Submergence [Solo]

[Camille Gabriel]

The ocean below her faded to black, cable stretching further into the depths then she could see, the woven fibres swallowed by the waiting trench. Michaux's specialists claimed this had been a freshwater lake once, millions of years ago, before Borneo's oceans had swallowed the land. It made little practical difference to Camille, though the water here was shallower than elsewhere on the planet. Her target depth would take her within ten metres of the lake's bottom, and a part of her insisted that she could make the extra distance. Camille quashed the notion. Diving, especially freediving, held one fate only for a lone diver who misjudged her limits. Again, she was struck by the image of a bug suspended in glass. Not a pleasant fate in the least.

One hand moved over the other, pulling her down the line, surface fading to flickering white lines above her. Her lengthy fins remained motionless above her, the odd kick sufficient to fight off the residual buoyancy of her suit. Her lungs were comfortably full, and she was content to relax and let the near-automatic machinations of her hands take over. One hand over the next, one handhold after another. The currents swirled around her, tossing her hair about like a fisherman's discarded net, and she remembered why she had come.

Tiny fish, no longer than her outstretched finger swarmed around her, carried by the current, transparent mouths gaping like marionettes as they raced alongside the minuscule particles carried by the current. Ghostfish. Michaux's resident marine biologist had insisted on lecturing Camille on the local wildlife before she'd departed. In hopes, she suspected, that she would return some new specimen for him. The man would be solely disappointed. Regardless, her newly-acquired education had come with some small benefit. The fish were relatively shallow water dwellers, skimming the upper limits of the currents for nutrients swept up from below, currents that did not usually begin until some twenty metres below Borneo's ice. A quick glance at her depth gauge confirmed the assessment, orange light casting its supernatural '15' over her wetsuited wrist.

Good. She was making good progress, though the pressure on her chest had increased to a dull ache. Camille wasn't unduly worried. It was just- Yes, there it was. She relaxed her grip on the rope and felt herself sink, buoyancy forced from her lungs by the pressure. Inside her chest, she knew her lungs were shrinking as the water did its work. Once, the thought had terrified her. Now, it simply meant less work to descend. Shadows moved at the corners of her vision, shapes twisting and pulsing in the deep blue that stretched on beside her. Borneo's ocean was home to a vast variety of sea creatures, plenty of them less than friendly. Still, humans were rare enough here that the sheer unusual nature of this new grey-skinned creature would give them pause enough for her to complete her dive. At least, that was the idea. Even with the diving knife at her wrist, Camille was in no hurry to find out. She equalised, ears popping, and returned her attention to the rope.

She passed twenty five metres before she felt it. A shudder pulsed through the water, punctuated with the groaning of the ice packs above her. She froze in place, hands gripping the rope, knuckles white, descent forgotten. No. Something was wrong. She'd been careful, she'd checked the geo-readings. There hadn't been any plate activity predicted until- An almighty grating cut through her hearing, like a gears-up landing, but oh-so much louder, even through the water. Despite herself, she found her hands releasing the rope to clamp over her ears.

The ice hit the water like a giant's punch, throwing shockwaves that rippled through Camille's wetsuit twenty five metres below. Ice packs above her shifted and crunched beneath the onslaught, groaning but holding strong. And then light faded from her aquatic world as the ice settled over the small hole in the ice above. Her line grew slack in her hands, upper clamps shorn free. Camille let it go, numb hands letting rope slip by as the pegs plummeted past her to the lake's floor.

Trapped.

---

Dulce et decorum est.
| Character Sheet | Camille's Theme | Feedback |