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***

- 2nd Rank Purifier Station-

The intercom screeched again like a dying bird. "I repeat, a replacement team is required for the 3rd rank station. All replacements make your way to the Rig immediately."

3rd rank. Tom and Kate. What if... Flynn shuddered, knowing that he couldn't face to be without his friends once again. He'd waited too long to see them and he dared to think what could have become of them now.

Immediately Flynn shoved the disinfectant over into the hands of the Purifier named Gregg- who almost dropped it in surprise.

I have to go.

Now.

***

- Half an hour earlier: 3rd Rank Purifier Station-

"Oh god. Don't get in there! Please! It's not yours!"

But they didn't listen to Kate's cries. Instead the boy who she had been calling opened up the Aquarist suit and climbed into the metal carcass.

It was the suit that had belonged to Axel Hastings, 3rd Ranking Purifier Colonel. The man himself stood close by, watching smugly as the trainee unknowingly sealed their own fate.

Kate clutched her face, wishing she could reverse the past. She lunged towards the person ahead of her in another attempt to stop them but the Colonel grabbed her by the wrist. "Don't. Even. Think. About. It." He ordered, emphasizing every word he spoke by digging his nails further into her soft skin.

Tom turned around in dread, hearing Kate's protests. It was clear he had not known. Had not even a vision to show him what Kate would come to do. What she had now done.

Kate squirmed, ripping herself away from the Colonel. She stared at her hands, disgusted at herself.

This is my fault. This is all my fault.

Those hands. Those childish, reckless hands. Those were the hands that had cracked a hole in the glass of the suit. In turn damaging the metal structure in an attempt to dispose of the Colonel.

Though the Colonel was too astute. Too ready for blood to be shed and he had seen her placing a screw against the suit's heart, shoving it into the glass.

Before Kate's eyes her hands began to change colour again, orange blooming across the skin like poison blossoms in water. Twitch.

"Don't let him go in there! Please. I didn't mean-" The Colonel dragged her back out into the central room of the compound.

"I know exactly what you meant to do," he spat, his gaze unwavering.

"But I'm feeling charitable," he continued. The orange hue from the Aquarist sign highlighted his head in a sardonic halo. "So how about I let you begin the water collection first too. You can go with your victim, whose suit you willingly destroyed. All you have to do is bring back the water required and you'll live. No big deal. Sure, you'll have to watch the kid die but it's clear you wanted death by fucking around my Aquarist suit. So death you will get."

*

Tom watched on helplessly as the Colonel had led her out of the room. He himself had been preparing the suit controls, pressing the symbols in a measured sequence as he'd been told.

What did Kate do now? He cursed. Why couldn't she just follow orders?

*

They re-entered the room again but this time Kate was pushing against the Colonel- kicking and shouting. "Get off me!" she screamed. "Get off! You're evil! Evil. Evil. Evil."

Despite her screams the Colonel remained inscrutable. He picked Kate up and slammed her down into another beetle suit, sealing it shut.

Tom ran over, seeing the animalistic look on Kate's face as she banged her palms against the head of the suit. Something awful must have happened.

"Look," Tom was careful not to use her name and imply their familiarity. "You need to stop this. Stop drawing att-" But he couldn't finish the sentence. For the Colonel slapped him, hard, across the face. In turn almost knocking off his oxygen mask in the process.

Silence. Clear and white. Echoing.

The other trainees could no longer ignore the scene playing out in front of them. They had stopped, fear imprinted deep into their faces like transcripts of the holy bible.

"Oh it's you!" said the Colonel, a malevolent glint in his eyes. "The girl's friend."

"I'm not her-"

"Shh! What a great idea, pal. You can go on into the Dam Lock with these two first. I'm sure they'd be glad of the company."

Tom looked at Kate again, trapped within the metal suit she had been so desperate to investigate. Tears were running rivulets down her face, building up in lakes against the grooves of her oxygen mask.

Her desperation was able to speak what she couldn't. She needed help. Kate who always wanted to do things on her own. Who never accepted help from anyone because she didn't want to appear weak.

Tom sighed. He adjusted the oxygen mask back onto his face. "Yes sir."

The boy in the Colonel's Aquarist suit remained perturbed but otherwise oblivious. It seemed that he and the rest of the Purifier trainees were unaware of the dangerous shattered hole in the centre of the suit. A bullet to the heart. One that would let in the water and flood the machinery.

Tom nervously finished configuring the suit and got in, his tank slotting neatly into a space in the back. The suit shut closed and just as the Colonel had explained, Tom moved his legs up and down as though he was walking on the spot. Subsequently, the metal suit mirrored his movements.

At first he stumbled slightly. Advancing forward was going to be harder than expected because his vision was fractured, by bottle shaped holes that only let in parts of the world outside of the suit. Beside Tom the other boy in the suit walked, a naïve sense of determination plastered across his face.

Taking this as a cue, Tom also stepped slowly towards the smaller room that the Colonel had called the Dam Lock. As his steps fell into rhythm the ground trembled a patterned thunder under his feet. The other trainees had shrunk into insignificance now Tom was inside the suit.

A series of beeping caught Tom's attention. Waist height, below the glass heart, was another control board- of which Tom couldn't decipher. The labelling symbols weren't in English. But there was one particular symbol, a triangular one, which he recognised beside a red switch- Radio.

Tom flicked it on and he could hear a muted sobbing.

"Kate? Kate is that you?"

"Tom?" His friend's voice crackled across the radio. If Tom hadn't been able to see Kate's mouth moving from the other side of the room he'd scarcely have guessed that this was her voice at all.

"Yep, it's me. Listen we have to do as the Colonel says."

"Oh god I didn't mean to do I just-"

"Kate. Follow me into the Dam Lock. We have to do this. There's no choice now. You wanted to know what it was like. You wanted to know what they'd kept from us all these years. Well this is it."

"Tom I can't even move in this thing. I don't know what to do. I wasn't listening. I was too busy argh-" Tom thought he heard a growl at the end of the line. He knew what was to happen if Kate lost control completely.

"Okay. Okay. Just calm down. Make sure your limbs are all in the right spaces in the suit and your hands are secured in the control gloves. Got it?"

Pause. "Got it."

"Now just try and move them like you would normally. One foot in front of the other. Slowly. Slightly bigger steps. That's it." Tom could see Kate walking towards him and he turned once again to follow the boy into the room ahead.

*

The art deco flooring continued, nauseatingly, into the Dam lock. However, the further into the room they walked the more these tiles appeared to be coated in a layer of soiled green. And as the Colonel wound shut and bolted the metal door behind them, Tom noticed with repulsion that green spores floated around the room like flu particles.

Fighting the reflexive urge to gag, he was grateful to be protected by the suit. Despite it's grotesque shell.

"I didn't mean to do it," Kate repeated across the radio.

"What on earth are you talking about?" came the reply.

"The suit! His suit! I smashed the glass. It was the Colonel's. I thought it'd kill him. Drown him in his own device when he went in the water. I thought this would get us revenge."

"Kate... How....How could you even bare the thought of killing someone?" Tom's head was buzzing with his nerves. Though he was not surprised. He was more disillusioned. Though he had tried to keep the memory of Kate's fox self-biting the man's jugular in the facility, it returned in waves like gamma.

"No Tom, you're not listening! The Colonel saw me tamper with it and gave his suit to the boy!" she said, pointing ahead of her in desperation and the boy in the suit who sat opposite looked between the two, noticing that they were somehow communicating.

That was when Tom noticed the de-faced heart in the boy's suit- bits of glass hanging off of it in messy shards.

Tom felt he might as well have remained in the cylindrical elevator. For his stomache dropped in a similar sick inducing way. Just as he had managed to save one person, another was now in danger because of their resistance.

"Great! One of your crazy revenge schemes. Look where it's got us! Why can't you just stop being so selfish."

"I didn't mean to d-"

"Of course you didn't," Tom interrupted her. "Poor Kate. Always hurting people by accident," he mocked, emotion exploding through his mouth. "When we were little it was fine. You had Jasmine to vouch for your good heart. I tried to believe you were just having fun with your little plots back then but this, this is too much! And now in trying to destroy the Colonel you've condemned another person to death!"

Kate did not reply. She couldn't. She was too stunned by Tom's uncharacteristic outburst.

Another voice sounded on the radio.

"-the hell?" The boy who sat opposite stared expectantly between them. "I'm going to die? What a load of rubbish. I've trained for this. You two better be quiet. We're only supposed to communicate when we need to."

The sound of the lake water swashing around the compound had become louder now they were in the Dam Lock.

"You need to listen to me," Kate pleaded, cringing at her own powerlessness. "Your suit is broken. The heart-"

"The water collection container..." Tom interjected, oblivious to the warmth collecting around his feet.

"It's broken...Faulty suit!" Kate lied quickly, realising that he wouldn't listen to her had he known she'd damaged the suit on purpose.

Tom nearly cried out over the radio at the injustice of it all.

"You're lying," the boy replied.

"No. No. I wish I was. Look for yourself."

His scrutinizing gaze lingered on Kate for a moment. Then the boy's bleach blonde head disappeared out of view.

He returned a minute later.

"It really is wrecked," he said in a meek tone as though him admitting it too loudly would make the statement more true. "I-I can see right through the hole... what the.." the boy signed off the radio.

"What is it?" asked Kate. "Hello?"

"The water," he said desperately. "The water around us is rising. It's rising and if it gets through the hole in the water container I'm going to die."

"Shit," Kate exclaimed, noticing the murky water expanding against the four walls of the room.

"Okay what do I do?" asked the boy.

"Oh this is not good," Tom mused, eyeing the water splashing against his metal knees. "I hope you're happy now!" he spat at Kate.

For a second of rage Kate wished that it had been Tom inside the broken suit instead. Though she had to calm herself, knowing fully well that if her animalistic fox-self took-over now she would not be able to reverse her mistakes.

"Right," she began. "We're going to have to plug it. Any scraps you could use inside the suit?"

The boy nodded and a series of rummaging noises clattered across the radio.

"No," he shook his head. "Christ there's nothing here. Quickly, the water's rising. There's not much time!"

"Tom? Any ideas?"

Silence.

"Tom," Kate worried. "We could use a little help here."

"I'm thinking," he responded curtly but his brain remained frazzled by the hot temperature inside the suit. The boiling water heated the metal that was supposed to be heat resistant.

"Well, can you hurry up! The water doesn't show signs of stopping!"

They could feel the acidic liquid pushing up against the hip level of their suits.

This can't happen. He can't die. Not because of me.

Kate tried to think of another way but her own mind was now encrusted in a thick feeling of panic.

She could see it now. The water flooding into the Dam Lock and passing into the boy's suit. The acid entering his mouth and scalding him from the inside like cyanide, burning his waxy skin down to the bone. But the water touching his body might not have even killed him first. His oxygen tank would explode, under the high pressure and he'd choke on the intangible- his hands slowly going limp inside the gloves of the suit.

Gloves.

GLOVES.

"Of course! Hey! Can you feel the control gloves in the suit you use to direct the hands and arms?" Kate inquired.

The opposite boy looked up at Kate. "Yes."

"Do you know what they're made of?"

"Some kind of Copper-Tungsten alloy..." he said, feeling around.

"Corrosion resistant!" Tom mused.

"Then pull one of them off."

"But I'll loose control of the arm!"

"Just do it!" Tom chimed in, the water had crawled up to stomache height now. "There's no other way. Do you want to die?"

They heard the boy grunting over the radio.

"Hurry," ushered Tom.

"I'm trying. It's bolted on to the suit!" Kate and Tom watched in fearful agony as the contents of the lake began to push through the glass heart, gushing into the suit. "Arghh-"

Kate closed her eyes, choking back her sobs. Too late. Too late.

Then a clunking sound.

The water engulfed them whole. It was like being in the stomache of a monster, the green bile thick and ready to break them down for digestion.

Looking around, Kate saw very little. Though her face was lit by the light from the suit, her view was obscured by the murkiness. She reached out for Tom and her metal hand slipped through the water. Tom had vanished from beside her.

"Anyone there?" she murmured across the radio.

Though the inhumane silence bit back. It wasn't like the echoing silence of a witches cave, dripping with stalactites, or an abandoned village devoid of movement. It was the silence forced against you by a mass of substance so polluted with bacteria and human greed that it could have mutated into a being itself.

"Anyone there at all?"

"I did it!" responded a youthful voice. It seemed as though he had forgotten his respect for the communication restriction after the panic.

"You're still alive!" Kate said with not a fox like growl left in her voice but instead a selfish happiness to not be alone.

"Thank god for that," Tom stated, after a while.

"Tom? You're here too. Good news!"

"You're damn lucky we all are," he replied, distinguishing a yellow light amongst the dark green. He moved slowly towards it.

It felt like he was walking through honey. Like he was an astronaut navigating the lack of gravity on the moon. If he could just reach Kate and that yellow light then they could work out what to do.

"Ah, you must be Tom?" It wasn't Kate's voice sounding over the radio. From what Tom could see through the bottle holes in his suit, the figure he'd reached was the grey haired boy, his beige cheekbones and cutting blue eyes illuminated by the little light omitted by had the suit.

"Yes..." he replied, with a slight reluctance to give out his name to a stranger.

"I'm Blue. No hard feelings about earlier right? You know what it's like. Follow orders. Don't break the law or you'll hang. Nothing personal."

"None at all," Tom confirmed.

"There you are." Kate stumbled laboriously over to Tom through the water, clearly out of her comfort zone. "Hi Blue," she sobered up, having heard the two speak over the radio. "It's Kate. This is a rather compromising place for us to meet. In all this... Well I don't quite know what this is," she joked, placing a mask over the leech- like guilt that was currently feeding off of her.

"You'd think you hadn't been briefed on what to expect beforehand. Besides, I don't recall seeing you in class before."

"Not surprised you haven't seen us. There's so many students," Tom interjected. "Anyway, let's get on with what we were sent here for."

Though as Tom walked forwards he collided with the wall of the Dam Lock. If Kate hadn't felt so utterly isolated, she might have even laughed.

"Walls," Blue said, stating the obvious. "Turn on your torch- the circular button. There's an opening in the Damn Lock along one of these walls."

Even though the torch light sprang out from the fingertips of the metal suits they could still barely see the chequered floor beneath them.

Kate strained to understand her watery surroundings, eyes fixating on the green spores that reflected the torch light ahead of her. They looked like glowing eyes and Kate began to wonder what sort of creatures could lurk in the unexplored depths.

"Well we know it's not to our right. So we'll have to try the other two directions," Tom suggested. "Wait a minute..." he said, changing his mind. "You see those lake spores to my left?"

"I see em," Blue replied.

"They're about the only thing I can see," said Kate.

"Well look at the way they're clustered- all on one side!"

"Ah! They must've come in directly from the lake," Blue mused.

"Glad to know Tom's brain has finally decided to kick in. Let's follow em," Kate announced, taking charge.

She heaved up each leg, one at a time in order to step more confidently. She found that it was easier to manoeuver the suit in the water. The faster she walked the more she began to feel like she was walking suit-less on land. Kate reached the cluster of spores before Tom and Blue but she had no time to be pleased with herself. For as she did so they dispersed like quivering insects.

Another set lit up ahead of her. Not this time! Thought Kate, bewitched by the floating spores. She leapt forwards- trying to catch them. Though they sped off sporadically again.

"Hold on!" called Blue.

The robotic walk of Tom and Blue turned to a run as they struggled to keep up with Kate. Whom of which could barely see the spores any more. Yet she kept running.

"I almost had them!"

"Kate for heaven's sake stop. We're going to lose you!" Tom cursed. He could hardly see Kate ahead of him or Blue for that matter. The torch light from his suit began to flicker and he pressed the blue button again in an attempt to bring it back to full intensity. Though it wavered threateningly. Tom tried running faster now, relying on Blue's light source as a guide for himself.

"Stop! Both of you. I'm losing your tracks!"

Kate and Blue had stopped. But Tom was too far behind to see why. He sped towards them- desperate to not be left behind. But the art deco floor fell away underneath him into darkened absence.

He screeched.

It seemed Tom had found the exit of the Damn Lock too, as he plummeted downwards away from the Purifier compound and deeper into the bottomless pit of the lake.

Author's note: It's me again! How are you all? Finally back at it again with the writing. Really pleased with this chapter. Taking the story in another hopefully unpredictable direction:) Let me know if you liked it. Your feedback means a lot to me I read all your comments -hippywitch