The Depths of Water

The Depths of Water

It was a gloomy day on the Ivory Coast. The waters were bringing the wrath of the gods with them. I watched as the raging waters slapped against the sides of the fisherman boat. The captain walked over to me, “it seems like Yemoja is unleashing her fury on us today. She must be twirling her skirt of the 7 seas.” His heavy Nigerian accent swam through my ears, disrupting my day dream. I looked over at Chekiri Agha and the shadows of the clouds made his dark skin appear darker than it normally was. It sent chills down my spine.It was almost ghostly and haunting. Chekiri Agha had been sailing the waters with his father since he was a young boy. He knew the water like the back of his hand. “Checki I feel something in my spirit, something is going to happen.” Looking at me confused he let out a laugh, “Brakemi I think you should stay out of that head of yours, it does you no good. Always lost in another reality of your own, what is it this time?” I rolled my eyes at his remark and walked to the front of the boat. The grey skies seemed to intensify and the thunder began to rumble in the distance. We were heading straight for the storm, the waves got more aggressive by the minute. Chekiri Agha walked behind me to the front of the boat, “Brakemi, I am sorry if I offended you. I was just trying to lighten up your mood, you have been off to yourself all day and everyone is concerned.” I turned to Chekiri, “I am sorry for my distance but my spirit is deeply disturbed. I had a night terror and I haven’t been asleep since.” Turning around in shame I grabbed the side rails of the boat and looked off into the distant water. Lightning struck in the far distance bringing light into the gloomy clouds. Chekiri stood next to me and rested his arms against the boat. “I remember when I was a wanderer just like you, always wondering what was beyond our reality or what could be happening.

The thunder began to get louder and all of a sudden the sky fell. Rain poured down interrupting our conversation and we quickly went into the boat for shelter. We walked in as everyone else was closing the windows and drying whatever got wet. “Brakemi are you alright, you have been quiet all day?” Chekiri’s brother Adaere asked me. “Yes I am fine”, I replied as I dried my drenched clothes. Adaere was Chekiri’s younger brother. He didn’t live in the water nearly as much as Chekiri, he was not very fond of the water after their father passed. Two summers ago, they had all been fishing on the water and were taking a swim. Chekiri and Adaere began to swim back to the boat when they saw their father struggling in the water. Their father had trained them to be very skilled swimmers but they weren’t fast enough for whatever captured him. They said he complained that something grabbed him by the leg and started to pull him under. He was pulled under and never found before they got to him. They spent weeks looking for his body and never got any clues as to what happened. Adaere beat himself up and resented the water for a long time, he thought that if he wouldn’t have asked to go fishing that day then his father would still be alive.

The crew and I sat around the inside of the boat watching as the waves became more aggressive and as the waves tossed the boat around everyone started to fall tired. A few of the other crew members went to their bunks since this was the reality for the rest of the night. The only people left in the room were Chekiri Agha, Adaere, myself, and another fellow named Sunny. Sunny was from the village that we grew up in, his parents were farmers and they would sell their crops at the market. He was the youngest out of us all by three years. Chekiri and Sunny were soon asleep and it was just Adaere and I awake. He and I were alike, dreamers and wanderers of the world. I could tell when things fell on his mind, he would get quiet and distant like I did. There was silence amongst us and I decided to break it. “Hey Adaere, thank you for checking up on me earlier.” He snapped out of his thoughts, “oh, it’s no problem. You are family, it is my duty to make sure family is okay at all times” he said smiling lightly. “What is bothering you Brakemi?” I realized the question that he asked me and it dawned on me that I had to talk about the feeling again. There was a long pause before I decided to say anything else, “well..I had this dream. Maybe it was a vision, I can’t remember but I know I s-saw it. I began to get anxious and stutter over my words. We were on the boat and there was a sound I can’t remember but it was a beautiful sound like singing. Very angelic and alluring when I looked for the sound I saw a woman in the water, she was swimming. When I looked beyond her I saw blood everywhere. She looked me in my eyes Adaere. She didn’t say a word but I felt everything she wanted to say and something happened but I can’t remember and I woke up afterwards.

Adaere looked at me puzzled, I looked at him with a pleading hesitation in my eyes. I felt tormented in my own mind from this dream. It felt like it had been embedded in my memory or something. “Brakemi'', Adaere said, sliding closer to me, “I had a similar dream, two years ago when my father died.” He began to tell his dream, “we were at the dock getting ready to sail, then there was this sound. It was very high pitched and melodic, so eerily beautiful. I looked around when it stopped and I saw nothing so I continued to pull the anchor in. We began sailing and about a mile from the dock I heard it again and it was much closer than before. I went to ask father and Chekiri if they had heard the sound, they told me no. Then I went and looked out towards the back of the boat, there was a very beautiful woman swimming behind us in the distance. She looked at me and then our boat crashed into something. We were thrown from the boat and into the water. She began to swim after us and we all started to swim back to the boat. All of a sudden two more women appeared but they didn’t look as alluring as the other. Their eyes were dark and they had sharp long nails and teeth. I locked eyes with one as she swam in front of me and she came closer and traced my face with her nail. She sang a song to me and I felt like I was in a trance. I heard my brother and father shouting for me to get to the boat and then her eyes turned red and I felt a sharp pain in my side. I remember seeing the blood coming from my body and being dragged under the water. Everything went black after that point and I woke up from the nightmare.”

There were silent messages being passed between the two of us. I looked at Adaere confused and I wanted to ask him so many questions but didn’t want to say the wrong thing. “Brakemi yes,” he said, “I do think that’s what happened to father, but I don’t know why we are having these dreams and who the woman is.” He answered the questions I wanted to ask without me having to ask him. I looked over at Chekiri Agha who was asleep in the chair, “does Chekiri Agha know?” Adaere looked at me and shook his head no, “I told him and he told me to stay out of my head. Much like how he did you, that’s why he said that to you earlier. Chekiri is afraid of the other realities and possibilities of life. I remember when we were younger, our grandmother used to tell us stories about “the women of the water”. She said that they come from the deep depths of the water. They are the most beautiful creatures you’ve ever seen, they lure people to them and then...they kill them. The blood of humans keeps them strong and they have a kingdom under the water. She said that when she was a little girl there was a teenaged boy in their village that had been taken underwater and he was a slave to their kingdom for 3 months. They didn’t kill him but they told him to never tell what he saw under the water. He was silent for 3 weeks after he returned to shore. He was shell shocked and had to lie down for a long time, he had trouble breathing from being underwater and readjusting to breathing air.” He stopped abruptly as if he had said too much.

All of a sudden there was a loud slap against the window that startled everyone. There was a massive wave that the boat had sailed over. The boat rocked back and forth until it balanced out its motion. My heart raced from the scare and I looked over at Adaere who was examining the waves. I thought back to what we had just discussed and it made me feel uncomfortable with anxiety, I was almost nauseous. Chekiri Agha shifted in his chair as he was sleeping, I looked to see if he was listening to what we were saying. He was still asleep, I felt a moment of relief. The last thing I wanted to hear was ridicule for something I was feeling again.

It was about 5 in the evening and the rain seemed to be coming down relentlessly, you could hear the impact of the heavy rain drops on the boat. Sunny awakened and said that he was going to his bunk for the night, he dismissed himself and said goodnight to everyone. Cheki finally awakened, “I see you two are still lost in other world’s, Brakemi and Adaere why don’t you two let it go? There is so much more to life, you can’t get caught up in an illusion from your mind. I don’t say this to offend you two but you need to stay in reality. There’s nothing good in dreams anyway.” Adaere was fuming at this point, his brother had completely dismissed his feelings. “Chekiri I am tired of you thinking so biased”, he shouted, “we BOTH seen what happened to father! I think there is no coincidence in what happened. Something grabbed him and pulled him under, you heard him say it, we saw him get pulled under. There was no blood, no body, no remains, NOTHING! You can sit and believe whatever you want but I know what I saw in my dream and I know what happened to father. We searched the water for weeks and there was nothing to be found, Chekiri!” I looked at them as the tension rose and I decided to keep my comments to myself. Chekiri Agha stood up and faced his brother, “Adaere if you continue this nonsense, you will end up just like father.” I gasped in shock as he made his remark, I dared not to say a word. Chekiri had crossed the line and it was obvious that Adaere was hurt and enraged. Adaere slapped Chekiri Agha and the hit sent a jerk through my body. “Chekiri, how could you fix your mouth to say such a thing. YOU ARE COLD AND YOU HAVE NO HEART”, he shouted. Chekiri saw the hurt that he had caused his brother and sighed heavily. “Adaere I am sorry-”, Chekiri was interrupted by Adaere’s hand as he held it up signaling hi that he didn’t want to har his apology. He said nothing and made eye contact with me, I shook my head in a no motion and he proceeded to leave the room. I looked over at Adaere who seemed to be holding back tears. I can tell that he was really hurt by his brother’s words. “I’m sorry that Chekiri Agha said that to you, I know he didn’t mean it but still, it was wrong.” “Brakemi you don’t have to apologize for him, he’s aware of his words but he doesn’t think they will hurt other people.”

Time had passed since Adaere and I finished our conversation, the sun was starting to set and the storm was easing just a little. I put on a raincoat and decided to stand out on the boat. The water was a dark blue, it almost looked black, you could only see the blue once the waves reached their peak. I let the sound of the waves crashing relax the tension in my body. I heard something flapping against the water and I looked to see if it was a fish, I didn’t see anything. I paid it no attention and returned to my quiet place. A few moments later I heard it again followed by a high pitched sound. I snapped from my meditation as I heard the sound, it dawned on me that I felt that feeling again and I grew anxious. Looking around the bout I couldn’t find where it came from. I thought about Adaere and I immediately ran to his bunk. “Adaere, Adaere come fast”, I said frantically as I burst through the doors of his bunker. He looked startled as he was asleep. “Bakemi what is the problem?” He looked at me confused, “I heard the sound again Adaere, by the front of the boat just now!” Adere hopped from his bunk and slipped on his shoes and rain coat and followed behind me. We both went to the front of the boat, the sound had stopped. All of a sudden there were three knocks from the bottom of the boat. We looked at each other passing telepathic messages. “Brakemi..I think it is happening.” I looked at him and nodded my head slowly. There were another three knocks followed by a strong push on the boat that made it rock heavily side to side. I felt the fear rising in my body and there was a lump in my throat. Adaere looked at me and demanded that I get Chekiri Agha. I went as fast as I could without slipping on the wet surface. Chekiri wasn’t asleep; he was lying on his bunk as if he were in deep thought. “Chekiri come quick, we need you to see something.” He heard the panic in my voice and he asked what the problem was. I explained it to him briefly and he decided to come. I think it was more from guilt than genuine concern. Once we were back at the front of the boat everything was calm. I looked at Adaere, “did you see anything while I was gone?” He informed me that the sound just stopped. We stood there for a moment and Chekiri began to get irritated. “Did you wake me up just to prank me”, he asked looking at me. I felt ashamed until we all heard the high pitched singing again. Chekiri looked at us in disbelief, “is that the sound?” We replied yes and that eerie feeling started to creep over me even more.

Suddenly the boat was being pushed to one side and we all grabbed at the rails to keep from falling over in the water. We heard the other two crew members curse as they fell from their bunks. They both came to the front the best way they could, it seemed as if this thing wanted to push the boat over. Chekiri tried to make it to the control room to lower the anchor but failed due to the one-sidedness of the boat. The boat was pushed over and we all fell into the water. Adaere and I looked for everyone in the water as we came back up. Everyone was swimming to the boat except for Sunny. I looked back, “Sunny hurry! Get back to the boat fast I yelled as I swam towards it. Adaere and Chekiri Agha had made it to the boat safely but Chekiri jumped back into the water to save Sunny. Sunny tried to swim as fast as he could. “Brakemi,Chekiri, help me! I can’t swim well, the water is too deep!” I looked for Adaere and he was climbing the ladder to the back of the boat. Once I saw he was safe I started to swim back towards Sunny, “Sunny hang on we’re coming to help you!” “Okay-”, his sentence was cut short as he let out an ungodly yell. We looked in his direction and saw blood leaking in the water, my eyes grew wide. Chekiri Agha looked at me as if he regretted everything he said earlier. Sunny let out another yell, “something is biting me!” I began to panic knowing that this was from Adaere and I’s dreams. I had no clue what could happen next. Chekiri Agha reached Sunny and he began to support him on his back while he swam. Before I knew it Sunny was snatched from Chekiri’s back and pulled underwater. Chekiri yelled, “NOOO! SUNNY!” His blood stained the water and the rain made puddles in it.

Chekiri started to swim back to the boat as fast as he could. Adaere yelled at me to watch out, I turned around and saw a woman swimming straight for me. I began to swim faster but it was no use, she was fast. She caught up to me and we were face to face. I examined her cautiously, if I didn’t move, neither did she. I looked into her dark black eyes and she had the most beautiful chocolate skin. Her hair was long, dark, and curly. She began to sing a song to me and I started to feel sleepy. Adare and Chekiri yelled for me to swim, I knew not to leave her because she would get mad and kill me. I let her have her way, I was terrified. She had a long tail/fin and no legs. She is what they call a siren, the women of the water. The story was real. Chekiri noticed that I gave in and decided to do something. He looked at Adaere, “brother I love you and I am sorry that I doubted you, forgive me please.” as he said that he hopped in the water and started swimming towards me. Adaere yelled, “CHEKIRI NOO! COME BACK!” He knew that his brother was sacrificing himself in order to save us. The siren snapped from her trance and her eyes turned blood red. She bit my arm and blood began to rush from it, Chekiri made it to me and he began to fight the siren off of me, she was fast but she wasn’t alone. Letting out a high pitched yell as Chekiri Agha hit her off of me, three more appeared and surrounded us. I tried my best to swim as the pain radiated through my arm leaving trails of blood in the water. It was getting dark and there was little to no light out on the water. Adaere jumped in to help me. Chekiri yelled for himt to get me back to the boat and forus to get to land. He wasn’t leaving without his brother. Chekiri was surrounded by three sirens and he tried his best to fight them off. One by one they all attacked him and he was pulled under the water. The water looked like a blood bath. We had lost Sunny, Chekiri, and the other two members. Adaere was torn to pieces, he yelled out as he came to help me. “Adaere I know this is an unfortunate situation but we have to be smart. We have to get to the boat as fast as we can while they are distracted.” His tears blended in with the rain drops that were falling down. I held onto his back and he started to swim to the boat. We were almost there.

The siren that bit me swam around us in a circle and Adaere paused. I knew she wanted me, I whispered into his ear. “Adaere I need you to listen to me, swim very slowly to the boat and let me off your back. She wants me and I think I know how we can get away alive. When you get to the boat, get the flare guns and light them. Fire it in the water and they will swim away from the fire. Let her have me until you get there. Adaere looked at me sideways with a pained expression. He began to choke on his words, “Brakemi you are my only family left, I cannot lose you too to the water.” “Adaere if you listen to me we will make it out alive.” He did as I said and started to swim slowly. She still swam around us slowly, you could see her fin causing ripples in the water. Adaere had made it close enough to the boat for him to grab the ladder. I released myself from his back and floated in the water. She stopped swimming in circles once she realized that I had let go of Adaere. My arm was excruciating with pain and I swam the best way I could. The siren swam around me and she pulled me to her with her hands. I could feel the smooth scaly texture of her body as she touched me. She looked deep into my eyes and I started to feel hypnotized again. The others swam around her, before I knew it they were all touching me. I felt like I had no control over my mind. They were telepathically convincing me to come with them but I never said a word. One of them began to like the blood coming from my arm and it sent chills down my spine. I got bitten again and their teeth were razor sharp, I tried to ignore the pain shooting through my body as they had their way with me. I was pulled under the water a few times and I was losing breath and consciousness. I was dying slowly, I felt myself losing the fight. I blacked out and went limp in her arms.

Adaere finally made it to the boat unnoticed and up the ladder. Scrambling to find the flare guns he knew this was his last chance to save someone he cared about. He was determined to save Brakemi. “First my father, then my brother, and now Brakemi. I hate these creatures, they took everything from me.”Adaere felt the rage building in his body. He found the flare guns and the rifle that they had aboard. Going back towards the back of the boat, he shunned the flashlight onto the water. He locked eyes with the sirens taking over Brakemi and he noticed that he was limp in the water. He thought that they killed him, seeing this sight Adaere lit the flare gun and aimed it straight for the siren holding Brakemi. She hissed at him and he pulled the trigger hitting her straight in her chest. She screamed from the fire on her, the others were alarmed and hissed at Adaere. They started to swim towards the boat. Loading the rifle he aimed it and hit the closest one in her chest. He took the flare gun and aimed it at the other two, they were frightened and swam away. The two injured sirens were floating limply in the water, then they were pulled away by the others. Adaere jumped in the water to pull Brakemi up the ladder while making sure the sirens were gone away. He swiftly grabbed Brakemi as he coughed up bloody water and pulled him onto the boat. He did mouth to mouth to give Brakemi air in his lungs and he cried as he did so. Brakemi regained consciousness and he gasped for air. Adaere looked at him in disbelief and gave him a tight hug. “You’re alive! Brakemi you’re alive!” he shouted as he helped him get to a chair. “Are you okay?”he asked him. Brakemi shook his head yes and steaded his breathing. “Adaere I could never thank you enough for saving my life, thank you.” They were both teary eyed realizing that they had lost their other crew members. “Let’s get you bandaged up, you lost a lot of blood.”

Adaere wrapped Brakemi’s wounds and gave him blankets as he slept in a bunk. He sailed towards land and they didn’t reach it until the next morning. When they got back to the dock he flagged down some villagers for help. They ran to the dock as Adaere lowered the anchor. “Adaere what happened?” they asked, seeing the blood all over the boat. “We saw the women of the water, they killed Chekiri Agha, Sunny, and two other members of our crew. We fought them off.” One of the villagers stepped forward, a girl that was around our age named Ebibani, “where is Brakemi?” she asked, looking concerned. “Are you alright Adaere? Are you hurt?” she asked again. “I am fine, brakemi is in the bunker resting.” Everyone ran to the bunker to see Brakemi, they gasped when they saw the bite marks that were bandaged up. Ebibani began to cry, “Adaere where did you sail?” I looked at her and replied, “The depths of water.”