From Below

by Darcy Coates

Then the voice rose, flooding his ears, filling his head, raw and battered with terror: “There are bodies in the walls.”

That didn’t mean the depths wouldn’t be hell for their bodies. The added pressure had become noticeable at only ten feet down. At a hundred feet, they would be breathing harder just to compensate against the squeeze. Anything over a hundred and fifty feet required even more specialized qualifications and prolonged training to withstand. By two hundred and twenty feet, even the oxygen in their canisters would begin to turn toxic. Cove and her team were traveling down three hundred and twelve feet.

The black holds them in its hands. The void, beautiful, voracious. They want more air but there’s none to take, just the deep thick water. Skin turns white as they try to hold their breath inside. They can’t. The bubbles vanish from their gaping mouth. You watch as they drown.

I would lie down with you, put my arms around you, feel how cold you are as you roll, rigid with death, on the ocean floor.