Chapter 11
I recognize Uncle Ludwig, but before I can patch my shreds of memories into a coherent scenery I feel sucked into a vortex of darkness.
At once I can’t breathe, I can’t see, I can’t escape the force rotating my body, piercing my ears, compressing my bones.
I am trapped for no more than few instants, before the vortex regurgitates me, leaving me weakened but alive. I find myself lying beside Arthur, my arm resting on his chest. I feel it lift and fall, and I know he’s alive too. It’s moist around us, and I am sitting on something hard. I open my eyes, slowly.
“Arthur?” I call, and Arthur replies with a snort.
“Arthur, are you ok?” I ask.
“Never been better,” he replies, and I laugh, relieved that he hasn’t lost his irony.
My muscles relax and I gather the courage to try and characterize our surroundings.
Water runs between the rocks surrounding us, and the place has the smell of salt and a faint odour of algae. We must be in a sea cave.
To reach the land, wherever the land is, we can only count on our battered bodies. I should be worried, if not desperate, and yet I am not.
Arthur’s reaction is different, and as soon as he realizes where we are he says, “I wish we never stepped in that bloody time machine. It simply does not work.”
“I love it here,” I reply, and I really do.
The water, the promise of a revelation, of an unexpected turn: that’s what I love, regardless of the risks our trip entails.
“How do we get out?” he asks me.
I pause to think, seeking an idea. I am about to stand up to inspect the cave to find an exit when the water begins to rise.
“High tide,” I comment, as the level of the water increases by the second, till it’s up to our chests.
I swim towards Arthur and tell him, “We’ll be alright.”
“Can you sense the current?” he asks me.
He seems calmer than before, as if he is surrendering to the ineluctability of the situation.
I do sense the current, and as Arthur and I hold hands we float on it, let it carry us in the recesses of the cave, till we reach a pool of clear water bathing in a cascade of light coming from above. Stalactites hang from the rocky ceiling, and their crystalline features shimmer in the light, dispersing their sparkle on the placid surface of the pool. Through the transparent water I see rings of rock marking the depths of the pool. From top to bottom, the rings are white, light blue and yellow, before the pool closes into what appears to be a tunnel.
“Arthur, I think that’s the exit,” I tell him.
He looks up to detect where the light is coming from.
“No, I mean that’s the exit,” I say, pointing at the bottom of the pool.
Arthur stares at me, as if I had lost my mind.
It’s hit or miss, chances are we’ll drown, but something tells me we won’t.
“Come on Arthur,” I say, tugging his hand slightly.
And so we plunge down into the tunnel, swimming in water so thin it could be air, in endless blue, holding our breath till we can’t anymore.
Lack of oxygen slows my movements and my thoughts dissolve in regret and guilt. I’ve failed Arthur. There’s nothing I can do now.
My vision darkens and I’m about to let go, but right then, in that split instant before complete surrender, something hits me as an electric shock after a heart failure.
The brightness is so full it hurts, my eyes are wide open and yet I cannot see.