Bound With The Water Dragon

Open Water

Up at the surface Morgan ripped off his scuba diving mask, desperate for a chance to find the dredge he was mining for. There had to be an explanation for the near death experience he had just faced. 

Someone wanted him gone. He was sure of it.

His gear was fine. It was his. He knew to always check them before he went for his diving shifts and never to leave them around others. 

People were shady in this business. 

Despite having their own carved out space for dredging, the bigger mills always bully their way on through. 

He used to be thrown around by currents created with the damn buckets they’re using, but no one cares about a sixteen-year-old life they destroyed before they see it in the newspaper. There had been a few deaths since he settled up in the north. Where Morgan came from, they would mourn the loss. Families would come together. They would help despite their differences. The north is not the same and it shows. 

He had always wondered what it would take for them to see him as someone to be revered, not someone to ruin. He wanted to be something to their community, a legend; the guy that came up in every story out at sea. Then he’d be more... 

But  now he was floating around in the sea without a ship in sight 

It was cold and awful. And by the look of it he would have to swim miles back to the shore just to hike a few more. It would take hours in his gear and by the time he reached the closest house, he would have frozen to death. 

Morgan needed a plan. 

A way out. Or better yet, a way to survive this to find out who even  put him out there like this. He’d ruin them, he thought. 

Morgan gritted his teeth and growled about it then. 

Whoever it wound up being, Morgan promised himself, he would ruin them, just like they tried to ruin him. Leave them out there for…

“Karma is a fickle nightmare,” rumbled a voice from inside him. 

Not his own. 

Morgan’s frown only grew deeper. He opened his mouth only to close it several times before growling, “Are you the reason I’m out here, freezing to death?”

Morgan battled with the reality he was facing miles from the shore. His mind raced through the possibilities of hearing such a thing, 

He sighed heavily before reattaching his mouth piece and checking the compass on his wrist only to watch it bob and spin. 

“What the?” he frowned at the hopelessly confused metal arrow searching for its direction. 

A voice inside him suggested that it was a magnetic pull stronger than the poles, which had him concerned that he could be right on top of it. He then struggled with the idea that he should at least check it out. 

Morgan’s heart raced with every inch he dropped into the sea. It was dangerous not to have the proper gear and a grounding anchor to dive in with the water as grey and dense as this. He could become bait for sharks or orca in the surrounding area and he wouldn’t even know what got him until too late.

“Your position will be well known if you don’t slow your racing heart, boy,” it hissed as if it meant it would kill the both of them. 

Morgan whipped his head around, turning his body to face a new direction each time while he looked for the voice. 

“Who are you?” he asked, his mouthpiece muffling his speech. 

Morgan’s attention had switched from trying to understand the voice within him to realizing his place in the vast ocean. He panned around to look for possible predators in the dark water surrounding him but found nothing. The darkness of the murky water was simply too great. 

The thrill of clicking in the distance suggested orcas were in fact nearby and that Morgan’s life could be over. His options were to stay where he was or try swimming to the surface. Both decisions only gave them a chance to play with their food before ripping him apart.

Once again he heard the voice over his panicking thoughts.

“Just listen, would you?” the voice inside him pushed. 

He did his best to slow his rising anxiety but his heartbeat still lurched at every other sound regardless. Morgan soon found himself far lower than he thought he was in the ocean as his fins finally found the sea floor. Startled by this, he panned around quickly, finding that he had successfully found clear water. Despite its depth and darkness, he could faintly make out the rough terrain and dips within the ocean floor. 

As his eyes finally adjusted. A strange feeling crawled under his tight wetsuit. It made him shiver but not from the cold. Oddly, he sensed that he was on the verge of discovering something. 

Carefully, he tilted his head to the side to turn on his head lamp, a special waterproofed flashlight secured to his goggles, to see.

Another thought briefly whispered to him not to turn it on, but it was too late. The tiny light filled the space immediately with an unnatural glow causing creatures to stir. Morgan could feel the shift as it happened. 

His building fear rendered his gloved hands useless. Unable to switch the light off, Morgan fought to cover it quickly with his hand instead, blinding him further. 

He could feel it in his bones that this was the end for him. They were coming. 

Again he heard the voice, now familiar this time, command him to remove his hand and look for hieroglyphics on the darkened gravel there. 

“What? Where?” he garbled back. 

“Below you!” it snarled, giving only more instructions thereafter. 

Morgan blindly followed the voice’s expectations. He allowed the light to reclaim the space which blinded him once more. Time was running out and hearing how incompetent it thought he was didn’t help at all!

Once Morgan could finally see the large diamond in the dark, gravel like sand, he could make out the designs he assumed were the markings he was told to look for. 

Instructions still followed to touch the bottom marking came to him on a sigh, expecting him to fail off the bat. Whatever or whoever this voice belonged to had to back off, Morgan grumbled. 

“Being eaten sounds a lot less hectic than listening to you,” Morgan spat as he turned to the sound of an approaching whale instead. It made the voice stop badgering him for enough time to think he finally stopped it.

“Is that what you want?” he gurgled, then inhaled to deliver his next question. 

“Is it what you want?” the voice taunted. “Go ahead. Lose your life… or save it....”

“There’s nothing to save. I’m at the bottom of the ocean talking to myself!”

The massive orca surged past him, squeaking it’s call back to the others that it had, in fact, found the intruder. Morgan could feel the beast sizing him up as the whale turned his head to the side. A series of clicks sounded from the other side of Morgan then too, somewhere out there in the darkness, just beyond where his light stretched. 

“You’ll be dead if you don’t get moving,” the voice said, ignoring Morgan’s last complaint. 

“MOVE!” the voice inside him shouted and Morgan finally responded. 

The being inside of him pushed his body and his gear to the limit. It scrapped him roughly against the seafloor, threatening his life further.

“Don’t do that!” 

“Save your life?” the voice snarled back, as it pushed off the bottom with a desperation to leave this mess that matched his own. 

“Don’t scrape the tank!” 

Before Morgan could gurgle out that it would explode, the essence whipped Morgan’s body around to face the beasts one last time. Each of which beat the water with their tails to catch up with him, to make a meal out of the man just for the grief it caused them. T

“What did you do?” Morgan exclaimed. 

The returning sound isn’t much more than a grunt while the essence that had him still flailed in the water, racing to the surface as that was going to save him. Them… Morgan told himself. He was very clearly not alone! 

A moment later they surfaced. His body lifted only higher while the orcas that chased them jumped high out of the ocean in pursuit. As each reentered the water ungracefully, slamming themselves onto the surface, Morgan felt himself release his tank from his shoulders. 

“It needs to be this way,” the voice claimed. 

“Why?” Morgan countered, realizing the depth of what the essence was saying. 

“They can’t know this story.”

“But I can?” he asked as he watched the tank fall from their height, down into the pod’s frenzy.

“You wanted to live…” it replied, stumping Morgan. 

The ocean then surged up to where they hovered above the clouds. It was as if it had been shot out of a cannon to reach them. Before Morgan could ask, his essence apologized, then hit him hard in the throat from within. 

Morgan could feel how his body rejected the sensation. He wheezed terribly trying to control his next breath but to no avail. 

“Let the water accept you,” it told him, making Morgan mildly aware of how high the water had surged to meet them before it crested and rained down on top of him.