Deep End

I am drowning.

No. Drowning implies there’s still a chance to surface. I’ve already sunk to the bottom. Light can barely reach where I am. Lifting a finger feels impossible.

I am weak.

I thought I had already reached the bottom. But the pressure just keeps growing, the darkness keeps deepening, and somehow, there is no seabed beneath me but an endless abyss waiting to swallow me whole.

I am sinking.

It feels suffocating. There’s no air for me to breathe. Yet my lungs insist I inhale. And I can’t resist it for long. The moment I’m unable to resist it, water floods both of my lungs. It hurts. I’m in pain. But there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Just as I had given up hope, a speck of light appears in the corner of my eye. My eyes lock onto it. On the fish lighting up the water around it.

I don’t follow it immediately. It looks like it’s watching me, not swimming.

I swim to it anyway. I suddenly have the power to move despite the crushing pressure.

The fish doesn’t flee. It drifts through the darkness as its light spills through the water, warming a world that has forgotten warmth.

For a moment, I forget the pressure. For a moment, I forget the cold. But just as I get close to it, the fish slips behind a curtain of darkness and vanishes entirely. The ocean returns to its cold and empty darkness.

Just as I return to sitting alone in darkness, a single glowing trail of light drifts through the water. And without really thinking about it, I follow.

As I swim through the cold water, I notice what looks like a wooden bench drifting beneath me. A photograph floats somewhere above, though I can’t tell which direction is truly up or down anymore. The ocean has turned into a place without gravity, a place where everything drifts in every direction.

I ignore them and continue swimming towards the light. Now I start to see what that light is. It’s the fish from earlier. I don’t know why it’s here, but in this endless darkness, it’s the only thing that still feels alive.

The fish glides ahead of me, its tail leaving ripples of gold through the black water. It doesn’t blink, it simply swims.

As I follow, more shapes emerge from the darkness. An empty cup spins past my shoulder. A school uniform drifts nearby, its sleeves swaying with the current. None of it should be here. Yet each object stirs something in me.

But as I keep swimming, everything starts to move away from me. The bench beneath me sinks to somewhere deeper. The empty cup floats further away. The school uniform drifts away into the darkness. Even the fish fades away completely.

There is nothing left. Nothing except the photograph. Its surface is completely empty. As if whatever memory it once held has been erased completely.

From afar, it appears to be massive—the size of a building. But the closer I swim towards it, it seems to either be moving away or decreasing in size. Either way, I keep swimming. And it feels impossibly far.

Then something changes. The photograph doesn’t move closer. The ocean folds. The distance between us begins to collapse.

I swim faster. The water grows colder. My lungs burn harder. My arms drag me through the water as fast as they can. The photograph still feels just out of reach.

A quiet laugh echoes through the ocean. A girl. But not just any girl. It’s… her.

I swim even faster as my vision starts to blur. Tears escape my eyes and vanish into the endless water around me.

The photograph feels just within reach now. I stretch my hand out as far as it’ll go and grab it. And somehow, the photograph once the size of a building is now just as big as my palm. My fingers tighten around it. Slowly, I turn it over.

The blank white surface begins to darken. Colours bleed into existence. Shapes emerge. A wooden bench. Two people sitting side by side. One of them is me. And the other is her.

The moment my eyes settle on the photo, the water around me begins to ripple. No. Not ripple. Peel away. The ocean tears apart like wet paper. Darkness fractures into strips of light. The photograph trembles slightly in my hands.

Then the world folds. The picture inside the photograph warps and expands out of its frame. The water around me bends and creates a vacuum where I am. The photograph flies out of my hand and expands into something much bigger. And now—

I’m sitting on a bench. Rough wood presses against my palms. A breeze brushes against my face. Air. Actual air. I inhale sharply. It doesn’t hurt. My lungs aren’t filling with water. They’re filling with air.

Beside me, she laughs. The sound hits me harder than the ocean ever could. I know that laugh. I know every rise and fall of it. Every little breath she takes before she starts laughing too hard. Every tiny snort she tries and fails to hide. I’d know it anywhere.

I turn towards her. She’s exactly as I remember. The same eyes. The same smile. The same way she tucks her hair behind her ear. For a moment, I forget everything. The ocean. The darkness. The pain. It’s all gone. Only she remains.

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. There are a thousand things I want to say. A thousand questions. A thousand apologies. And somehow, nothing comes out.

Still, she smiles.

And now I realise I can’t remember the last time I even saw her face.

“Hey,” I whisper.

She doesn’t react. She doesn’t talk. She doesn’t move. She just sits right here beside me. Still.

I stare at her. Her face is completely still. Not expressionless. She’s smiling. Only smiling. It’s like she isn’t even here.

“Belle?”

She doesn’t react. The smile never leaves her face. I wave a hand in front of her eyes. It’s as though I was never part of the memory at all.

I stand up from the bench and move directly in front of her. But she keeps smiling at the empty space where I was.

I reach my hand out for hers. The same way I had always done it—palm faces upward, fingers are relaxed.

I look at her expectantly. She doesn’t look back.

I move my hand towards her. Too slow to feel natural. Right before my hand touches hers, everything around me erupts in a silent explosion. She fades into thin air. The bench breaks in two. The blue sky fades into black. And now—

I am falling.

I close my eyes as I brace for impact. I wait for the cold. I wait for the pressure. I wait for the water. But none of it comes. The wind screams past my ears. Darkness rushes around me. The ground hurtles towards me. And the impact jolts through my entire body.

I collapse onto my side. I stay there, breathing heavily, waiting. But nothing comes.

I lift my head. Black tiles stretch endlessly in every direction. Perfect squares. Perfect lines. An endless grid disappearing into darkness. No ocean. No fish. No photograph. No memories. No Belle. Just me.

I stand up. The moment my foot touches the ground, a white wave ripples on the black floor. I freeze for a moment as I watch the waves fade away into the black floor. Then I take another step. The same wave forms and disappears a moment later. My footsteps echo across the empty room. Each sound travels outwards and never seems to return.

No matter how long I walk for, the room never seems to change. I’m not even sure if this is a room anymore. It doesn’t stop expanding.

I walk faster. I look around. And there’s still nothing. Nothing but the same white waves echoing through the black tiles with every step I take.

I start running. The white waves race across the tiles beneath my feet. They spread outwards, growing larger and larger until they’re swallowed by the darkness. Nothing changes. No fish. No photographs. No bench. No Belle. Just endless black tiles.

I stop. My breathing echoes through the emptiness.

“Belle!” My voice tears through the darkness.

For a moment, I wait. But nothing responds. Not even an echo. The silence feels wrong. The ocean had always answered me. With currents. With memories. With fragments of her. This place gives me nothing.

“Belle!”

But the darkness remains silent. I knew she was gone. I knew it when she left. I knew it when I chased her through the endless ocean.

“Belle…” My voice breaks.

My legs give out and I fall to my knees. White ripples explode across the black tiles before fading.

There is nowhere left to run. No fish to follow. No memory to hide inside. No ocean to lose myself in. Only the truth: She’s gone.

My eyes start to burn again. Tears slip out slowly and land on the ground. The sound of it dropping feels louder than it should. Each one creates the same white ripple on the black tiles.

I look up slightly.

The darkness begins to move. Slowly at first. I look towards the movement for a moment before I realise they aren’t shadows—they’re walls. Walls that didn’t exist before. They begin to close in from every direction. This place is starting to feel like an actual room now.

The tears don’t stop. They bleed out into a waterfall. And eventually, my own tears form puddles. Puddles start to group, and slowly build up higher and higher.

I should stand. But I don’t. I remain on my knees as I cry harder. And the water doesn’t stop building up more. It gets exponentially faster as time passes.

And before I know it, the ground is gone, the walls have disappeared, and the water has wrapped around me. It’s cold. It’s familiar. I know this place. Not because I’ve been here before. Because I created it.

This was never an ocean.

I take a breath. Water fills my lungs. It hurts. But this time, I know why. And despite everything, I still can’t let it go.

The speck of light appears at the corner of my eye again. It’s the fish. Waiting. Again.

It was never here to guide me out. It was here to guide me back.

I stare at it, knowing where it will lead.

But I swim anyway.

I am drowning.