Suffocation

Hawk watched through the cameras inside the two agents’ eyes as they trudged through silent water.

The way there had been a breeze. When Fox wasn’t messing around and screwing up, the two could sneak right past most anybody. But the path to an escape was vague, and they only had so much time to find it.

02:24

“Alright, looking good so far. Your time’s just under two and a half minutes, so… you guys are doing great. Keep it goin’.”

Fox didn’t like not being able to respond to his commander under the silence of the emerald-lit water duct. Raven did just fine, swimming forward with his eyes peeled for his way inside the building, where he’d find his quarry.

But as time ticked on, that goal started to look further and further away.

Hawk watched his monitor with bated breath, only able to observe helplessly as he watched yet another set of young men risk everything for the agency. His words could only do so much to protect them deep down in hostile territory.

01:42

Raven slowly clawed towards the back of the wide tunnel, keeping his fear in check. He wasn’t seeing a single thing so far- the featureless duct showed no signs of the exit Hawk mentioned.

“You’re coming up on the end now- you know your mission, just- locate that hatch and you’re good to go.” The supporter couldn't bear the silence any longer, throwing his encouragement at the boys while trying not to let his anxiety show. Raven wasn’t paying attention to begin with at this point; the boy had come up against the dead end waiting for him and was now circling the dark space for his objective.

He surveyed the ceiling for the thousandth time- and then, in the shadows, he could only just make it out- but he spotted the sturdy little trapdoor keeping him from what he wanted.

He flashed the hand signal in front of his face.

“Found it? Great, great. So good.” Hawk exhaled, smiling. “Love that.”

Suddenly Raven turned away from the hatch and froze.

“Raven? What’s- what’s the matter?”

He switched over to the other agent’s feed- only to see that instead of moving forward, the kid was sinking like a rock. 

“Shit-“ Hawk cut off his audio before scurrying across his keyboard, checking his vitals- “Um- Fox is losing air pretty fast. Now- that’s not good, but stay calm, everything’s gonna be just fine- Raven, you just…” He couldn’t finish the thought. Logic told him to get the operative into that hatch as fast as possible, to order him to break in and worry about his partner later. Every other fiber in his body stung at the instinct. With as many times as he’d seen this play out before, he knew whatever happened, if the mission wasn’t put first, it wouldn’t go well in the end. “You just stay calm.” He repeated himself. “I’m not worried.”

01:00

The boy left the hatch to swim towards his partner without a second thought. Seizing him by the head he knew what had to be done.

“Raven- Jake! Jake, listen to me right now- you are not going to do that. You copy? That- that is the last thing I want you to do. Okay?”Hawk’s ambivalence caught up to him. He felt just like he was staring down at the lever of the trolley tracks.

The agent chose not to hear his petrified surveyor. Tearing the mask off his own face as fast as he could without breaking the flimsy thing, he did the same to Fox’s before trying to hook it into his own portable tank.

0:13

“Hey! If you two can even hear me, you have eleven seconds left. You need to hurry it up right now!”

Carrying his unconscious partner behind him, Raven floated up to the locked hatch and began banging on it with his fist.

“Ten- nine. Eight. Seven…” Hawk started to count off to the boys, eyes glued to the screen. There was nothing else he could do at this point. He hovered his finger over the button to cut the feed the second the alarms came on. He didn’t need to see this happen to someone again.

Raven slammed harder and harder, but it was only just now beginning to budge-

“Five… Four! Three!”

He hurled everything he had at it, but in the void of suffocating liquid his every movement was slowed to a crawl, like he was in a dream- everything was ending, but it wasn’t dying he was afraid of-

“Two!”

For a second he could’ve sworn he saw the director’s disapproving face inside the water.

 “ONE!”

Raven coughed up buckets of water onto the storage room floor.

Hawk was speechless, cupping his hands over his face as the agent sat Fox down near a wall, the teammate coming to his senses.

“…What the fuck happened?”

A gentle buzz of the dim overhead lights greeted them into the small room as Raven dug through the boxes there, leaving his partner hanging.

“Raven?”

He could almost hear him whisper:

“Where is it?”

Fox just watched as he tore through everything in there. He wasn’t considering that whoever was stationed here would find this place later- combing through every last drawer and file, he came back with nothing.

“Where is it? Where… the fuck… is it?

“Where’s… what? The… the Sarcophagus?”

“No, no, no no no no no….” Jake panicked, itching at his surroundings. Still nothing. He knew in his heart that what he was looking for, he wouldn’t find it there. “The SARCOPHAGUS! It’s not… it’s not here-“ Panting and screaming, it almost looked like he was losing his mind.

“Raven- it’s- okay, we can go back to base, we can report that it wasn’t-“

He saw the look on his partner face and realized that wouldn’t be a possibility.

“Oh… fuck.” The child whimpered, gripping his red, watery eyes inside his bruised hands. “Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”