Chapter 24: Mad Dash

“The sub is...offline.” one of the sub room workers said, his voice slumping with his shoulders.

Not that Ilia needed him to tell her that. She saw the blinking dot of the sub go out.

Josh was there, patting her arm comfortingly. “I'm sorry, Ilia.”

“How deep were they?” she asked anyone who had the information to answer.

“Just under 8000 feet.” a man shook his head. “Kai might live. But...”

He didn't finish the sentence, but then he really didn't have to.

“Oh, Joe.” Josh lowered his head.

“Doc.” Ilia said, the name coming to her in a flash.

She turned on her heel and ran out of the room, Josh calling out to her but she ignored him.

A moment later, she heard him running after her. However, she was in a better shape then him and he never caught up.

Ilia reached the sickbay first and burst into the room.

The sailor with a large cut on his forearm and the doctor both jumped when she slammed the door open.

“Ilia, wha-”

“Doc, Joe took that CBI, right?” she asked desperately.

“What?” the sailor asked just before Josh who stopped behind her, bent over and panting.

“Ilia, I don't-”

“Did she or not?” Ilia snapped.

“Of course.” he answered, clearly picking up on her distress. “I gave her another dose just yesterday.”

“And what will it do?” she asked.

“Wait, back up.” Josh stood up straight. “What did Joe take?”

“Well,” the doctor took a moment to organize his thoughts as the sailor looked between them silently, “it wont affect her nearly as much as it would affect a mythic. However, it will give her slightly mermish qualities.”

“Huh?” Josh looked stunned.

“Like what?” Ilia demanded to know. “Can she breath underwater?”

“No, her lungs aren't built like that.” he shook his head. “I wish I could help you Ilia, but the DCBI's are largely untested and what has been tested runs the gamut from minimal to incredible. There's no way to tell.”

“What if she was, oh, I don't know, subjected to the intense pressure of the bottom of the ocean?” Ilia asked.

“Joe what?” the doctor looked shocked.

“Would she survive it?” Ilia pressed.

“There's no way to be sure.” Doc thought about it. “It just depends on how she reacts to the drug and how long she's down there.”

“But there's a chance?” Ilia grasped onto the small hope like it was a precious life line.

“A small one.” he admitted. “Astronomically small.”

“That's all I need.” Ilia nodded. She could live with a little bit of hope.

“Ilia.” Doc snapped. “Go to the decompression chamber and get it warmed up.”

“The decompression chamber?” Ilia blinked in confusion.

“Even with CBI's, Joe is still human.” he explained. “If Kai gets her up in time the quick transition from such a high level of pressure to low could be too traumatic for her body to bear. No go, quickly!”

“Yes, sir!” Ilia gave him a mock solute and ran away. Fairies were, by nature, optimists. If there was a chance, Ilia could put all of her hopes on it.

“Josh.” Doc turned to him.

“Uh, yes?” Josh asked, not certain he could keep up with all the changes in the conversation lately.

“What happened down there?” he asked.

Josh shrugged. “I don't know. I wasn't there.”

XXXXXXXXXXX

Joe couldn't move, she could barely think.

The pain was so intense!

There wasn't an inch of her skin that didn't feel like she was being crushed. It came from everywhere, all around her, inside her.

It took every ounce of strength in her body to hold the breath in her lungs.

She couldn't even move. Like she had been sealed away in concrete, her body simply couldn't fight against the horrible pressure being exerted on it.

At any moment, Joe was certain her body was going to implode, burst, and float away in pieces on the current. There was just no way she could survive this.

And it was cold.

Freezing air was one thing, freezing water was something completely different. The water stole the heat from her body so much faster. She couldn't even shake to warm herself up, she couldn't move even that little bit.

All her focus was on squeezing every muscle she had control over, creating a wall of muscle to keep the pressure from collapsing her body inwards.

Her body was bruising, her lungs were burning, and her skin was freezing.

This horror was nothing like she had ever felt. She was sure, any minute now, her eyes were just going to explode, her guts would force themselves into her chest cavity, her heart would surely give out under this strain.

Surely her brain was already there.

The pain was so overwhelming she couldn't even think, couldn't focus on anything more than the fact that she was dieing. Her body wasn't built for this, it couldn't hope to even begin to survive.

There was only spark of hope in this cold, unforgiving world she was suddenly thrust into.

That was the white hot arms around her, the blessedly warm expanse of chest that sealed her nose from the water.

And the powerful fin that shoveled the water down and shot them up.

She knew, because her mind calculated it before the pain hit, that at the bottom, it was 10,000 feet, just over 6 miles.

Kai said that they had passed the cliff which was 8,000 feet, just under five miles. There were marathons longer than that.

And she knew that a merman could swim much faster than she could run. And she knew that Kai would be pushing it as hard as he could in order to get her, if nothing else, to a pressure level she could sustain life at.

But that didn't mean that the horrible weight of miles of water on top of her wasn't the most awful thing she had ever experienced. She was sure that if she was exposed to this for too much longer, her bones would snap.

Kai had never been so desperate as he swam before. He had one hand smashing Kyma's face against his chest, he had to keep the water from getting in her nose.

The muscles in his tail forced the water down as fast as he could. His side's began burning, he regretted spending all that time away from the water.

In his mouth, trapped inside, was the bubble of air he grabbed before the sub collapsed. He kept it there, not swallowing, trying to just hold the bubble as his body forced the two of them upwards.

In his arms, Kyma was a rag doll. Her body didn't move, didn't respond.

The crushing water prevented him from even telling if her heart was beating.

All he could think about was the horror of her dieing. Even the prospect of it made his heart hurt.

And thinking of it kept strength in his fins, kept him struggling to the surface, kept the determination burning in his chest.

He had only been swimming for thirty seconds when another figure swam up beside them.

Then Flavian wrapped his arms around her from the back and added the strength of his tail to them.

Flavian was the fastest swimmer Kai knew when he was unburdened. But helping to carry the dead weight of a human woman was harder than one would think.

Still, the two struggled against gravity and forced her limp body higher and higher.

And their combined body heat would, hopefully, keep Kyma from catching her death of hypothermia.

Joe slowly became aware of the pressure lessening.

It was by no means gone, but it started to fade.

Her eyes closed meant she couldn't see who had grabbed her from behind, but two powerful fish tails pushing up was a blessing to her.

It was then that she was able to think again. The pain was still there, crushing her, but no longer overwhelming her.

She remembered who she was and what she was supposed to be doing. She tried moving her limbs but still couldn't fight against the water.

So she did the only thing she could, she tried willing the merblood in her body to react with the CBI and give her even a tiny bit of protection against the unloving environment around her.

She didn't know if it worked but she did it anyway. It was all she could do besides clenching every muscle she possessed.

But that was getting hard.

It hadn't been long, then again it felt like eternity, but squeezing every muscle she had was exhausting and burning up her precious oxygen supply. Doc said her need for it might be reduced but he didn't say by how much and she was sure he had never imagined a scenario like this.

Her lungs were on fire, her muscles begged for a release that she dared not give them, and a terrifyingly loud part of her mind urged her to just let go, end the pain.

Joe did her best to ignore that seductively sweet voice, ignore the crying burn of her muscles, and the burning fire of her lungs, and just hold on.

Kai had never realized just how deep the water was here, as he swam up and up and still couldn't discern a difference in the light of the water.

Five minutes into the swim, Kai was delighted to see Adara swimming down to them. She grabbed one side of Kyma's body, that, to his delight, had started to shiver almost imperceptibly.

With his siblings' help, they torpedoed through the water much faster than he could alone.

And, after a few more minutes, he noticed a tiny lightning of the water.

It was like a beacon of hope to him, spurning him on.

After that, he felt Kyma moving her leg's, kicking, helping them swim. It wasn't much but it proved, if nothing else, that she was alive.

Immediately after that, he heard a strange, moaning sound coming from her throat.

It took him a minute to realize that she was out of air, she couldn't hold her breath any longer.

A few seconds later, she reached her limit and her mouth opened, expelling a bubble of CO2.

Instantly, he sealed his mouth over hers and pushed that saved air bubble into her mouth.

She gulped the tiny breath of air gratefully. It wasn't much but it was air! Sweet, glorious oxygen! Her body took it gratefully, complained that it wasn't enough, but loved it all the same.

And her body was moving now!

She still felt like she was being crushed, but the feeling was lessening and lessening every second that passed.

Before she knew it, a fourth pair of hands were on her other side and she was surrounded on all sides by four powerful fins rippling along the waters and pushing her up.

Kai had never been so pleased to see the rippling of the surface above him.

He saw the hull of, what he hoped was, the Halitja bobbing in the water .

As they got closer, first Ero then Adara broke off of Kyma's side.

Then, just before the surface, Flavian broke off.

Kai and Kyma broke the surface on their own, shooting a few feet out of the water.

He heard her gasp, then the quick intake of oxygen just before they crashed back down and floated there.

“Ilia! Over here!” Kai heard someone yell out from the ship but he wasn't paying attention.

“Kyma.” he said, pushing her hair from her face. “Kyma, we made it.”

“I'm...dizzy...” she panted. Her head suddenly felt too light, she couldn't even quite get control of her limbs.

“Kai!” he heard Ilia beckoning them towards the scaffold that would pulley them up.

Kai scooped Kyma into his arms and began swimming towards the platform.

Even as he started moving, Kyma's nose started bleeding and her eyes closed as she passed out.