Thalassophobia

 

Crunch, crunch went her boots on the path. EE stopped on the uphill climb of the interior overhang of the cavern. She felt the little pebbles of rock shift around her boots, making the path unsafe for any kind of shoe but ones designed for uneven ground. Few people ventured into this cave anymore, since the National Park had closed it to the public. This path took her to the pool.

Eilidh Ezra Donavon had a fear, a fear so powerful it made her leave her home and make her way to these mountains, to this park. EE as she had been known by her family and now by the other rangers, was born a twin but her twin, Erza died a month before they were both born. In honor of carrying his soul, her parents added his name to hers. He became a part of her.

Past the next very large stalagmite the path started a long curve down, making one feel like they were heading back towards the way you had just come over the hill. And in some ways you were but the path slowly curved away and down from the entrance of the cave. One had to be careful going down the hill, the slope got tricky at the end and if you didn't know just how twisty it got, you could slide right off the path into the drop.

Once a month, EE traveled down into the darkness, to visit the pool. It was here, she would encounter the thing which followed her, stalking her, her whole life. The thing caused her to be so full of doubt and anxiety, making the only emotion within her to be fear. Fear it would get her, fear she would lose control and it would be there to swallow her whole, fear she would never feel safe anywhere, fear it would win. Sometimes she could forget it out under the stars or strolling in the forest, till she walked by a body of water, a body of water the size it loved.

Every little bit of water caused anxiety so overwhelming, it became a taste, a smell, a touch and a sense of fear. Every little bit of water would cause her to see just a wink of it, just darting outside of her vision. She had learn over the years not torture herself by turning her head to look. It would always be gone and her fear would heighten from being unsure of her sanity.

EE had left her home to go away to college to get a biology degree to see if she could understand what she was seeing. She studied creatures from all over the world and her specialty was fish of deep, freshwater lakes to find out what it was. And while she found some clues to what it might be, she could never really find anything exactly like it. What she learned was there were interconnecting tunnels underground it had made and used to find her. Most of the tunnels were connected to the pool, explaining how her fear could travel there and back and everywhere.

Finding the pool, down here by accident, finally gave her a way to research what it really was. She didn't want to go down into the hole to look at the pool. She didn't want to even think about being down there in the dark where the only light was the bioluminescent fungi. EE didn't want to understand what it was doing down there. All she wanted was to find a reason for the why of it.

EE took a sigh and centered herself as she came to the next odd twist in the path. If one didn't twist in the exact moment at the right time, understanding the world around and under you, you would end up going down to a dead end. A dead end flattening out to a small plateau of crumbling rock. Rock which could crumble down into the pool, ending one's life. Fear would always win down here.

Taking a deep breath to help with a small sliver of fear, EE moved down the path trying to control herself. She knew what was coming. She knew the exact moment, the exact place, where her animal brain would take over. The 'there' with the dank smell associated with old moisture hit her. Old, cold damp like in a basement. She had always hated basements because she knew in her soul, in that deep part of one's being where fear lived, water was there. Few people didn't really know how much water was under them, deep in the ground.

Trembling, EE stopped and took sense of where she was. It was here an unconscious trigger started her anxiety up. She could feel the sense of dread just floating in between her throat and stomach causing a shortness in her breath and the tingling feeling in her skin. It was only near water, usually deep water when anxiety hits. She didn't need to see the water, she could feel it. She had tried to be near water and it was always the same. Swimming pools and puddles were mostly fine unless it was dark and she couldn't see the bottom. Fresh water and salt were hard which is why she ended up leaving home. When she was there the fear was overpowering. Choking, clotting fear causing her to be irritated, angry and frustrated at everything and everyone. Wanting only to stay hidden and away.

The worse thing is no one had ever believed her, ever. Not Nanny, not Mother, not Father, not one of her seven siblings. She had learned at an early age, she was the only one who sensed it out there waiting. At first she didn't know what it was waiting for, just that it was out there waiting, hovering, stalking. Always there making it hard to sleep, to go outside. It became a huge struggle of screaming and crying to get her to places before the age of five. Her parents believed it was her being stubborn and did all kinds of things to break her of it. Nothing helped; not the drugs, not the therapy, not the discipline, not the love. In the end it was Ezra who helped the most. And he was her secret.

Her family' s house was set on a lake, with a dock. They own the lake and the campground, park and trails. She was the youngest and they dragged her everywhere on their land and to their favorite place which was on the lake. The lake with its very deep, dark murky waters. The kind of lake, featured in happy vacation postcards wishing 'you were here', with the sun shining on the lake during the day. The kind of lake associated with summer days and fireflies seen as magical fairies skirting along the ground. This wasn't how EE had ever seen the lake.

For her it was the kind of lake featured in all those stories and movies about creepy lakes with scary things going on in and around them, with things lurking in the depths. EE was the only one to see how the lake was truly and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get anyone else to see it. And for a long time, she was all alone with her fear.

It was during this time Ezra began to talk to her more and more, explaining what was going on in the lake. EE knew Ezra had been there deep in her soul, so she was never alone. When he began to talk, EE felt a weight left, a loneliness she hadn't known was there. His presence let her know he understood and he knew what was happening. By the time she was nine, she realized he was the only one who loved and cared for her, the only one who listened.

While the pool isn't really large, not like the lake of her family home, it was deep, really deep, deeper than the lake ever was. She had measure it when she first started exploring this cave to make sure it was deep enough for it and the connection to the tunnels. As the rocks slide down with her feet here and there, she listened to Ezra as he counted down the steps. Even though the sounds in the cavern were low or almost non existence, there was the hum in her ears, Ezra's inner voice and her breathing. It was always almost like being in a trance. As the fear began to pound in her chest, causing the tingling to return. The sense of impending doom, the warning of it coming nearer.

When she lived at home, that sense of impending doom sat in her like lead, making her heavy and slow. She didn't even learn what it was till she was in college. The last time she ever tried to tell someone about her fear and the thing which caused it. Sadly that didn't pan out like she had hoped when she had spoken her secret and it wasn't even her worse secret. EE had many secrets, all of which tended to come to the surface down here by the pool, like ghosts skating across the water.

Now came the shortness of breath as the taste of water started to sit on her tongue and in her nose. As she descended, more physical and emotional symptoms began to start. She knew them all very intimately. She dragged her fear around as it stalked her in turn. Her parents knew she was scared, as she would shake at the sight, smell and even the sound of the lake. The lake which overwhelmed her 24 hours a day, every day. Pounding the need to run, flight and travel as far away as she could. Always just fluttering on the edge of flight. Eventually her whole life was by the time she was 17 just a bubble of never ending endless panic and anxiety attacks. She did her best in places away from the lake, like school.

EE picked a college to go to, one as far away from any large body water as she could find. She applied and was accepted to her never ending joy. Her parents had had a different idea of what her future would look like and forbid her to leave. They told her she was need for the family business, the business of the lake. They refused to pay for college, for her way there and to live out in the middle of the States in a safe place, a place it wouldn't be able to find her. A safe place for her and her parents stood in her way. They dared to stay in her way.

Now she was starting to feel the compression that came from being down underground. Pressure on the skin, on her eyes, in her ears and pressing on her bones. This sensation started with nausea, dizziness and sweating. Soon the foggy feeling in her thinking, where glimpses of things in the corner of her vision began to dart in and out. Ezra spoke to her louder now to drown out the fear, his voice couldn't keep the fear completely away, couldn't make the water safe. It always lingered there just in the back of her brain under the layer of Ezra.

IHere she had to stop for a moment to get her head for the next turn. Almost there, almost time, soon she would have the answers. She was sure this was the time, it was going to be on this trip, all of her answers would be answered. She pulled on the rope she had been holding to pull her package up behind her. It wiggled a bit but not as much as it had when they first started this journey down to the pool. Did it feel the water, did it feel the pressure, did it feel it down there waiting, like her and Ezra did?

When she got to college, everyone made her feel so welcome. Her, a poor child, whose whole family had drowned on their lake when an accident had occurred with the favorite house boat. How lucky but sad for her to be the only one to survive. Everyone had understood why she wanted to sell the family property and move someplace new and were very supportive to her.

The thing living in the pool had a song of the siren, a song which caused the fear to rise along her spine up along to her neck, causing shivers to arise on her arms. Giving the rope a tug she slides down the rest of the trail. Each step now becomes both agony and thrill. Even while she knew it was down there waiting for her, a part of her hoped it was gone. There was a deep part of her who also hoped it was still there, that fear if it wasn't...well that would say something else about her. EE could never figure out what she would do if at some point it failed to be there. While she always knew what to do when it was there.

Now EE was so close and she was trying hard not to think about what would be waiting for her, what Ezra knew about what was down there, what he had always known was down there. She felt a little wiggle on the rope, kind of amazed at the strength of the wiggle. If she wasn't so involved with her fear and moving through it, she would wonder about that.

When she was in college, EE had let herself get close to someone. A nice and cute someone who seemed interested in her. Sadly it was all a lie. Telling her, her fear was only in her head. Not in the water, not in the lake, not in the pool but in her head. Ezra had warned her, even as the someone was telling her Ezra didn't exist. Only Ezra understood, thankfully there had only ever been Ezra, always only be Ezra.

Now surrounded by darkness with just her little light, she looked out over the darkness of the pool. EE dropped the rope, listening to the little wiggles on the rocky shore. She walked to the right sideways to keep her eye on the moving water, watching a fin slice ever so slowly up through water. A movement which made her fear to jump, her heart to pulse in her throat. EE had read once underground lakes were filled with clear water but not this one, it was black, black as sin, black as her heart, black of the deep dark. Only the fin was different, the fin was light gray like smoke. Sometimes it seemed like smoke, almost not there, till Ezra told her to look closer..

That one someone who she had kind of hoped would be her someone special showed her the way. How to lure her fear out, how to get her fear to become solid. She and that someone, her lover to be took a ride to a lake. A lake which was going to be their special place. A lake with a promise, a someone promise to help with the fear. Someone had help bring the fear out and was now forever in the lake. Showing EE how to have other someone(s) help her with it, down here in the pool. That thing, the it which was so hard to see even while she knew as its victim, it was haunting her.

EE reached down and pulled up a rope attached to a spike in the ground, she pulled the rope to her, as it swam in and out pushing on the rope, causing her fear to spike with each pull and drag. She really believed it could be heard fear echoing in the chamber. As the first body bouncing on the rope came to shore, she saw its mouth move. Grasping for breath with a moan. Most of its skin was slough off due to water exposure. She checked its waist bag. A waterproof bag containing a small pump with a small tube coming out of it to be inserted into the thing's belly button. The pump pushed food and water into the body, keeping it alive as long as it could stay in the water. She pulled more of the rope to the shore ignoring the pull from the thing skulking in the water. It rarely came close to the shore, just waiting for her to put the bodies back into the water. It was the bodies which kept it here in the pool.

Without turning away from the pool, she reached down to the bag at her feet to pull out the new bait. EE with Ezra's help had learned to cut off limbs so someones would be easy to transport. The older bodies still out in the pool, didn't realize how important they were to her research. How important it was to know what the thing nearly blinding her with fear. was.

EE stepped back, not taking her eyes off the fin. It seemed like there was more showing this time around. She wasn't sure if she could deal with more of it. She knew what it truly look like in her mind and didn't want to see it in the real world. So very big, so many teeth, so powerful. Always there, always waiting, swimming and circling, waiting for her and Ezra to be unaware. Reaching down to get a new pump, she heard Ezra shout as she took her eyes off the water for just a second and as she turned, she saw Ezra within the big gaping hole of a throat ringed with fangs and .........