The overhead lights were on full force, the bright yellow light reflecting off the water. She waited for the panic to overcome her, for the choking grief to storm in, but to her absolute shock, Brynna remained calm. She slid out of her jeans and sweatshirt and turned back to the pool. Her blood pressure ratcheted up a notch with each step she took toward the glassy water, but it didn’t cripple her.
Brynna stared at the pool and worked hard—using every technique Dr. Rother had ever taught her—to see exactly what was there: a pool. A pool with a flat, glasslike surface and a clear, white bottom, illuminated by a blue-tinged light. No darkness. No waves. No riptides. Just a swimming pool.
Brynna took the first step, the water making a sucking sound as she dipped her foot in. She glanced down, relieved to see her foot underneath the water’s surface, her red toenail polish as bright and cheery as it had been above water.
“Nothing hiding under the surface,” she said aloud.
She was waist deep, and her anxiety level was staid. The pool water was only disturbed by her movements, and even then, it was only tiny, two-inch ripples that cascaded over the water. She could see her limbs, she could see the bottom, she could see out in front of her.
“I can do this.”
Brynna snapped on her swim cap and goggles and dipped lower, the water swirling around her elbows, then her chest. She stood there, waiting to feel the enveloping comfort that the pool had always given her. She hoped it would flood back but knew it would be a long shot, since her heart was still keeping an ultra-quick, steady beat as she stood there.
She remembered wading in side-by-side with Erica, just before they took their lanes. They would make faces at each other and snap the other’s goggles, jumping and slicing through the water. There was nothing left of that lightness.
She forced herself to walk in deeper until the lukewarm water batted over her collarbone and then her chin. She let her foot leave the bottom and started to gently tread water. Her limbs were blooming with warmth, and her natural ability took over as she drifted a few inches farther toward the middle of the pool. The sound of the water, of her body moving through it, reverberated through the tiled poolroom and bounced back at her. So did the heavy sound of the double doors clicking shut. Brynna snapped her head toward the sound, and then everything went dark.
The overhead lights snapped off, and she was blinded by the sudden darkness, by the little explosion of hot, white light that bloomed in front of her from the sudden change of glaring bright to pitch blackness.
“Hello?” she called out, her meek voice floating back to her. “Hello? Someone’s in here. Can you please turn the lights on again? Please?”
She started to kick harder as the panic rose in her chest. She could feel the adrenaline oozing into her blood stream. The same adrenaline that used to shoot her across the pool weighed her down now, and the side of the pool—the steps—seemed to get farther and farther away as Brynna kicked.
And then there were the fingers.
Hundreds of them, clawing at her skin. Dead, clenched hands, marble cold, ripping at her throat. Tearing at her hair. Slicing across her swimsuit.
There’s nothing here in the pool with you, Brynna. You’re imagining this. You’re panicking.
She worked to breathe, to let herself see that she was alone in the water, while her mind spun on, conjuring up corpses in the water pulling her under. Her panic threw her off balance.
She felt the slick step disappear, and she was tumbling, the water pressing against her chest pushing her down, pulling her under. The water dripped in between her clenched teeth. It snaked into her nostrils, and she struggled to breathe. She sucked up the water, and it doused the burn in her lungs and then made it worse. Her hair swirled and snarled in front of her eyes as the sound of water, the pound, the rush, whooshed through her ears. She was screaming and coughing and clawing, trying to keep her head above water, trying to figure out which end was up.
Find your footing, find your footing, find your footing. Her inner voice was screaming, desperately trying to be heard over the whoosh of water. She tried to work over the panic. And then her hand hit something solid.
She felt the sting of the concrete slapping her palm first, then gripped at the cement, feeling her fingernails catch. She winced as they broke but still she struggled to pull herself toward the cement ledge of the pool. She kicked and clawed, and then there was a hand on hers.
A savior.
Brynna’s head broke the surface—or she thought it did. When she opened her eyes, everything was black. She launched herself toward the ledge, toward the hand holding hers, but it was like there was a wall. She pressed, and the wall pressed back. Her eyes began to adjust and she knew where she was—inside the pool, inside the school.
But why was it so dark?
There was a figure at the edge. Crouching, examining Brynna with a cocked head and one hand out, gripping hers.
Erica?
Brynna blinked, the water, like tears, running over her cheeks.