Atlantis

      It was a Tuesday night, and the four of them were sitting hip to hip around a little marble table. A round porthole was carved into the wall beside them, letting in a ghostly blue light. The strange little capsule they lived in was splotched with whitewashed light and resembled something like a spaceship. The four people at the table were laughing cheerily, their bodies slumped, their skin seeming to glisten with moisture. Casual onlookers might’ve thought they were drunk. But there were no drinks at the table, except for the plastic bottles of water they lifted to their lips every once in a while.

           They weren’t drunk. They were merely feeling the effects of being one hundred feet beneath the surface of the ocean.

           These four people lived in Atlantis, a makeshift home underneath the water, a marine laboratory funded by an academic institution for the purposes of ocean study. Being this far under the water for several days had the equivalent effect of inhaling laughing gas, sending these four comrades into a kind of nonchalant, dreamlike state.

           They shuffled the playing cards around giddily, placing fake bets with verbal amounts and feigning defeat when they lost. Rebecca sat next to Nick on one side of the table, on the other Meg and Nathan. It was clear they all seemed to have an innate chemistry. Even being down in the lab for only days had threaded a unique bond among the aquanauts.

           A transistor radio sat in one corner playing crackly classical music.

`          The four them were stripped down, half naked. The moisture was always creeping in from outside, threatening to push through the walls. When they wore anything, it was wet within minutes, as if by magic. Water dripped from the ceiling, coated the walls.

           “He’s got aces up his sleeve, I swear to God,” Meg said, staring down Nick.

           They all laughed as Nick raised his bare, brown arms. A small golden neckless hung around his neck. “Search me!” he yelled.

           They laughed again and it died away like a wave crashing back onto shore, and the classical music took over again.

           “How many hands is that now, five in a row?” Rebecca asked him.

           “Something like that,” Nick responded.

           “Cheating son of a bitch,” Nathan muttered, and they all laughed again and stopped in nearly perfect unison.

           Every once in a while, one of the aquanauts would open their jaw, rubbing it at if it was sore. The constant push and pull of the cresting waves above them forced the altitude to shift every few minutes, making their ears pop on a regular basis.

A storm had been pounding away all night, making the place shake a bit more than usual, but still they were nicely tethered to the ocean floor. They weren’t going anywhere.

 It was around 9:20 p.m. when the whole place shook as if something had crashed directly into it. They all froze, looking at each other with wide eyes.

           “What the hell was that?” Nick asked.

           They all peered out the window. There was nothing but a shimmering, dusty blue.

           Then a pale hand banged onto the glass.

           They all cried out and shrunk back. Rebecca jumped so quickly she pushed Nick to the floor.

           “Shit!” Nathan yelled.

           A face appeared outside the glass, pale, almost lifeless. It was a young man; his lips tainted a purpling blue.

           “Nick, get the gear.”

           The face floated from the window and they watched his body float past.

           “Meg, you can’t -”

           “Get the gear! And someone call the beach.”

           Nick went and fetched the scuba gear; Rebecca went back to the control room to make contact with the shoreline.

           “You think it was freediving?” Nick asked. His voice was shaking.

           “I don’t know what the hell it was,” Meg said. “But he has seconds to live.”

           Nick came back hurriedly with the scuba gear and Meg pulled it on with some help from Nathan. Within thirty seconds she was ready to go, the tank on her back and mask secured. She dropped down from Atlantis through the bottom hatch and sank into the water.

The ocean welcomed her back like an old friend; dark, quiet, almost hauntingly peaceful. She kicked forward and found the floating body almost immediately, drifting aimlessly through the depths. His face was white. He looked like a corpse. Meg grabbed him by the waist, covered his mouth and nose, and swam back to Atlantis, bursting up through the water to her other three aquanauts awaiting at the surface. They grabbed the kid first, pulling his limp body up into the shuttle. Meg got herself up as the others went to work saving his life.

“Breathe!” Nathan yelled at the young kid. He wasn’t any older than twenty-five. The veins on his neck stood out like blue stalks. Blood ran from his nose. “Breathe!” Nathan yelled again, and bent to give him mouth to mouth. Rebecca was still in the back trying to make contact with the beach. Meg and Nick watched helplessly as the precious seconds ticked by with no response from the kid.

And then, just when they thought it was over, the kid sputtered and came back to life. His eyes beamed wide, he swung around breathlessly, choking on air, staring at the faces around him. His eyes were bright green. No one said anything at first, they only looked at him, afraid to ask him anything, shocked that he was even alive. The only sounds were the classical music playing distantly, and Rebecca in the back still trying to make contact.

“I repeat, we have a young man here who blacked out, need medical attention, I repeat -”

“No one’s listening,” the kid finally said.

The aquanauts all looked at each other. Of all the things the kid could have said, none of them would have expected those three words. Nothing but dull static responded to Rebecca’s calls. At the kid’s statement she turned around, confused.

“What?” Meg asked.

The kid exhaled again, still trying to gain back his breath completely. Nick handed him a towel. The kid wiped his nose and watched the towel come away red.

“No one’s listening up there. They’re all gone.”

           Nick was gritting his teeth. “What the hell are you -”

“What’s your name?” Meg asked.

“Thompson,” the kid muttered. His voice was dark, gritty; it seemed to age him by about ten years.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nick demanded.

It was the first outside physical contact the aquanauts had had in eight days.

“When the last time you made contact with the beach?” Thomson asked. He was staring away at the far wall grimly.

Rebecca still held the radio in one hand, her mouth slightly open.

“We talked to them yesterday,” Nathan said.

“Over five hours ago,” Thomson said.

“That’s right.”

“Are you going to tell us why you were floating lifeless in the middle of the goddamm ocean?” Nick asked heatedly.

“The same reason you haven’t heard from anyone in six hours,” Thomson said.

“It was storming,” Rebecca cut in defensively. “And it was nighttime, we don’t usually talk to them anyways – they’re sleeping -”

“So where are they now?”

Silence filled the void left by this question. A slow uneasiness was beginning to fall on the aquanauts.

“What are you trying to tell us?” Nick asked. His voice was cold.

The kid looked up with Nick with his wide, strangely green eyes. “It hasn’t been storming,” he said. The blue veins in the kid’s neck seemed to be pulsating, and his skin was bright red. It hadn’t seemed that red when he first came in. “Everyone’s gone,” he croaked.

“What?” Nathan asked.

Nick scoffed. “He’s delusional. He nearly drowned – what do you think that does to someone’s mind. Give him some time to come back.”

           “I’m not lying!” the kid shouted. He made eye contact with Meg, and she saw lucidity in his eyes. “I saw it. I saw what it did to them. What they did to them . . .” He cast his eyes down, his head wobbling slightly.

“What was it?” Meg asked him.

He lifted his head slightly. There was something strange going on underneath his skin. His blood almost seemed to pulse beneath his skin, splotches of red seem to travel across his face, down his chest. His lips were still blue, and the veins in his neck protruded strangely.

“Don’t go to the surface,” he whispered, and then he choked and his body began convulsing. The vein in his neck appeared to wiggle and then explode, and Meg was showered with blood as the kid’s neck split open. She screamed.

“SHIT!” Nick yelled.

Thompson’s lifeless body slapped back onto the ground, blood pooling beside him. His green eyes stayed open; his mouth slightly ajar.

“Fuck me,” Nathan said breathlessly, staring at the kid.

Meg had blood splotched across her face like paint. She grabbed the towel from the ground and wiped her face as best as she could. Her whole body was shaking.

Rebecca quickly covered his face and neck with another towel, then it was left for the four them to look at each other, trying to reign in the terror that was forcing its way up their throats.

“What the hell was that?” Rebecca asked.

“He dove too deep, that’s what the hell it was,” Nick said breathlessly. He was clearly shaken, his face pale white, his eyes cast down to the body at his feet. “That’s what happens when nitrogen builds up in your blood.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Meg said.

“Crazy shit happens when you freedive,” Nick replied.

“Have you ever seen anything like this, Nathan?” Meg asked.

He shook his head solemnly, struggling to find words.

“Well you just did,” Nick said harshly. “You heard him. The kid was crazy. Talking nonsense.”

A brief silence followed.

“What if he wasn’t?” Meg asked.

Nick stared at her. “Don’t tell me you believe anything that kid said.”

“He just exploded in front of our eyes, Nick. Something tells me it wasn’t just the ocean that caused that.”

           “No one’s called back yet,” Rebecca said quietly.

Nick scoffed, shook his head, looked at Nathan for help. Nathan still seemed strangely displaced, as if he was still trying to figure out what had just occurred. “I don’t know,” was all he managed.

“He was out of his mind,” Nick said. “He was hallucinating. He blacked out and he started seeing shit. And then he came in here and started telling us all about it.”

“And then he blew up,” Rebecca said flatly.

“Because of nitrogen.”

“Nitrogen doesn’t do that,” Nathan said.

Nick swallowed and scoffed again. “Nothing he said even made sense.”

“He said don’t ‘go to the surface’,” Meg said slowly. “He said he saw something up there . . . he said something was . . . doing things to people -” She stopped abruptly.

They were all quiet again for some time.

“This is ridiculous,” Nick said. “I can’t believe we’re even entertaining this bull shit.”

“Why haven’t they called?” Rebecca asked. “They should’ve called back by now.”

No one responded to that. Even Nick’s confidence seemed slightly shaken.

“I’m going up there,” Nick said defiantly.

He went to get the gear, but Meg was standing her ground. They locked eyes.

“Let me through, Meg,” Nick said. 

“Wait,” she nearly whispered. “Just wait for a little bit, Nick. Until they call back.”

Nick eyed her roughly, his face beat red, his hair slick with sweat and plastered against his forehead. Then he shook his head again and stomped back to the table by the porthole, staring grimly out into the blue depths.

They sat there for some time, waiting. Rebecca tried to call every ten minutes, always to no avail. Their isolation down here slowly seemed to be crushing each of them. The horror of the previous moments was too close to get away from. The towel that Rebecca had put over the kid’s head was drenched in blood. Each of the aquanauts recoiled to their own corner, surrounding the body, hoping for some sign from above. The classical music continued to play. Anything was better than silence.

“If it’s true . . . what he said,” Nathan began. “If something really happened up there . . .” He looked up at his comrades wearily. “What if we’re the only ones left?”

“We have enough food and water for about a month,” Meg said.

“You’re not really thinking of staying down here for a month,” Nick said.

“I need to hear that there are people up there,” Meg said. “I need to know it’s safe.”

“There’s a goddamm body on the floor and you want to talk about safety.” Nick shook his head. His whole body seemed to be trembling, as if he was holding back rage. “I’m not going to sit here next to this corpse any longer than I have to.” He shot up and bent to the body, picking the dead kid up by the waist. The towel came off of what was left of the kid’s head. It looked like a failed paper mache experiment that someone had flooded with red paint.

Rebecca screamed.

“What the hell are you doing?” Meg asked.

“I’m putting this fucking body back in the ocean,” Nick replied.

“No you’re not. That’s somebody’s family, Nick, you can’t just drop him to the bottom of the ocean -”

Meg approached him to stop him and Nick swung his arm out. He hit Meg in the head, sending her flying to the wall.

“NICK!” Rebecca screamed.

Nathan jumped into action, tackling Nick onto the table. They struggled there for some time, Rebecca screaming, Meg unconscious, slumped into a ball on the ground. Nick was able to flip Nathan over and then dropped his hands on his neck, constricting him. Rebecca tried to come to the rescue, but Nick shoved her way. She landed on her butt and grabbed the radio desperately, her face drenched in tears. Nick wasn’t letting up. Nathan’s face was turning white, his eyes were rolling back. Nick’s teeth were clenched, he breathed in sharp little gasps as his fingers tightened around Nathan’s neck.

Then a noise, voices coming from the deep. And someone appeared from the bottom hatch, taking off their scuba gear. It was their main contact from the beach – Henry, his long, blonde hair releasing as he pulled off his mask. 

“We lost contact because of the storm,” he said, pulling himself through the hatch. “We tried to get to you sooner, but the radio -”

He stopped, looking at Meg’s unconscious body on the floor, the bloody corpse in front of him, and lifeless Nathan, slowly being released from Nick’s hands.

The aquanauts had lasted eight days in Atlantis.