We were falling, falling, for what felt like forever. It seemed that I’d left my stomach up at the cliff edge, the air whooshing around us, loosening the straps of our packs. I tightened my grip on Tom’s arm. I wondered if he was even conscious. I squinted my eyes against the wind of our downward flight, trying to see if we’d hit our target.

Then we smacked into the water below. It was as if we’d fallen into a wall of stone, then somehow sank through. The impact pressed the air from my lungs, and my fingers loosened as we plunged below. I felt things slip away, the desperation to breathe, my eyes screwed shut against the water, the pain of impact echoing across my limbs. Fortunately, we’d fallen in feet first, and the lake seemed to be infinitely deep. In any case, we certainly hadn’t touched the bottom.

But if Tom was unconscious… My body bounced back, floating back to the surface, aided with a few scissor kicks into the water. Thankful I’d taken the time to learn how to swim as a child, I surfaced, gasping for air. I glanced back up at the cliff, so high up and far away. How had we survived a jump from that far?

I could see the shadow demon lurking at the cavern edge, unwilling to come into the sunlight. I knew little about demons, the knowledge I did have mostly from books that mentioned them, but I’d heard something about how while light is required to create a shadow demon, direct sunlight will banish them. Fortunately, it wouldn’t be able to follow us in the height of the day. Otherwise, it would probably just fly down from the cliff right now, untethered by its limitations.

But it would be evening soon, and the shadow demon would no longer be tied to the shadows. It tested its limits, edging closer out onto the cliffside. It shrieked; the sunshine must have hurt it. The shadow demon retreated back into its darkness, and I could see it no longer.

I looked around, searching for Tom. Unconscious or not, wouldn’t his body have floated up by now? My breath quickened, lungs burning from having inhaled some water, and the exertion of the last few days. Oh god, no… what would I do with Tom?

I hastily searched around, noting that the water was so clear, I could see down almost to the bottom. I wasn’t sure how deep it was, but this must be where the lake gets its name. The water was pure, flawless, and shone like, well… diamonds.

I spotted a dark form that might be Tom, several feet below me, and sinking.

Inhaling a deep breath, I surface dove to get him.

I kept my eyes open, the water blurring my vision. I swam down, and down, the pressure in my ears building. I burned to take a breath, the need for oxygen squeezing my lungs. The pressure began to be too much for my ears, but I paused to hold my nose shut, keep my mouth shut, and ‘blow’ to equalize the pressure.

It worked, and I kept swimming. He was at least twenty feet down, and probably inhaled a lot of water when we’d hit the lake, stopping him from floating well. Swiftly, I grabbed his arm, grappled him closer to me so I could get a better grip, and got him so that I was supporting him under his armpits. I kicked hard, and we moved slightly.

My lungs were aching, we had to get to the surface soon! I kicked harder, and harder, and harder, and finally, we made it to the top.

I broke the surface, gasping again.

Then, his weight nearly pulled me back down. I wasn’t nearly buoyant enough to support us both. I flipped onto my back, my face dipping underwater again, surprising me, though I still kept his limp form secured under his arms. This would be difficult, as he was much larger than me. His long, gangly body was limp, swaying in the water.

I switched so that my right arm was secured from under his right armpit and across his chest, my right hand almost reaching his left shoulder. Struggling with the weight, I swam, scissor kicking, and pulling the water behind me with my left arm, swimming on my side. I looked ahead at the shoreline. It was so far away. But it was within reach, I just knew it. I kept pushing ahead, shoving water behind me, pulling closer inch by inch to that promised land of dry earth. My mouth dipped underwater, and often my nose, but my eyes stayed on that shore, determined to reach it.

I tried my best to keep Tom afloat enough that his mouth and nose didn’t sink below water, and occasionally looked back him to make sure he was okay. I had my arm across his chest, and it worried me that I didn’t feel it expanding and contracting with breath. But that would be a problem for when we came ashore; there was no way for me to do anything about it in the water, barely able to keep us both afloat.

My feet began to brush on the water plants below, swaying in the washes of water that I pushed past them. Their fronds caressed my toes, then my calves, and finally, I was able to sink my feet into mushy mud. I tested pressing down my foot, and instead, just sank further, my eyes dipping below the surface.

I kicked furiously, unsticking myself, and gasped as I could breathe air again. I kicked, still swimming, despite the shallowing water, and got as close to the shore as I could. Tom still wasn’t breathing.

Hurriedly, I dragged him with me, facing backwards, my butt digging into the thick muck. I pulled him into my lap and cradled his face in my hands. I leaned over to hear if he was breathing, my head twisted sideways so that my ear was over his lips as best as I could manage.

I heard nothing, did not see his chest rise and fall as it should. I pressed two fingers to his neck, feeling for his pulse. It was there but weakened. His shoulder, the right one, had the massive claw still protruding from it, the bandage I’d stuffed around it still there, but mostly unraveled.

Carefully, I dragged him further onto the ground, as level as I could. I kneeled next to his body, perpendicular to his chest, and listened once more. I began to breathe shallow, quick breaths – oh god, I’d only ever read about this before. I hoped it would work.

I pinched his nose between my right index and thumb and used my left hand to tilt his head back. It opened the airway, if I remembered correctly. I leaned over him, and pressed my lips to his, sealing all the way around his mouth. I breathed in, two seconds, lifted off for a second, and then did it again.

I sat back up and readied myself for the chest compressions. You can do this, I told myself. Tom is depending on you. I glanced at his injured shoulder. You can worry about that when he’s breathing again, I thought briefly.

I put my right palm on top of my left, and latched my fingers together, pulling them back. I placed my interlaced hands on top of his chest, right in the center of his ribcage.

“Sorry about this,” I whispered.

I pressed down hard, using my entire weight. I read that you had to compress at least a third of the chest depth, and I hoped that my meager strength would be enough. I’d also read that if done properly, then the ribs would most likely be broken. I continued my pace, steady, not too rushed, but not too slow, and kept pushing down with the base of my palm, then releasing after each press to allow his chest to re-expand.

I did this thirty times, then took a deep breath, and leaned forward again, pressing my desperate lips to his. I breathed in, paused, breathed in again, and sat back to resume the compressions.

Robotically, I followed my mental instructions, not allowing myself the time to panic, only focusing on repeating the cycle, checking Tom’s progress.

Each time I watched his chest, it didn’t rise.

Oh no, time was running out. He’d been unconscious and not breathing for way too long, and I wasn’t sure how much time he had left. Tears flowed, dripping alongside fresh lake water, streaming down my face and falling onto his chest as I compressed it. His wet lips dripped with my saltwater tears and mixed with the lake water on his face, a brackish, hellish mixture.

Then he coughed, gagged, and spit out what seemed to be half of the lake into the muck next to me. He was able to turn, lean on his left arm, and puke.

I stepped back to allow him some space but didn’t allow his sickness to deter me. I helped him support himself, unable to imagine the pain he was surely feeling.

He wheezed, occasionally spitting out more water, his breath racking his soaked lungs.

I laid him back down, gently, onto the ground. He was pale, so pale, and shivering.

“You… saved me…” he croaked, staring into my eyes pitifully.

“Did you think that I couldn’t?” I said, smiling slightly, and brushed his wet hair from his brow.

He coughed again; spittle splattered on his mouth. “What happened?” he whispered, his voice scratchy.

“Stop talking so much, Sir Dumbass,” I said, not unkindly, wiping his face clean. “You’re not going to like this next bit.”

He didn’t answer, but his eyes flit as best they could to his right shoulder, and to the claw extruding from it. He squeezed his eyes shut, screwing up his face, and whispered. “Be quick.”

I nodded grimly. But I wasn’t ready to pull it out just yet. I had to prepare whatever we had to best dress his wound with, and I didn’t even have our sacks anymore. That sewing repair kit probably would’ve come in handy right about now.

I knew I would have to take off his makeshift bandage that had miraculously stayed on through our freefall and brief swim but left it on for now. My much shorter shirt would have to become shorter still. I tore it again, making a strip. Then another.

I swore; it wasn’t going to be long enough. I needed more. I took of the shirt altogether, exposing my undergarments. I didn’t have much that I needed to cover, or support, so to speak, so all I typically wore underneath wasn’t much more than a bandeau across my chest, a tight compress keeping everything together underneath. It would have to do; we were past the point of being worried about embarrassment, now.

My shirt in my hands, I tore it again and again into more strips, then knotted them together, squeezing the water from it as best I could.

Actually, I could probably stand to wash them a little. I didn’t have any soap, obviously, or anything to sanitize them with, so rinsing the dirt off of them in the lake water would have to do. I scuffled over to the water’s edge, careful not to muddy my new makeshift bandages, and rinsed them to the best of my ability in the waters of Diamond Lake.

I returned to Tom with my hands full of dripping cloth. Carefully, so carefully, I delicately removed the makeshift bandage from around the claw. At least the water had stopped it from sticking into the wound, so it didn’t seem to pain him to remove the wet cloth. It was bright red with his blood, though it appeared to have stopped a large portion of the bleeding. I was glad I’d had the foresight to do that before we’d jumped, who knows how bad it could’ve been otherwise.

“You’ve been so strong for me this whole time, Tom,” I said, warning him. “I’m going to need you to be strong for a bit longer, now.”

He stiffened, and I could see the pain in his face when he accidentally tensed those ripped muscles in his shoulder. He said nothing, but his eyes told me to get this over with, and to do it quickly.

Watching him watch me, I softly placed my fingers around the claw, careful not to jostle it until I needed to. Once I’d secured my grip, I tightened.

And pulled the claw free.

He screamed.

I screamed.

The claw came ripping out, blood with it, splattering the ground and our clothes.

I tossed the claw aside us, and quickly wrung out the cloths onto the open wound. Hopefully the water was as clean as it looked and that it would wash it okay. In any case, it’d been exposed to the water already. I just hoped it would be enough.

Quickly, and deftly, I stuffed a bit of bandage inside the open wound to staunch the bleeding, then wrapped it securely around shoulder and under his armpit. My entire shirt had made strips long enough that I could wrap it around his shoulder and under his armpit twice, and then enough that I could cross his chest and secure it under his other armpit so that the bandage hopefully wouldn’t move. I was making this up as I went, and I could only hope that it would be okay.

Tom, a permanent grimace etched onto his face, his eyes still closed, his teeth clenched, tilted his back to the sky.

Through the pain, and gritted teeth, he whispered: “Thank you.”

Shaking, my fingers trembling, I stood up. My eyes met the claw I’d discarded, long, black, and menacing. I picked it up, wiped it off on my pants to remove Tom’s blood as best I could. I turned it over in my hands, examining it. The end that would be in the bat’s wing was clean, as if it’d fallen out, like a loose tooth. Whatever that creature was, it must shed its claws, or something. Otherwise it wouldn’t have gotten stuck in Tom’s shoulder. I walked back to shove it in Tom’s pocket. He’d earned the souvenir.