The eerie silence is immediately shattered by a cacophony of harsh noise. Like machinegun fire inside a tin-shed, or a fusillade of cannons. The noise hurts
Laurent's ears, his head pounds, his teeth rattle. And through the noise he hears something more, like speech, only not words.
Agoué is talking to him, he's not
hearing it exactly, but somewhere in the incessant, deafening noise there is
meaning.
But
Agoué doesn't open his mouth. He doesn't move, There he is, on the prow of the rotting ship. But at the same time he's right in front of
Laurent, in the boat. Even though he seems to be right in front of
Laurent he gets little but the most superficial sensation of what
Agoué looks like, a black man in a bright white uniform, handsome maybe, but indeterminate age. But all
Laurent's attention is on the eyes, green eyes, green like the depth of the sea, the surface roiling with dark storm clouds, and at the corners, plump salt-water tears run down his face.
In those green eyes
Laurent finds himself plunging under the water. His own eyes sting from the salt. Deeper he goes, the pressure building around him, the ache in his lungs increasing. The desire to take a breath, but he knows he cannot. Deeper still. The light diminishing the deeper he goes. His eyesight adjusting to the dim waters he sees dark shapes rise around him, and he levels out, swims through the undersea forest of coral formations and ferny, waving things, their fronds sensuously stroking his body as he swims between their undulating caresses. Bright fishes darting in and out through the plants and coral. Looking under him the sea floor is as white - or is it black? - as the velvet cloth in a jeweller's showcase. Shell-shaped gems and glittering star things only inches below his eyes. A Salvador Dali world.
His lungs burn now. And it takes every ounce of mental strength he has not to suck in the seawater in one long breath. Up ahead something white reflects the flashes of light from the surface. It's a boat, a modern twin engined cruiser, painted bright white. The
Ti Maman,
George Benson's boat. Keel snapped in two, the front of the boat sits upright on the sea floor, the stern twenty yards away and embedded in the sandy seabed. As
Laurent gets closer he can see that there are people...bodies still in the boat. He swims closer to take a look but something in the distance attracts his attention. Movement, a swimmer maybe? Like him, deep under the water.
He swims towards it and then finds himself much further than he could possibly have swum. Like he was there, and now he has just been transported here. The banal everyday rules of motion seemingly irrelevant down here. And before him he can see grotesque, twisted coral formations, a fantasy world where hundreds of small fish and a few large ones swim lazily around natural castles, towers, spires and bridges. And beyond them a black opening in the coral. A cave? It reminded him of exploring a wild labyrinth of caves with his friends at a place called
Terre Noir. They'd gone in high spirits, all excited, but the deeper they went the quieter it got, their jokes dried up, and eventually they'd turned and fled, never speaking of it again.
Laurent doesn't want to go into that cave. Into the ominous darkness. But he finds himself swimming towards it, faster and faster. He feels more and more anxious, he remembers the feeling in that cave in
Anse Douce, the crooked smile of that fissure in the rock, the feeling of unease, that something is just
wrong. The fish up ahead, in the distance, he looks at them more carefully, they're
not fish, they're something else, ugly, frightening, round unblinking eyes...
In an overwhelming rush of panic
Laurent gasps down a deep breath. The salty water rushing through his nose and mouth and into his lungs. The sudden sensation of cold water in his mouth, in his chest, choking him, the salty, stinging taste. His vision blackens at the edges then constricts to the narrowest of tunnels. Everything is fuzzy and then darkness.
-----
Heaving up a mouthful,
Laurent rolls onto his side and vomits a copious quantity of salty water. It gushes down his clothes and onto the floor of the boat.
Pierre looks at him with a mixture of disgust and concern. The sun is a little lower in the sky but there are no clouds, the boat bobs gently in the bay. No sign of a hulking slave ship. No sign of
Agoué. A few gulls wheeling overhead.
'Are you okay?' asks
Pierre.
'Did you eat something off? You'd better help me clean out the boat or my dad will kill me.'
OOC: Make an Insight roll for seeing Agoué and the sights under the sea |
