled with the Greek gods of antiquity, the race of half-god, half-human giants that ruled the antediluvian world.
The Atlanteans.
“But… how does it all work?”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Reggie said. “And the mechanism would be relatively simple for them. They were engineering geniuses, remember? They could have a door that would open only if there was enough pressure on the other side of it.”