Pool Room 2

The sensation is beyond anything she’s felt before. It’s a cold beyond cold, a chill so deep, so harrowing, that she can’t stop the scream that tears from her throat. Her agony floats above her in pockets of rushing air, pulling from her the little she has to spare.

She vaguely wonders -with the sliver of cognition that hasn’t been dispatched to pain and panic- if her sound is being carried upwards too. Will her agony be heard when the bubbles break the surface? Fill the room with her shout?

The ice moves upwards, caressing her leg in a violation that sets her nerves aflame. Cold fire melting flesh, sinking inside her. Her legs kick reflexively; both futile attempts to dislodge and flee. The tendrils multiply, spread, shifting into handlike shapes that grope and caress. Licentious machinations. Hundreds of phantom fingers move up her calf, her thigh, teasing high on the inseam. The digits plunge into her hips and stomach and chest, slipping beneath smoothly. Frigid grip searing her skin.

Stop, stop, stop, stop. The broken record loop of her thoughts rattles around in her skull, a cacophony. Her flesh crawls with disgust, her stomach flipping rampantly in nauseating circles. The trespass is too familiar, too reminiscent of events she has pushed far into the recesses of her mind. She doesn't want to feel this, doesn't want this echo of sensation drudging up memories better left buried and dead.

Her visions starts to swim, growing dull around the edges the longer she remains trapped beneath the surface. Grey teetering on complete blackness grows around the ring of her sight, looming just on the periphery. She needs air. She needs to breathe. Any longer without and she’s liable to slip into the darkness she knows she can’t return from.

A flash of metal catches her eye before her brain can catch up with what she’s seeing. Sluggishly, she pieces the image together: hand, hilt, knife. Weapon.

Salvation.

Her arm arcs downward, aiming the sharp blade at the base of the unseen force. She can feel resistance as she makes contact, knife sinking into whatever violator that has taken hold of her. She has enough momentum that the minor snag is nothing more than a momentary irritant before the knife slices through clean, a neat division. She can feel herself coming unanchored, a soundless pop as she is no longer held in place. The cold hands cling to her skin for a beat, holding on like insects struck dumb at the moment of death, before they release.

There is no time for relief, no time to consider anything but the burn in her lungs and throat, the thirst for oxygen that has white spots dancing in her eyes. Her head feels weightless, buoyant, precariously attached as she looks up to the surface. The distance is vast, and time is disastrously short.

She kicks off once more, swimming with a ferocity that has alluded her for decades. Her limbs feel leaden, an odd counterbalance to the weightless state of her skull. Inch by agonizing inch she fights through the current, fights through the fire in her muscles, fights through the fading of her vision. The grey has darkened, expanded, funneled her sight into pinpricks of light. And still she swims. Fights.

She breaks the surface with desperately grasping hands first. The cool air a shock against the mild warmth of the water that has sunk into her skin. Clawing at air, she vainly searches for some kind of hold; A grip she can use to leverage herself upwards. It's stupid, futile, and she redirects her scant energy to her legs. She kicks, and kicks, and kicks, pushing against the syrupy water until finally her head emerges.

The first pull of air brings water with it, clogging her throat immediately. Aspirating diminishes her capacity for breath, sputtering coughs depleting the air she is managing to get in. Her whole chest squeezes, jagged torment as she tries to suck in breaths around the choking. Finally, the urge to cough diminishes, allowing her the first uninterrupted pull of oxygen in what feels like ages.

The respite is short lived as ominous ripples break across the top of the water, shattering the placidity that has so effectively lulled her before. She can feel the movement below, rip tides waking up, building ferocity. The origin of the sudden calamity is something she has little interest in determining. Knowing will not dissipate the disaster. The threat is more than enough to trigger her flight, and her head snaps towards the exit with a keen desperation. She wants out. Now.

Her body aches as she treads over to the door, arms and legs protesting every movement. She grits her teeth against the pain, refusing to stop for even a second as the water begins to churn tumultuously behind her. She reaches the ledge slower than she would like, tossing the key and knife impatiently onto the tile to free up her hands. Palms flat, she pushes with the remaining strength she has. Her arms shake, muscles watery, precarious. For a moment she is convinced that her limbs will fail her; her hands will slip, send her plunging back into depths that she won’t be able to escape from a second time. Miraculously she is able to lift herself, haul her weight up and over before the inevitable collapse. She lands hard, chest hitting the edge with her full bulk, threatening to knock the wind from her all over again.

Wheezing, she has the wherewithal to snatch the key back now that her hands are free, clenching the metal hard enough that the teeth bite into her palm. There isn’t much space to work with, but she manages to turn her body so she can hook one leg on the ledge. She hears the clatter and splash of water before she realizes that she’s jostled the knife -the knife that has slipped below the surface, swallowed by the mounting violence of the pool. There is no time to mourn the loss, no time to berate herself for such carelessness, as waves start to crash loudly against the walls.

Somehow, she gets her knee beneath her, palm and fist pushing against the slick ceramic as she works herself upright. Water breaks against her back, an explosive force that threatens to knock her off balance. Her arms pinwheel for a sick second, trying to compensate for the sudden shift in weight, before she is able to re-establish her footing. The mocking hiss of the remainder of the wave hitting the wall before her is loud, the spray clinging scornfully to her as the bulk temporarily recedes.

She makes the mistake of looking backward, her eyes growing wide as she takes in the chaos unfolding behind her. Water writhes, grows mountainous before collapsing back onto itself with a force so large that the slap of water is nearly identical to the crush of metal of a car crash. White peaks have formed, vicious frothing that stretches higher, and higher, and higher as the liquid builds once more. The whole volume of the pool crests, spilling up to the ceiling, pushing against the glass windows as it rains back down in sharp shards.

Turning her head, she closes her eyes, preparing for the inevitable. She finds footing just in time to brace against the backsplash of the water plunging back into the pool. This force is stronger, pushing her up against the wall with disturbing ease. The rough plaster of the wall scratches against her cheek, scraps against her open palm and the back of her closed fingers. Little stings that fill with chlorinated water immediately. She wastes no time in shuffling to the door once the drench slicks off her, needing to get out before the wave can build once more. Her hand is steady as she fits the key in the lock, steady as she turns and pushes. She slips through just before the water crashes, the door closing against the monstrous wall of the wave.