It’s disorienting when it happens with anormal wave.
This wasn’t a normal wave.
This was a Leviathan.
The first thing I felt was the impact.
I hit the water with so much force I felt bones break, and the breath was forced from my lungs. The quick release snapped on my tether, and my board tore away from me, removing my lifeline back to the surface… Not that I was sure I would have been able to follow it up anyway.
I went into shock pretty quickly when I realized I couldn’t move either of my arms.
Shock is a weird thing.
Your brain feels calm and slow, and everything around you moves like it’s suspended in gelatin. You can’t really process that you’re in pain.
It’s the calm before the storm. Usually, after the shock wears off, people descend into a delayed bout of hysterics.
I had this thought briefly as the ocean swallowed me up and pulled me deeper.
Cold liquid claws curled around my broken body and dragged me into the washing machine, like a predator hauling its prey into a den.
I tumbled and rolled underwater for what felt like forever before my brain started to catch up with the reality of what was happening to me.
“FINN!”
I could hear Riddick… which I vaguely understood shouldn’t be possible.
I was under water.
I couldn’t breathe or hear anything other than the endless rush of the ocean.
My body wasn’t working properly.
I was drowning.
For some reason, that thought came as a shock to me.
I was drowning… I wasreallydrowning.
The ocean pulled me deeper and deeper, and I was helpless to stop it.
My vision flickered in and out as the undercurrent had its way with me, and I blinked, ignoring the sting of salt water in my eyes.
Jake was swimming toward me, his caramel hair floating like a halo around his head.
He looked terrified.
I tried to reach for him, but my arms still weren’t working.
Were they broken? Both of them?
“FINN! Baby boy, fuck, you need to swim up. The surface is this way!”
How was he speaking underwater?
He reached for me in an attempt to guide me to the surface, but his hands passed right through me.
How far out had the water dragged me?
