The Place Underwater

He felt it as if it were happening again. The burning in his nose that he soon felt in his chest, the water pouring into his mouth and lungs as he gasped--slowly sinking down beneath the waves. But the burning turned into a warmth, the sinking felt like floating, and fear turned into elation. The depth around him seemed endless. For a moment he thought that this was what comes after. Then someone pulled him from the void.

He didn’t know how long he had drifted off as a light suddenly cut into the dark from behind. Eliot, one of the expedition engineers, stepped out onto the ship’s deck and gazed out over the water.

“Can’t sleep either?” Mark asked.

“Jesus!” Eliot exclaimed, taking a step back. “Scared the hell out of me. Can hardly see anything out here.”

“Takes a minute to adjust. Looks real pretty afterwards.”

Eliot stepped on the lowest rung of the railing and leaned over to peer into the water as waves broke around the ship. “Gonna be going way down there tomorrow, think we’ll find it?”

“Damned if I know,” Mark shrugged. “Even if Ellis’ readings aren’t right, I still get to be one of the few people to dive the Mariana Trench.”

Humanity’s attention was on interplanetary exploration--their team in the Pacific was one of the only groups still interested in Earth’s oceans. The few still studying Earth had grown close---and far less competitive. He would be the first to admit it wasn’t his skill as a diver that landed him a position on the expedition. There simply weren’t many people interested anymore.

The two looked out over the water in silence. Though they both acted as if it were just another day and another dive, they both knew the significance tomorrow held. If they discovered what Gordon Ellis was looking for, it would rival their space counterparts.

“Get some sleep,” Eliot breathed, turning to the door. “Never know what might happen tomorrow.”

The light cut into the dark once more and quickly shuttered as he went inside, leaving Mark alone on the deck. His eyes needed to adjust once again, as the night seemed darker in that moment. The chill in the night had grown bitter and his body and mind longed for the warm bed inside. He took one last look at the ocean, looking into the water below. A shapeless shadow emerged from beneath the ship that spanned its length and stretched further into open water. Mark rubbed his eyes, groggily making his way back inside to his bunk before wakefulness could find him. His bunkmate groaned as he climbed on top of the frame. The breaking of the water against the ship and the thought of floating down beneath the waves lulled Mark back to sleep.

***

The next morning, Mark jolted awake to his bunkmate rattling the bed frame. “That’s for waking me up last night, asshole,” Holden laughed.

Mark fell back onto his pillow. “On the morning of a dive? That’s cold.”

“Well, it’s not for nothing,” he shrugged. “Meredith wants us all for a last-minute brief before dive procedures.”

The two quickly got ready and joined the others in the mess hall. Meredith shook her head when they arrived. “It’s always these two. Who let them bunk together?”

The crew laughed as Mark and Holden made their way through the mess, giving the two a jovial nudge or playful scowl as they took their seats with the others. Meredith began the brief. It was a typical review--although usually not so early in the morning. She began with an overview. Mark would make the decent to 35,597 feet when the engineers gave the all-clear. Then he would locate the probes that captured the initial readings and check their calibrations to ensure the readings received were accurate. Then he would manually operate the drill to confirm the findings. All this was known. Meredith could sense the crew’s patience waning.

“I was reluctant to share this information with you all, but I think it’s best you all know to understand the seriousness of today’s operation,” Meredith said. “We received word from Mr. Ellis that if there are no significant findings on today’s dive, that funding for the operation may cease altogether.”

The crew broke out into a collective murmur. “He can’t do that. We’ve made so much progress,” Eliot protested.

“The cheap bastard!” Holden cried.

Meredith tried to quell the disappointment that threatened to overtake the room. “It’s not for us to say. Mr. Ellis is a businessman, and he’s funded this operation at a deficit for nearly a decade now. He’s free to use his funds how he sees fit.”

“Maybe he’s finally joining the big boy billionaires in space,” Holden quipped.

“That’s enough,” Meredith said firmly. “I’m telling you all so you know this may be the last chance we get. So let’s put everything into it.”

She ended the briefing but some of the crew members lingered in the mess hall, discussing the troubling news. “Just in case there wasn’t enough pressure on you already,” said Molly, the logistics manager as she approached Mark. “Last chance at glory, huh?”

But Mark simply shrugged. “It’ll be fine. Somebody will carry on the cause.” But as the words left him, he wondered if he believed them. He walked down to the hangar with trembling hands.

***

The ship was quiet aside from the whine of the drill and hum of machinery as the crew carried out pre-dive procedures. Mark perched on the catwalk overlooking the hangar, dressed in his thermal wetsuit, wondering if this was really the end of the expedition. The world seemed to think Ellis was wasting his time with on-world ocean exploration. Though the two had never met, Mark admired Ellis for following through with his vision, even as the media painted him as a foolhardy manchild.

Billionaires had spent the last century conquering the stars. After all that time none of them had ever thought to turn their attention to the ocean, mostly due to there being little profit in the venture. That was until Gordon Ellis made it his passion project. While space exploration was billed as something noble and the destiny of man, the intent was economic growth. There was a fortune to be made from minerals that were once scarce on Earth but now abundant on celestial bodies. When all the others built off-world colonies and mining operations, Ellis toured the bottom of the sea. “The Mariana Trench is my red planet,” he laughed in an interview. “The bioluminescence are my stars and the Pacific is my Milky Way.”

Mark viewed him as a billionaire of the people, if there were such a thing. Someone who used their affluence in pursuit of knowledge instead of profit. Although he conveniently ignored why Ellis was trying to find those same minerals in the trench.

The expedition had given Mark purpose in his life. He was in the gutter when the news first broke. There was no chance he could be a part of something like that, he thought. Mark was a middling diver at best. His experience amounted to nothing more than hobbyist dives and underwater repairs at an oil rig. But months later, the expedition was struggling to find divers. Mark soon found himself--bleary-eyed and unkempt--sitting across from Meredith and Eliot. He didn’t think he would get this far, but then they asked when he could start. Gordon Ellis had saved him. Now Mark needed to save the expedition.

Below the catwalk, Molly made her way through the hangar, darting her head around the room until her gaze inevitably drifted upwards. She called out to Mark. It was nearly time.

An alarm blared as the gate to the deck above slowly opened, and the early morning light poured into the hangar as they rose from the bowels of the ship. Once on deck, the crew quickly took their positions and readied for launch. Mark walked across the deck and slipped in through the sub’s narrow hatch. Holden was already seated in the cockpit.

“Prepare for launch," Eliot’s voice buzzed from the comms system.

The two stiffened as the lift hoisted the sub, the sway of the crane tightening the feeling in their stomachs as it turned. Mark peered through the porthole for one last look at the sky. They felt the waves beneath the hull and the lift release. Water rose up around them and the morning light slowly disappeared.

***

The sub approached 3,280ft, the point where light no longer reached. They would be relying on sonar and navigation lights from this point on. Holden reviewed the onboard systems and dimmed the lights to preserve their vision as they slipped into complete darkness.

Mark’s breathing slowed as if he were diving the descent. His mind drifted back to the waves beneath Maine. The hum of the machines on board and the water flowing mimicked the feeling from back then. When he and his brother tried to swim to a nearby beach from their family’s boat--only it wasn’t so close. He didn’t remember how long he was in the water, but it felt like an eternity. Most others would have never gotten near the water again, but the experience left a different impression on him. He never thought of it as drowning but referred to it as “the place underwater.” Something more akin to an out-of-body experience. And every dive brought him close to that feeling.

His hometown where it happened wasn't there anymore. Oakmoore was demolished and developed for an aerospace research campus. They lived a little ways from town on a street named Willow Crest in a forest clearing, but even they were forced to leave.

The town was part of a traditionalist movement that lived with limited technology. There were no cell phones or tech implants. Internet access was confined to cafes and televisions only had local broadcasts. Mark and his brother were essentially raised in the 20th century. Oakmoore’s insistence on using fossil fuels drew scrutiny from legislators until they were essentially run out of town.

A flash of blue light appeared outside the porthole, stirring Mark from his trance. He blinked hard, trying to discern if his eyes were open. Another flash. Holden noticed as well and leaned in to the glass. Several yards from the sub was a creature with long tendrils and translucent flesh that radiated a blue glow.

It passed from view, leaving them in the dark once again. After a moment, more lights appeared--hundreds of them. Holden smiled to himself. “Those billionaires can have space. I prefer the view down here.”

***

The sandy trench floor came into view. Holden slowed the descent and steadied the sub. They radioed the surface team that they had reached depth. Meredith gave them the go-ahead to proceed.

Now it was on Mark. He moved to the back of the sub to prepare the dive suit. It was bulky, resembling an old space suit with mechanized limbs and a small visor. It was utilitarian and lacked the elegance of modern environmental suits, but it worked. The pressure chambers during testing often broke before any of the prototypes did. It withstood the pressure at 35,597ft, and was graded for 42,707--though those conditions weren’t possible on Earth. Mark checked the outer seals then stepped in through the back of the suit and sealed it shut. The steel shell hissed as he ran a pressure test. Holden came over and gave the outer suit a once-over, then tightened one of the bolts on the shoulder. “Looks good, chief,” he said, giving the helmet a knock. “Head to the lock-out. I’ll signal when we’re close.”

Mark climbed into the chamber and stood against the wall, staring at the red-tinted bulb, waiting for Holden to flip it on. His chest fluttered in anticipation. This very well might be his last dive in the trench. But the thought was cut short: the red light flashed. The pressure in the chamber increased, and he felt the weight against his suit. Water poured in until it flowed past his visor. With a loud clunk, the outer hatch opened and he stepped out onto sand and rock.

The navigation lights extended 20-yards, beyond that was a dark void. Anything out there would see them long before they would.

 “The first probe is up ahead,” Holden radioed.

“I don’t see anything,” Mark replied. “Inch forward. Might be outside the perimeter.”

The sub slowed as Mark used his thrusters and cruised alongside, being careful not to stir any sediment and limit their visibility. They pushed forward slowly as the lights revealed more “Wait, I think I see something,” Mark said.

A long white casing stuck out of the sand.

 They eased to a halt as Mark approached--the back panel was ripped open.

“Meredith,” Mark called over the radio. “I found one of the probes. Doesn’t look functional.”

“Salvage what you can. We’ll see if it was able to archive its last reading.”

He tore the rest of the panel off to locate the hard drive. Behind the probe just outside the perimeter, a large, dark mass darted quickly out of view. Mark stopped, and turned his headlamp towards the dark.

“I think there’s something down here.”

“I’m not seeing anything,” Holden cut in.

“It’s probably a fish,” Meredith assured.

“Looked bigger than that,” he swapped the light around.

“Easy,” Meredith insisted. “It’s probably more scared of you.”

He jerked his headlamp again. Something in the distance glimmered, a glossy reflection made it difficult to see what it was. Lowering the lamp eased the glare and revealed a bent rusted pole with a reflective green street sign.

This wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities. All sorts of garbage ended up in the ocean, even at the bottom of the trench. But what caught the breath in Mark’s throat and tied a knot in his chest was the street name. Willow Crest.

“Talk to me. Do you see something?” Meredith came in.

But there was no reply. He stood there staring.

“Mark,” she came in louder.

“I-I-think--” Mark stuttered, the air in the suit feeling thick. A thought crossed his mind, one that he couldn’t comprehend until the words left him. “I think my old house is down here.”

The radio went silent.

 He knew how it sounded, yet the thought enveloped his mind no matter how much he tried to reason it away. His home did not exist. The town was gone. Yet the sign stood before him at the bottom of the sea.

“Why don’t you get back to the sub. We’ll get you back up here,” she said finally.

He knew she was right. The pressure and the dark were playing tricks on him. But he saw, just behind the sign, a paved road that stretched beyond his sight.

The need to know and see it again overwhelmed him. Against all rationality telling him to leave, he moved forward and passed the navigation lights as Holden watched from the viewport, his headlamp bobbing in the distance before disappearing from view.

***

Mark glided through the dark water. The desperate pleas of his crewmates had long gone silent as he ignored communications. His small headlamp gave just enough light to spot the rock face as he reversed his thrusters to avoid colliding with it.

He paused to gain his bearings and figure out his position and wondered if he really saw what he did. The road had disappeared. He was struck with the sudden realization of what he was doing. Leaving the safety of the sub to aimlessly search for his childhood home--which last he checked was demolished with the rest of the town nearly two decades ago. “This isn’t normal,” he thought to himself, a moment of clarity rearing in his mind. “The oxygen levels must be causing hallucinations.” But all readings were normal. He considered calling out on the radio, then his headlamp picked up the trail. An unmistakable cracked, weathered road with faded lane markings.

He tapped the pavement. It was as solid as any of the rocks around him. This was no hallucination. Then he saw it: the sign for Oakmoore emerged from the depth.

Large outlines took shape in the dark as he approached. Structures of splintered wood lined Main Street. He stopped in the middle of the road and shined his headlamp all around.

A rusted bike was laid carelessly outside the supermarket. He recognized it as his own from when he rode into town looking for Bobby. His brother hadn’t come home after his shift at the supermarket. Mark recalled walking through the aisles over and over until he remembered the place they used to sit on warm nights. It didn’t occur to him to look there at first since it had gotten cold. When he got upstairs, he saw the window propped open with a plank of wood, which they always did when they crawled through to the roof. Bobby was there, sitting with his legs hanging off the side of the building, a cigarette in his hand.

“Mom’s gonna kill you,” Mark said, seeing the smoke rise into the cold air.

“Not much else she could do to me,” Bobby replied, keeping his gaze forward.

Bobby turned his head the other way when Mark approached, trying to hide his face. Mark saw the marks on his face and the dried tears beneath his eyes. He darted his eyes away, feeling as if he saw something he shouldn’t have. It had turned out that Bobby had confessed to Father John his desire to leave the community and become an astronaut. Father John then told their mother. She didn’t take it well. “I’ve protected you from the world. Now you want to become one of them!” She screamed. Their father just shook his head “Look what you’re making her do,” as her hands came down.

Mark couldn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure what he could say and trembled slightly. Bobby grabbed his shoulder reassuringly.

“They can’t stop me, though. When I fly out of here, I’ll bring you with me.”

That was all so long ago, yet he was still here in Oakmoore. He brought his mind back to the present: Across the street, a building tilted to one side. Its sign read “Meril’s Diner.” Where his family had spent many mornings and afternoons sharing a meal together. He moved through the broken door frame and saw the checkered tile floor and square metal tables. The wood panel wall once cluttered with framed pictures of customers, now only had one. A faded photograph of his family from long ago. All smiling and leaning into the table. His mother, father, himself, and what was left of Bobby--his face bloodied and caved in.

Mark swatted at the frame, knocking it off the wall as it sank to the floor. He composed himself enough to look at the photo again. It wasn’t his family in the picture. Not even one he recognized. He rattled his head around the helmet and screamed.

His cries reverberated off the steel and glass as he pleaded to know what was happening to him. The dive suit interface displayed a warning message, urging Mark to control his breathing. It grounded him enough to steady his breath. With renewed clarity, he checked the suit’s power and oxygen and realized he was running out of time. If he left now, he could still make it back to the sub. But he felt the pull of Willow Crest and to know what was waiting for him there. So he left Meril’s Diner and Oakmoore and dived through the dark to face what he never could above water.

It didn’t take long for the dead hollow trees to appear before him. Their smooth, gray limbs twisted, crawling upwards from their sunken state. The road was gone now, forcing Mark to find his way through the bare trunks. Then it opened up to a clearing where the house stood with its jagged roof and stripped wood siding. He entered through the front porch like he had so many times before. The screen door fell from its rusted hinges as he pushed it open.

Everything was placed as he remembered, but it was all rotten. The fabric of the plaid sofa had slowly been eaten away and the plush carpet covered in slimy tendrils that swayed with the water. Thick barnacle crust covered the picture frames along the wall, rendering them unrecognizable. He drifted through the water to the bookshelf in the living room, reaching out for the bound photo album. Its tattered pages crumbled to mush under his touch and scattered through the water.

In the back of the house was a pair of worn boots on the floor by the basement door, left ajar. Then he remembered the day he had seen this before, though he had tried to forget. He floated towards the door as if not under his own accord and a sudden current through the water pried the door open fully. Down the stairwell he drifted into the dark cellar, knowing what was to be found, unable to stop himself. The wooden steps had long ago crumbled and the cinder block walls had turned a bleached white that reflected his light. The glare of his visor reflected his twelve-year old face. He turned in the stairwell, and the water heater came into view. He knew what was next to it. He didn’t want to look. He couldn’t. Still, the light veered and he saw the chair first, then the legs in tattered jeans, and he began to weep.

There was a torso covered in a bloody flannel shirt, its arms splayed out, clutching a shotgun. He stared at the hollow, caved-in face. Mark cried out and lunged through the water, desperately reaching out for the boy. He knocked the corpse from the chair and it came apart. Cradling the remains in his arms as he wailed and screamed, the suit blared a low oxygen warning. “Bobby, what did you do?! Don’t leave me here!”

As his cries rang in the inside of his helmet, he noticed the sand covered floor shifting, and he cried out again. “Bobbbbby!”

Jagged tooth jaws rose up along the walls and swallowed the room whole.

***

On the surface aboard the research vessel, panic ensued. The monitoring system still tracked Mark’s vitals, indicating to them that he was still very much alive. They needed to keep it that way. Death during the expedition would essentially end any hope of continuing their research.

As Meredith gave up on receiving any word back, she turned her efforts to the only other person on the ocean floor.

“Holden, get that sub moving and find him!”

“And drain the rest of our power? If I cruise around here looking for him I might not be able to make the ascent,” he scoffed. “I’m not risking my life for some idiot looking for his old house down here.”

“You’re the only one that can help him.”

“And I’ll be happy to help. Just as soon as he’s back.”

Meredith slammed the mic down before turning to address the room.

“Does anybody have any idea what the fuck is happening down there?”

“It couldn’t be an equipment failure,” Eliot offered. “he would have imploded the second he stepped out there.”

“Is his head not right?” Meredith asked. “Didn’t he pass the psych test?”

Molly stepped forward, flipping her finger across a tablet. “With a few exceptions we made, it would appear so.”

“Exceptions?” Meredith echoed.

Molly shrugged in response. “The expedition really needed a diver.”

Meredith waved her off and paced the room, trying to think of some way to get Mark back to the surface, and if there was no way, how could they somehow reduce the inevitable fallout.

Molly stood in place expectantly, seeming to try and build her courage. 

“What is it?” Meredith asked impatiently.

“It’s Ellis,” she said quietly, “he’s on route.”

Meredith stared at her blankly. “Gordon Ellis is coming here?” She turned, rubbing her brow. “Stall him. Tell him we’re in the middle of a repair on board.”

Eliot stood as he turned to the window. “I think he’s already here.”

The three watched in silence as they saw a black yacht approach. They stepped out on deck as it pulled alongside them, dwarfing the size of their own vessel. A small dinghy deployed from the yacht and zipped through the water between the ships. Several crew members hurried to the boat lift to meet them. Meredith was last to arrive as she tried to stall long enough to prepare her words. The dinghy was already lifted when she got there as the crew disembarked. Gordon Ellis was on deck.

But when she met eyes with him, she knew that he knew. Without speaking, she led him to the control room, where the narrow hall outside filled with onlookers from the onboard crew, gravitating to the arrival of their guest. But only those inside knew the gravity of what had happened. Ellis moved towards the comms system without hesitation. He asked which channel they were using, but when he was met with silence, he sighed, knowing that some semblance of an explanation was needed. “What we’re looking for has been here much longer than us,” he began. “When the ancients told stories of quests for knowledge, they weren’t talking about some oracle in a cave. They were talking about what’s down there.”

The crew looked at each other. The man they once revered now felt very different— just another billionaire on an esoteric quest. Ellis was as out of his mind as Mark.

“So it induces nightmares?” Eliot asked reluctantly. “Mark didn’t exactly seem thrilled to see his house.”

Ellis stared before answering. “It’s a mirror. What you make of it is up to you.”

“So you think this thing is down there and never thought to tell us?” Meredith frowned.

Ellis shrugged. “Well, you wouldn’t have gone down then, would you?”

No one else in the room dared to speak. Ellis walked over to the comms system and picked up the mic, hesitating before he spoke. “Mark, this is Gordon Ellis. Tell me what’s going on,” he smiled.

***

Mark came to in the dark, unable to decipher his whereabouts. Considering he still had oxygen, he couldn’t have blacked out long. Though after checking his levels, there wasn’t much time left. Breathing was becoming difficult.

He didn’t regret coming to this place. It held the things that he tried to bury long ago. He didn’t understand when he was a kid, when he found Bobby like that. What their parents and the community had put them through. Instilling fear and control through isolation and abuse.

But now he understood. Bobby saw no way out and couldn’t hold on, but it was okay. They were both free from Oakmoore now, even though it took until the end. Mark had turned to the ocean to get away from everything on the surface, yet he found it here beneath the waves--and acceptance for it.

His cracked headlight flickered and shined on Bobby’s withered face drifting from view. But Mark didn’t cry, he smiled as the corpse disappeared with the current.

“Mark,” a voice crackled in his helmet. “This is Gordon Ellis. Tell me what’s going on.”

Mark gasped at the sound. The person responsible for this peace he found was speaking to him. “Mister Ellis--” he croaked. “It’s an honor, sir.”

The radio was silent for a moment before Ellis answered. “The honor is all mine,” he chuckled. “You’re the one who found it.”

Between his depleting oxygen and the disorientation of drifting in the dark, his deteriorating mind could hardly process the conversation--or if it was even happening.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Mark breathed. “I didn’t find the mineral deposit.”

“I was never looking for minerals,” Ellis replied. “You found something much more important.”

Mark’s breathing became shallower. His lack of response made it painfully clear to Ellis that his window to getting answers was closing. “Stay with me,” he pressed. “Tell me what you see.”

Mark forced his eyes open. Just below his gaze, a dark mass shifted. There was no shape to it. The darkness was alive; moving like a billowing sheet through the current. When he had trouble explaining this, Ellis took it as a good sign. “Thank you, Mark,” he cut him off. “For marking my place in history. Although I don’t think it will remember you.”

The transmission cut off, leaving Mark alone with whatever it was that moved around him. But he was not afraid as his breath failed him. Elation enveloped what was left of his mind. He was where he always wanted to be: the place underwater.

As he closed his eyes and faded away, he imagined Bobby floating there with him as they went back to the house on Willow Crest, the light shining down on them. The sun shimmering above the waves burned his eyes as he gazed upward.

He tried to move, but the dive suit had lost power. Taking a breath, he grasped at the emergency release, breaking the seal and flooding the suit. He fought the instinct to fill his lungs and rejected the elation that place offered. Piece by piece, he cast off the plates of steel weighing him down as he emerged from the depth and breathed his first ever breath.