“Just go find out where it leads. Ye don’t have to make a list, and ye don’t have pack thy luggage. Good God – what happened to the adventurous explorer in thee?”

“Quiet, whilst I gather some crayfish for the unknown journey, and think. I’ve not met surprises beyond my cave in decades.”

“Thou have declared at length about facing self-truth and fear. Ye have long rambled how passing through them makes new bounties of energy. Well, here is opportunity knocking.”

“Oh, ye are right. I concede this one to thee. Throw myself into it, yes–yes, okay, here goes.”

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine going further down. The tunnel widens suchlike a stairway of wet stepping slime-stone. 

I wish my sight would comply, placing the images in my eye. Tis a long winding descent. The old roar of running water gets louder whilst the stench thins.

Finally, I turn a sharp bend, arriving at the flowing water. This hollow above the water flow is small. There is little room to stand. I can’t even straighten my back. 

There’s a powerful amount of water rushing past. By the sounds…no air opening runs with the water beyond this grotto.

The warm water pulls my foot hard when I…Hey, tis warm. I’ve forgotten the feel of warm water. It triggers a memory array…of Leanna, taking baths, drinking tea, and my Mama. Mama, wherever ye are above, I love thee.

The flow quickens in pulsing beats as thoughts search for an escape with air access. The thought occurs…of opening my guts with a sharp rock and extracting my gallbladder to inflate with air for breathing on the underwater journey. That’s not helpful at all. 

“How do ye know there’s no air to breathe downstream?”

“Ye crevice speakers follow me?” I ask, turning my palms up.

“Look, ye have a way out. Tis the only potential escape. Ye are as good as dead if thee do not try.”

“Yah–well, ye try it and let me know how it goes.”

“Ye know, dang well, I can’t go without thee.”

“What good is a split piece if ye can’t scout ahead for me?”

“I can speak for all of us in saying we will follow if ye advance.”

“Oh – real encouraging,” I respond, pacing in and out of the tunnel. “Interesting though, finding warm water.”  

A strong impulse surges through me and I leap in. This rash move brings me disorientation tumbling every which way in the currents. So…this is how I die.

 The tumbling cycle spun me a while. My lungs want breath. My diaphragm punches and yanks, begging my throat to open. I fight back, keeping my airway tightly closed.

Air hunger takes a steep increase. I begin panicking, and thrash a while. 

I want to live. With the full backing intensity of connection to life I howled, and then passed-out… Everything got easy. Tis a sweet envelop, traveling this way. I haven’t felt this free since…I can’t remember. 

Next is stabbing pain in my chest. A rush of inhalation comes with coughing. My face presses on rock wall. I’ve inhaled an air pocket…Tis not a wall. Tis’ ceiling my face presses against. 

The water is calm. I must find another air bubble.

I find a nook with a couple breaths worth. The sound of banging metal is perplexing. The clunking sound has a rhythm, and an accompanying voice too faint to understand.

“Dark Lake–Dark lake–Dark Lake.” My ears pick up the slight changes in water pressure, and transfer the meanings to my visual cortex. I see him coming. I see how determined he is in every odd metal banging convulsion of his swim stroke. 

He moves closer, banging a fist-sized rivet with an attached barnacle against a twisted piece of sheet metal–green relics long under water. His eyes fix on me as he draws near in the bizarre metallic swim chant.

“Dark Lake – Dark Lake – Dark Lake”.

How did he know I would find this Dark Lake, to die at his hand? There is nothing I can do. Saltbacker has the underwater prowess of a leviathan. He’ll have my skin scraped off soon. 

I recall my training…and wonders of easing energy arrive. I close my eyes in communique to him. 

“Perhaps ye can kill me, but ye will never have me.”

“Are thee not scared, Awbwen, apprentice of Sanbal?” His thoughts reach me by high conductivity of water as he drifts close, lightly bumping against me.

“I’m afraid, but I can accept this death if I must. However, I do not accept thee,” my thoughts reveal as I wave through water to find another air pocket. “I remain free in my mind through flow ignited further by threat of thy presence.” 

There was laughter in his mind as he swam away. “Ye will serve me in time, better for thy strengths. And ye will enjoy it. I’ll see thee soon, my little novice.”

Why did I just give-it-away to him…how the freed fear works? My impulse is to follow him now. He surely has passage to the surface ocean. Turning another direction, I coax resolve toward finding another way out.

“What are ye doing? Follow him out.” an irritating, familiar voice said.

“Ye do not understand, my firmly planted realist,” I reply. “Figurative actions can verily take one to freedom or enslavement. Following him in any way is movement toward slavery. Figurative measures wield as much physical weight as concrete measures. I don’t want to know what conforming to his route would lead to. The only real freedom begins on the inside.”

“The world is willing to think any thought, say any saying, do any doing, and open any path to see people go free. The opposite is true if the aim is outward blame. If I assign responsibility of my imprisonment to Saltbacker, and none to me, then I’m as good as dead.”

“Sounds like basing thy life on theory, to me,” another of the voices said.

For a change, I didn’t retort. I alter the course of my sunken backstroke slightly, but found no more air pockets. 

The panic in air hunger is passing away with my ability to swim. Ability to remain conscious slips away. Avoiding inhaling water is something I’ll soon forget.

The rumbling of distant explosions, is a sound inside my heart, canonizing my death? No…it does emanate from a distance.  Is it earth quake? It sounds more like coal-mining blasts. I savor my last moments in this world, trying to identify the distant claps of earthen thunder.