Ness

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why hadn’t she attached the thrice-dammed security strap to her wrist? Sure, she knew the reason—it had been slightly uncomfortable—but still, why?! Ness steeled herself and tried to stay calm. Unfortunately, taking big calming breaths would’ve probably spawned a new cautionary tale for children. It would go something like “Don’t be like little Ness and go diving alone, at night, and with no training or you’ll end up dead in the lake just like her”. No thank you. Ending up dead in the lake was not something that she really wanted to do tonight.

First, Calm down. Now, think; Why can’t I see anything? The hazy luminance of the glowstone on her wrist let out a faint yellow aura which only gave her a view of the silt that she’d kicked up in her escape from the terrible monster. Well, turns out thrashing about isn’t good for seeing. A lesson to remember for next time then. Ness had two choices: Blindly grope around on the lakebed for the breather tank or surface as quickly as possible before she ran out of breath. Glancing downwards again, she decided that waiting for the silt to settle was too long of a wait. It’s time to get out of here.

She was pretty sure that there was something critical that she was forgetting. Divers in stories usually had their breather tanks when going up and they always blew lots of bubbles. Maybe breathing out is important? Well, only one way to find out. Ness reached down and blindly groped for the knots that held the improv dive weights to her shins. She’d tied two long, heavy rocks there to keep her feet down and allow her to bound across the bottom of the lake. Deftly, she pulled on the knots and noiselessly the ropes and rocks fell away. Then, the hazy cloud of silt that had been obscuring her vision receded into the underwater void.

As soon as she noticed that she was apparently moving upwards, the pressure in her lungs began to build. Right, blow bubbles. She started to exhale slowly, and seemingly found an endless amount of air in her lungs. Ness rose upwards. Or at least she thought she did. From her perspective, it was difficult to tell as the halo of light cast by her glowstone only punctured the gloom to her toes. Anything beyond that was completely black. Her lungs began to complain, and she still hadn’t run out of bubbles to blow. Where was all that air coming from? I need to reach the surface NOW.

She pointed her arms ahead and started to sweep them backwards before she realized that she had no idea which direction was up, and which was down. What if she just pushed her way back further into the lake or went sideways? How could she know which way was up? Was it just her or was the glowstone getting dimmer? Was the water getting colder too? Was she sinking!? This is bad, her mind decided and dispensed a performance enhancing shot of adrenaline. Inspiration struck and she saw it: something was glittering at the edge of her rapidly fading vision—one of her air bubbles. It was moving away from her at an odd angle. Huh, why is the bubble moving sideways?

Then her foggy mind put together the pieces. The bubbles always go straight upwards, I can follow them! Her subconscious, startled out of its ‘end-of-life memories-flash-before-your-eyes’ preparation, spilled its hastily prepared slides everywhere, and decided that another spike of energy was just what was needed. One burst of energy and three strokes later, Ness’s face breached the surface and she took several large gasps of air, relieved to be alive—and that nobody had seen her monumental mistake. Sure, she’d avoided being canonized in a cautionary tale, but her little adventure hadn’t been anything like the stories she knew.

If she’d been a dashing hero, she would’ve been able to fight of the monstrosity or she would’ve been able to locate the missing breather tank through some perfect alignment of fate or whatever. Well, it turns out I’m not a storybook hero... yet. Additionally, reflecting on her past actions, she realized her entire little adventure had been foolish. First, she’d snuck out of the house at night, well that was nothing new, and then she’d preformed some breaking-and-entering on the diving school. To cap it off, she’d ‘borrowed’ a breather tank, and finally, Ness had freaked out at the first sight of anything she hadn’t seen before. The weird cephalopod wasn’t even that big, it was probably more scared of me than I of it when we bumped into each other.

Now that the burst of energy had faded and her post-near-death-experience thought process about her fragile morality had run its course, two new problems presented themselves to her. First, she was dead tired. It felt as if leechfish had attached themselves to every muscle on her body and sucked the energy right out. In addition to the drained feeling, it also felt as if pufferfish quills had perforated every joint in her body. Her knees were on the verge of popping and her hands were almost immobile from the pain. With a quick glance, Ness realized that the imagined swelling wasn’t just psychosomatic.

That really hurts, I need to get to the shore. With gentle backstroke, she began to move towards the nearest shore of the small, but deceptively deep lake. Each stroke brought a new wave of agony and she focused on the stars above to keep her mind distracted and her course straight. Then, the fractal pattern of the tree canopy blocked out said stars and after an indeterminate time, her head bumped upwards and a small rock dug into her shoulder. Finally, the shore. With superhuman force of will, she dragged herself onto the gravely lakeside, biting her lower lip to prevent herself from crying out in pain. Her joints were on fire. Unable to any more complex thoughts, she collapsed right there and fell into a surprisingly rejuvenating sleep almost instantaneously.

A handful of bells later, dawn was approaching, and the pre-dawn light painted the jungle and the lake in monochrome shades of gray. Birds started to cry for mates and started to bustle about in the trees above. Ness awoke to these noises and after a second of confusion as to where she was, she sat up. Alright Ness, time to take inventory. Ness patted her side, and found she still had knife and sheath attached to her swimwear. Checking her wrist, she found that the glowstone had spilled the last of its stored sunlight during the night. Finally, checking herself, she found that she had a couple of small scrapes on her legs and back that she’d probably gotten from dragging herself ashore but to her great delight and relief, her joints no longer felt like they were about to explode on her. That’s probably why divers go back to the surface slowly.

Ness also found she was no longer fatigued but instead simply ravenously hungry. She needed to get home—and quickly. Today isn’t a workday so dad and mom aren’t going to get up early. That was clever planning on her part. She’d known that she might get home late and planned her adventure accordingly. Anyways, nothing I can do about that now, let’s just get moving. With that, she was off.

Since the path back to her village started on the opposite side of the lake, and, washing her hair and back was probably a good idea, she took a shortcut through the lake with a quick swim. Once at the other side, she wrung the water out of her hair and swimwear as best as she could and started a swift march down the dusty path, up to the ridge, and then along it towards her village. The ridgeline gave her an incredible view. To her right, the endless ocean melded almost seamlessly into the dawn sky and to her left, Carhula bay presented itself, appearing as if a giant beast had taken a bite out of the island. The white crescent of the multiple beaches stood out in stark contrast to the dark of the jungle behind the shore and in the distance, on the far side of the bay, the big town of Donaview was just visible.

Ness continued along the path at a brisk pace, only stopping to pick a ripe mango or vanillafruit occasionally. This morning jaunt through the jungle was both good and bad for her. Good because it let her dry off and recover some of her energy. Bad because it let her reflect on how stupid she’d been. Unable to stop kicking herself, she wasn’t even sure about what had gotten this ill-advised adventure started. Ruminating some more, she concluded that it had probably been all those stories she read and that her parents read to her. Why can’t I be a brave hero like in the stories? Am I just too young? Something to think about. Maybe, she’d ask her father about that night in such a way that would never reveal any details about her little adventure. Also, hopefully that missing breather tank wouldn’t cause too many problems. Oops.

The village where Ness and her parents lived was now to her left. The path to it broke off from the ridgeline path and descended the slope in a switchback pattern until it reached the beach and the sea. Homes were arrayed in a mostly triangular pattern in this village with most of the open-style houses perching on their stilts along the beachfront. As the village sprawled up the slope, house density decreased until at the very top of the pyramid was the Mindago residence. Ness’s home. The Mindago residence wasn’t special and like most of the other non-beachfront homes, was a simple one story, stilted construction. The only two things that made it special besides its location as the geographically highest house in the village was that it; 1. Had a small watchtower with its own roof extending it, and 2. It was where Ness lived.

With Ness’s finely developed sneaking skills, trained through countless hours spent trapesing through the jungle on the island, she stealthily approached the back of the house. There, she approached the clothesline and added her swimwear to the bright smattering of diverse clothing to dry. Next, she bit down on her sheathed knife with her teeth, just like the mariners do in the stories, and silently clambered up the horizontal beams that held the interior burlap walls in place until she reached the eaves of the small house. The flat, sloping, roof was held ajar by multiple vertical extensions providing ventilation to the house and a convenient second entrance for the nimble Ness. Slipping through the gap, she dropped the one-and-a-half meters to the floor of her room—the loft—and made her way over to her dresser. There, she silently stored the knife and her glowstone. Finally, it was time to properly sleep; lakeside sleeping hadn’t exactly been comfortable. As the first rays of the sun shot from the horizon, ness wrapped herself in her thin blanked and dozed off in her hammock.