Lysi’s eyes locked onto mine, wide, dilated, bluer than the ice suffocating us from all sides.
“The glacier,” she whispered.
The glacier was rumbling? How? What did that mean? The noise intensified, stirring the water until I found it difficult to stay still.
“Lysi, what—?”
“Dive!”
I reacted in the same instant as the surface exploded in a great splash. A chunk of the glacier had crashed down on us. We flew downwards. An icy swell pulsed from the impact, pushing me faster.
My teeth jabbed into my lip as my body transitioned into demon mode.
I didn’t need to look to know an unfathomably large wall of ice was chasing us downwards, ready to smash us with enough force to kill. We couldn’t slow down.
The world was all churning water and ice. The rumbling deafened me as pieces continued to break away from the glacier and plunge towards us.
How deep was the water here? I couldn’t feel past the chaos enough to tell. What if we hit the bottom and had nowhere to go?
Lysi shrieked. A chunk of ice drove between us, separating us.
I used my hands to straighten out, determined not to veer away.
I heard her shout to me, but her voice was distant and muffled.
The world became dark. The walls of ice on either side were still thick, leaving me nowhere to go, still, but down.
My entire body ached with exhaustion, ready to give up, when the crashing finally slowed. A wave picked me up, carrying me away from the breaking wall and towards the adjacent one. I beat my tail desperately to avoid colliding with it.
“Lysi?”
I couldn’t sense her. Had she gotten carried on the same wave?
Casting my senses for her, I caught something enormous stirring below, coming towards me. More ice? Had it bounced off the bottom? This didn’t make sense.
It was definitely ice. And it was coming towards me, fast.
My insides plummeted. It was the bottom of the breaking glacier. The iceberg’s centre of gravity must have changed. It was flipping over.
I cast around desperately for an escape. It was no use. The ice rose towards me, an unstoppable wall.
The roaring current drowned my scream. I wanted to call to Lysi, ask her what to do, but my throat seized with terror.
I tried to race out of the way, but the wall slammed into me with a painful crash. The ice pushed me upwards so quickly my stomach swooped.
Cold wind hit my face as I broke the surface. The wall of ice was horizontal, and continuing to flip.
“Lysi!”
I was sliding, helpless, unable to grip anything. Ice and sky and water whirled.
Then I was sliding off the other side, still grasping for anything I could hold onto. I sucked in a breath before being plunged back into the water.
I pushed away hard, putting distance between myself and the iceberg. It continued to roll, sending currents and whirlpools that tried to suck me back towards it.
I used my webbed hands to push harder, diving towards blackness. I had to go deeper, further than before, down to safety. I passed the point of comfort, the depth pressing my eyes and ears, and still, I kept swimming.
The world became pitch black. The waves still tossed me left and right.
