Murky

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. They wouldn’t really know that from experience, though, would they?

I do. Even as I say that with certainty, a sliver of my sanity screams with disbelief -- Disbelief that I know what it feels like to be weightless in mass, yet heavy in heart; That I have felt utter and complete darkness, abandonment, and isolation from human contact in a true vacuum; That I know with absolute confidence that I won’t be alive in an hour, because I am almost out of oxygen.

Understand this, reader: I am not an astronaut. Actually, I am a scuba diver. It is hard to explain how I got here, but I will try as quickly and succinctly as I can. I know that I do not have much time.

It had been a hard day. There were too many bills in my mailbox. There were too many angry customers trying to swindle me into more time in the water, or cheaper pricing. There were too many problems, and not enough solutions. It was all just too much.

I have always loved the ocean. So when I need to clear my head, that's where I go. Nothing clearer than water.

My coworker, Chelsea, volunteered to go with me. I groaned internally when she offered, even though I knew that there was no other way. Everyone knows that it is downright idiotic to go diving without a buddy. My work never would have allowed it. So, I accepted. It felt comforting to know that even though she would physically be there trailing quietly behind me, I would still be without conversation, without distraction, and alone with my thoughts. We found ourselves in the deep blue a half hour later.

The area we were experienced in was mostly unsubstantial. There were coral reefs, school of fish flitting by every few minutes, and a dock to come back to. The most interesting feature of the entire roped off enclosure was the underwater tavern that was tucked away and out of view for customers. Too many of them wanted to venture it, but it was not safe for novices. I decided to head that way.

We hadn’t been in the water but five minutes when we rounded the corner and I saw it. There, in the entrance to the underwater cave, was something sparkling. It bobbed with the coruscating current, titillating and buoyant against the cerulean of the sea. It was entrancing, the way it cut across my vision. It made everything else seem dull. I started towards it, reached my hands out to grab what I assumed to be a rogue piece of jewelry from the day’s diving customers, but jumped back, startled when it darted further away. I realized that this was not a watch or a ring or anything inanimate at all.

I still didn’t know what it was, though. I would lurch ahead to grab it just as it would slip away again. It was now too far in front of me to reach into the cavern without entering. And I knew I shouldn’t go in there. There was a voice screeching in the back of my mind to turn my ass around and leave it be. But I couldn't. Like a dumb ass raccoon, I chased that damn light as far as I could, deeper and deeper, until I couldn’t even see the cave entrance anymore. Spare me the chastising. If anyone knows how dumb I was in that moment, it is me right now. And Chelsea, I suppose. I lost track of her before I even entered the cave.

I don't even know how long I followed the glinting blip that dangled in front of me, just out of reach no matter how fast I swam. I only stopped to look around when the water started to feel different…lighter, somehow. Nothing seemed amiss with the smooth rock walls enclosing the cave. All was quiet and dim. Regardless, I felt light-headed and faint, like I was losing control of my movements. The water bent to my will with little resistance.

I started to panic. How far up had I gone? I hadn’t kept track of the altitude of the cave as I chased the light. I recalled the training that I'd had before I started this job. Coming up too fast would give you compression sickness. Did I have the bends? I did feel disoriented and confused. I had never experienced it before, but I knew something was wrong. The water wasn’t weighing down on me like it usually did. I felt as though gravity was relaxing its grip on me.

I had decided to head back when I realized that there was a light, brighter at the end of the tunnel. The walls were progressively getting more suffocating the further I went. I needed to get back to the surface as fast as I could so that I didn’t run out of air. I concluded that the light at the end of the tunnel might literally be that, an exit currently closer to me than the way I came from. I kept going.

Waves of paranoia washed over me as I swam on. The light was still there, guiding me like a tiny lighthouse in the distance. The exit seemed no closer than it had ten minutes ago, though. Looking around, I noticed a change in my surroundings. The cavern was turning crystalline in texture, beautiful refraction dancing along each gem over, under, and beside me. With a sinking heart I realized that that was why the light had seemed brighter this way. It was only the reflections of the light on the jewels adorning the cave. I swam on, having no other choice.

The cavern got darker. The jewels had faded away and now everything was pitch black, except for the light up ahead. I couldn’t tell whether we were even in the cave anymore. Maybe we had just gone down so deep that we couldn’t see the sunlight anymore.

We. Maybe we had gone too deep. Looking back, I notice that I started thinking of the light as an entity too. I didn’t even know what it was yet, but I addressed it with respect nonetheless. That is the one thing that I regret the most. Maybe had I shown a little bit of contempt, I would have reached a quicker end to this torture.

I drifted through the water, barely having to move to keep my momentum going. I had never felt like this while diving before. The panic I felt was replaced by fear. It crept into my gut and up my spine. Flash images of my coworkers finding my lifeless, swollen body bobbing to the surface appeared in my mind's eye. Or, the most terrifying possibility yet, no one ever finding my corpse because I had gone where no other divers usually go. This was my own first time in this cave. Who knew the next time someone would be down here? The realization sent painful shocks to my palpitating heart. I slowed my pace. I could already feel the air quality in my tank starting to wane. I wanted to conserve whatever I had.

Just a little further, a voice not my own coaxed me. It felt like it was spoken directly into my head, yet came from everywhere, all at once. Keep going.

My head snapped up at the sound of it. I couldn’t see anything anymore, the tunnel had gotten so dark without the close proximity of the guiding light. Then I noticed the bright sparkle that I had been so desperately chasing was now visible, getting bigger, growing exponentially in size. No, I thought. Not growing. Running. Getting much too close, much too fast.

When it was almost upon me, I realized what it was. What she was. A woman. She glowed in effervescent beauty, glimmering and gleaming against the dark of the inky black water. She was no longer a speck the size of a watch. She was about my height, if only a few inches shorter. She had piercing amber metallic eyes and tan skin like pure sunshine. There were bubbles of air on her eyelashes. She floated before me, voice ringing through the water to my ears, reedy and warm. Follow me. All of her was golden in color, as if she were made out of the metal itself but somehow softer and twinkling, with bits of light refracting from every fiber of her being. Her long blonde hair drifted in the current like a gossamer curtain. I was fully entranced. So entranced that it startled me when she spoke again.

This way, she lured. Almost there. The small, quiet, reasonable part of my brain, I knew I didn’t want to trust her beckoning -- but I had no choice. I was entrapped in her pull, her gravity, her current, whatever you want to call it, wherever the hell we were. There was no going back. She took my hand, took me farther in, and I did not resist.

Drifting through a dream, I did not question her as none of it felt real in the first place. The only times I would regain enough sense to wonder where we were, who she was, or where we were going, she would turn around and look at me with her sultry, molten eyes and I would question no more.

At some point, I realized there were lights around us again, though they were different. They twinkled softly of their own luminescence this time. The tiny pinpricks of light allowed me to see my surroundings a little bit better. The problem was, there weren't any surroundings. The cave walls had vanished. They were replaced by an empty sea of nothingness. All I could see was her, sauntering me through the astronomical oblivion.

I no longer felt water swirling around us. Just stillness, even as we trudged on. Hair on the back of my neck started to prickle against my wet-suit as if it wanted to stand on end. It seemed too dark, too deep to be the murky darkness of the ocean. We were in smooth velvet with no friction or resistance to move through as she dragged on. It was the reminder of something amiss, a blue-black bruise on the flesh of my psyche. What could have been so alluring that I brought myself here? Who was she, wandering through the water? How had she been barely visible, save for an enticing, teasing fleck of gold? And that is when I realized.

“You’re a siren, aren't you?”

She turned back to me with a glimmer in her eye, but said nothing. She didn’t have to.

“But sirens… This isn’t water.” The truth solidified as soon as spoke it into existence. It was the only explanation that made sense to me. It was why I couldn’t take my eyes from her. Even the canopy of stars above us could not compare to her, could not dim the light of her in my eyes. She was nothing short of celestial.

She smirked but did not respond, as if she could hear my thoughts. Siren, alien, extraterrestrial, subterranean, it’s all one in the same. A predator of one or another deep, dark expanse. She is a manifestation of temptation and horror in one unexplored frontier and the next. It mattered not where she came from, only where she was going. Where we were going. By the time I recognized this, it was far too late.