BEN BRIAR

I ploughed through the surface of the water. I kept my hand on the pipe to keep myself from drifting off.

I was exhausted and too old for this. My skin was wrinkling up and all I could taste was salt. My ears would be muffled by water from time to time because waves were building up from the moon's pull.

I don't know how many times I wished my hand would slip from the pipe. Then, I could close my eyes and let the current take me home.

The moon was smaller in the sky. I know because I used to be part of a star-gazing squad. It's funny, because the sun had been bigger than usual and now the moon was smaller than usual.

This couldn't possibly be real. A dream, perhaps, like my thoughts before. I am simply floating in my bathtub, listening to my music.

I know the water in my bathtub. There are bubbles everywhere. I know there are no bubbles in the water that I float on, but I feel it. I feel the water.

The pipe is the side of my bathtub. The light is so warm and inviting to stare into. But I know it is the wintry moon if I open my eyes. So I concentrate on the water.

It is liquid, never blue except at a resort. Clear because it reveals the truth in transparency. I must trust the truth and therefore, I trust the water.

It will take me back to that bathtub. I am its only friend. But no, there is my father. And there is Val. Not Nice Val or Val who took away Jennifer just now, but the Val from my world. He is here in this world, hiding amongst the dull pearls.

My father and Val know and feel the water coursing through them as well. They found something personal with the water that connects them and now it connects us. I see the truth. This is not our world, but it is also not a dream.

I am in this world now, and I must understand for what reason. It is what the water commands me to do.

I was wrong before. My father hadn't compelled the water or controlled it. He and the water had been working in coordination with each other. Now I was also a part of this exclusive club.

The water also has knowledge that spans to the edge of time gone by. We are the Compellers, the water whispers. Humans frozen in time and displaced in worlds.

...

I opened my eyes wide and my body was pulled upwards above the pipe by the water. My hands instantly switched to controlling the water that flowed under me. I closed my hand and I landed into an elevator beneath, in the pipe opening below.

The elevator floor was now flooded. I pulled a lever and the elevator descended. An upgraded cold suit popped out of a slot and I considered putting it on since the clothes I was wearing were extremely soaked and weighing, as well as wearing me down.

I undressed for all of the sea to see. The sea outside was more vibrant underwater. From the surface, I thought it looked like our ocean.

But from underwater, the water was ripe with sea animals and bouncing with colour, especially the azure blue in which the colour of the sea took on.

There were also what I guessed were humans, swimming in the ocean at fast speeds, covered from top to bottom in seashell armor. Some were conversing with each other and had to slow down to see eye to eye.

I put on the cold suit which had a small heads-up display which surprised me. It showed the current temperature around me and the regulation it would take to keep me warm or cool.

...

The elevator slowed down and smoothened to a halt. The doors slid open and I found myself in awe at the majestic creation that met my eyes. It was something that couldn't possibly be done, but it had and it was like looking at the Earth if I were on the moon.

The place is air-conditioned in liquid nitrogen for some reason and the temperature around me drops to -196°C, but the suit insulates me back to 20°C.

A shopping mall underwater. There were stores that lined the glass. Figures in strange seashell armor overlooking the businesses.

I stepped onto the glass floor and under it was water unexpectedly and a dolphin swimming under my feet. This must be what water walkers feel. It was a shopping mall within an aquarium of wonders.

I was enraptured by the magnificence of this opal in the sea that I began to wander around, my head looking up and spinning at some point. I was incredibly delusional and out of my mind.

By the point that I had shaken myself of the distraction, I had passed all of the stores. And what I had been looking for when entering this place showed up. Other Val, because he was not nice anymore, was carrying Jennifer over his shoulder and was being interrogated by a person in seashell armor.

I can tell it is them, because I can see Jennifer's face through her helmet's visor even though it is darkened by the lack of light inside the suit. I quickly worked out that I needed a source of water from which I could draw upon to save her from the clasp of the deceitful scoundrel. Fortunately, the elevator doors were still open and the water that had flooded it had streamed along the glass.

It crept towards me because I felt its call through the legs of the seashell enforcers that were rushing to fix the leak. And through their scampering, I opened my hand at the liquid and experienced power.