A New Life - 17. Chapter 17: Injured Diver

     

For the longest moment all Blake could hear was a seemingly ubiquitous high pitching ringing in his ears. He could see Nats and Jill speaking urgently to one of the Italian girls, he could even tell that they were shouting from the looks on their faces, but he couldn’t seem to make sense of their words. They were standing right in front of him, but he got the impression they were somehow far away. It was as if his brain had shut down. He hadn’t managed to grasp anything that’d happened since he’d heard the words ‘lost’ and ‘Haze’.

Was Haze lost?

What did that mean, ‘lost’?

Where is he?

Blake wondered to himself, but he dared not ask the question out loud, for fear of what the answer might be. He could see with his own eyes that Haze wasn’t on the boat. He wasn’t on the water either and underwater ...

Was he still underwater?

By himself?

After all this time?

But ...

Waves of dizziness washed over Blake as he gasped and wheezed with shorter and shorter breaths. He noticed that his arms were trembling and soon he could feel the shakes setting into his whole body, as the poisonous anxiety spread outwards from his chest.

Was Haze ... did he ... ?

Blake could hear the rapid beating of his heart in ears now too, just above that ringing sound. Panic was gripping his mind and he clutched at his chest as if he could still his ragged breathing that way, stop the feelings from spreading, but of course it did no good. His eyes darted about in his head frantically, searching for some escape, some exit, as if there were a physical way to run from the horror of what was slowly dawning on him.

That’s when he happened to glance at the metal cylinder on the back of the girl sitting nearby and his eyes widened at the significance of what he saw. A sudden sense of clarity and composure descended upon him. The ringing sound faded and he was able to shake himself free from the grip of fear long enough to speak out loud.

“That’s his,” he croaked, pointing, but he could barely hear himself speak and no one else appeared to notice him.

He squinted his eyes shut and shook his head, suddenly bringing into focus all of the noise around him. The yelling between the girls, the sounds of someone crying, the clash and clatter of diving gear rocking about on the metal deck.

“She’s got Haze’s tank!” he shouted, pointing again.

Nats and Jill stopped their yelling and simultaneously looked his way, following his outstretched finger towards the girl who was sitting, crying.

The BC and the air-tank she was wearing weren’t from the dive shop. It was unmistakably one of the crew’s.

“Where did ya get this?” Nats asked urgently, pointing to the gear still strapped to the girl’s back.

The other girl they had been talking to nodded frantically, as if she’d been trying to explain this. She pointed to the tank, saying the same statement she’d been repeating over and over earlier.

Not that it did any good, Blake didn’t understand her and no one else seemed to either.

“Maybe she picked it up by mistake?” Jill asked.

“No,” Nats responded. “It’s Haze’s BC, I recognise it. He wouldn’t go down without it.”

“Well why is she wearing his gear now?”

As Blake listened to them argue, something suddenly occurred to him. If this girl had Haze’s tank, then that must mean Haze didn’t have a tank.

He wouldn’t have an air supply at all!

He would drown!

“NO!”

Blake pushed past the girls making straight for the back of the boat, with long determined strides. He wasn’t really thinking clearly, in fact he was determined not to think clearly. He just knew that he had to do something. He had to find Haze. Fast.

“Where are ya going?” Jill shrieked, grabbing hold of his arm as he tried to get past.

“I have to find him,” he told her, trying to shake himself free. “He hasn’t got any air!”

“Blake, stop!” she shouted, taking hold his arm with both of her hands. “If he doesn’t have a tank it’s too late already.”

“No it’s not!” he roared at her, thrashing his body about until she lost her grip on him.

It wasn’t too late.

Haze wasn’t gone.

He just couldn’t be.

It was totally unacceptable that he might be ... be ... no ... Haze was okay. He had to be okay!

“Blake stop!” Jill shrieked again at him. “Listen!”

Ignoring her protests, he charged towards the back of the boat once more. However, without any of her diving gear on, Jill was much faster. She jumped over boxes and managed to get between him and the exit ladder, grabbing hold of the railings on either side so as to block his path.

“Blake, stop and think!”

“No!”

“He’s been down there too long.”

“No!”

“What are ya gonna to do?”

“I ... I ...” he fumbled for some kind of response, but found that he didn’t have a satisfactory answer.

There was an awful ring of truth and rationality to what Jill was saying. Thoughts that Blake had been trying to keep at bay were now seeping their way back into his mind. How long could someone hold their breath for? How long had it been already?

He didn’t want to think about it too much, didn’t want to have to face the obvious answers to such questions.

“I have to find him,” he told her, but his voice was softer now, less certain. He bowed his head and looked at his trembling hands. “I have to ... I have to try.”

“I can’t let ya go,” Jill told him firmly.

Something about the way she said that brought about a cold simmering anger within him, sweeping aside uncertainties and bringing a renewed sense of determination.

“Get out of the way,” he growled in a low, menacing voice, head lifting, eyes narrowing.

“Blake ...”

“Wait you guys,” Nats cried, abruptly interrupting their feud. “I think she’s sayin’ Haze has got her tank!”

The Italian girl was nodding and making that same gesture she’d been making with her hands. Moving them in half a circle, back and forth.

“They swapped.” Nats said, making the same hand gesture.

Blake felt his heart lift with hope. Maybe Haze was okay? Maybe he had air after all?

“Why would they swap?” Jill wondered aloud. “That doesn’t make any sense-”

“Who cares!?” Blake bellowed, rounding on her and glaring incredulously. “Who cares why? He could still be okay! I have to find him!”

He tried to push past Jill once more, but she held firmly to the rails and would not let him pass.

“Wait!” she screamed at him. “Change your tank over.”

“No time!”

“You won’t have enough air to go down and bring both of you back up again!”

“Haze could be running out of air now, he could be dying!”

“You don’t even know where he is!”

“I’ll find him!”

“The visibility is shit!”

“I have to try!”

“NO!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, stamping her foot on the deck. “I am NOT gonna risk losing two of my crew!”

Blake had opened his mouth to argue, when a tug at his arm distracted him.

“Blake!” Nats cried, shaking his arm. “Change ya tank over, while we look for his air trail.”

Blake stopped his struggles, pausing for a moment as he mulled over this.

“It’ll be easier to spot from up on the bridge and then we can move the boat closer,” Nats continued, fixing him with a deadly serious stare.

He realised at once that she was right. He could waste precious minutes swimming about on the surface. The boat moved much faster. And even if that wasn’t necessary and Haze was directly below the boat right now, how would he know that? He could very well swim within a few feet of Haze and not see him. The visibility was very poor. No. Nats’s plan made more sense. The bubbles of air would be easier to spot from the boat and then he could follow them to their source.

And if there weren’t any air bubbles ... well ... he wouldn’t think about that right now.

“Go!” Jill ordered, before Blake had the chance to say anything. “Quickly!”

“Everyone follow me!” Nats shouted to the tourists, before running over to the metal staircase and then quickly hauling herself up to the bridge. “Look for air bubbles!” she instructed.

Blake shared another second’s glare with Jill, but then he remembered he was supposed to be swapping his air tank for a fresh one. He made his way over to one of the metal benches, next to an empty tank slot. He manoeuvred himself backwards until he was sitting down on the bench, with the tank fitting neatly into the slot behind him. Then he started fiddling with the straps across his chest to undo them, but Jill stayed his hands.

“Don’t take the whole thing off!” she told him. “Stay still.”

Blake sat patiently and waited for Jill to switch tanks. He felt himself being tugged this way and that from behind as she unfastened the tank from his BC and breathing regulators. There was a hiss of air pressure being released and then Jill was instructing him to stand up and to sit down again behind the next tank.

At that moment he heard some shouting from upstairs and then the engines of the boat roared into life.

“Did you see him?” he called out apprehensively, but it was no good. It was impossible to be heard over noise from the engines and no one paid him any attention.

Moments later, Jill had finished fiddling with the equipment behind him and then she drew backwards and patted him twice on the shoulder.

“You’re done!” she shouted, her words almost drowned out by the engines despite her standing over him.

Blake quickly got to his feet again, checking his pressure gauges briefly, before moving to the exit ladder once more. Jill didn’t get in his way this time, she had disappeared to join the others on the bridge.

The boat seemed to be moving in a tight circle, but Blake couldn’t make out where they were headed. It didn’t seem to be very far though. For a moment he could see someone pointing from the second floor of the boat, but then the sun was behind them and he couldn’t see anything clearly.

As he waited impatiently, he began to notice again how anxious and panicky he was feeling. He could see that his hands were trembling and he could feel that his heartbeat was racing. As soon as he noticed these things he started to become aware of his breathing too. It had hitched somewhat and was becoming shallow again.

‘Not now’, ‘not now’, he fretted to himself.

He could not allow himself to become a useless pile of nerves right now.

Haze needed help.

Jill and Nats weren’t in their diving gear. No one else could do this. Only him.

But what if he couldn’t do it?

Tendrils of fear and doubt wrapped around his heart as the inner critic began its mutinous rumblings inside his head.

How was an anxious, weirdo, loser, freak like him supposed to rescue anyone? He couldn’t even rescue himself from a casual encounter with a mirror half the time, couldn’t even manage basic tasks around his own home without risking a full blown panic attack.

How was he going to find and rescue Haze while under all this stress and pressure? What good was someone like him in an emergency situation? Who was he kidding? He was useless, he couldn’t save Haze. The boy was a much better diver than he was any day. Haze was much more experienced, much calmer, much better under pressure. Maybe if it had been the other way around, Blake would stand a chance of being rescued by Haze, but the way things were, Haze was as good as dead already.

“No he’s not!” Blake declared out loud, to himself or to the voices in his head he wasn’t sure.

He felt a surge of anger course through him at the thought of his anxiety problems getting in the way, interfering with Haze’s rescue. Such an outcome was completely unacceptable. It infuriated him just to imagine it. The anger flowed through his veins, filling him with a renewed sense of strength and determination.

There was no way he would let Haze suffer because of his own pathetic weakness.

Haze needed help.

Nothing else mattered right now.

Blake was startled from his inner deliberations by a motion out the corner of his eye. Jill was back on the main deck again and she had monkey-barred her way up to the edge of the boat. She leaned out over the water, grabbing hold of a railing with one hand. Then she made a hand-signal to Nats who spun the wheel sharply to move the boat.

“Get ready!” Jill shouted at him through a cupped hand.

Blake felt his heart leap in his chest as he prepared himself to enter the water.

“Can you see him?” he asked, hopefully.

Jill didn’t respond, she just held up her hand in his direction before continuing to signal to Nats.

“What’s going on?” Blake yelled again, but either Jill couldn’t hear him or she was choosing to ignore him, focused on something else instead.

He followed the direction she was facing across the water, but he couldn’t seem to see anything. The boat shifted down several gears, as they slowed, but still he couldn’t see anything. Jill pointed out to the water once more and he followed her finger until finally he saw it. A little patch of white frothing bubbles rippling and churning on the surface. It was fortunate that the wind was dead calm that day or it would’ve been impossible to spot.

Jill swung herself down to the deck again and moved over towards him.

“We’re gonna be going over the top of it in a sec, get ready.”

He gave her a nod, but in truth he had already tuned her out. He couldn’t permit himself to become distracted, to allow the fear and anxiety to eat away at his resolve. All that mattered at that moment was keeping an eye on the bubbles of air and the timing of his jump.

“Blake, now mate, listen,” she said, but he was growing frustrated with all her talking and so he chose to ignore her.

“Ya need to be really careful mate. This is a deep dive. Ya shouldn’t be going down again so soon. You’re gonna quickly go over ya safe exposure limits.”

“Sure,” he said, watching as the bubbles drifted closer.

“Make sure-”

But he cut her short as he abruptly pushed off from the ladder, stepping into the ocean. A shock of cold water washed over him and down the back of his wetsuit as he dipped below the surface, but on bobbing up again he wasted no time kicking his legs to get some distance between himself and the boat. He then held down the release button on his BC, sinking slowly into the water as his jacket deflated.

“Don’t go up or down too fast mate!” Jill shouted to him, leaning over the water from the rail of the ladder. “Follow your dive computer, do what it tells ya, make sure ...”

Too focused on the task at hand, he barely noticed as her words were silenced by the cool trickle of water flooding his ears. Soon all he could hear was the hiss of air under pressure as he inhaled and the gurgling sound of bubbles being released from his regulator as he exhaled.

Usually he enjoyed this part of a dive, when the sights and sounds of the surface world were left behind. The weightless, floating sensations and the endless blue void stretching out before him ordinarily brought a sense of peace and contentedness. All his thoughts and problems would stay on the surface and he would dive beneath them, free from their grip, if only for a brief amount of time.

But this dive was different. This time the anxious anticipation, the feverish concern for Haze followed him beneath the water. Instead of relaxed and calm he felt tense and afraid.

He was impatient to be on his way, but he knew that he couldn’t get going until he was submerged enough to get traction with his fins. The first few inches of a descent were always the slowest, but Blake had never appreciated just how agonisingly slow, until now.

He scanned the ocean around him as he slowly sank, anxious to spot the trail of air bubbles. The ocean was a featureless expanse of blue, but despite this emptiness it still took a few moments for him to make out the trail of air. It drifted upwards from the murky depths, moving at an angle, dragged along by the current.

The water visibility was poor and this combined with his mask’s tunnel vision made it difficult to see anything that was not directly in front of him. He knew he would have to keep a close eye on the bubbles of air. If he lost the trail, it would be difficult if not impossible to find again under these conditions.

Finally, with his head a few feet below the surface, there was enough room to summersault around and to start his dive. He faced the source of the bubbles as best as he could estimate and began to swim downwards, earnestly, big powerful kicks of his legs parting the water with his fins.

The pressure in his ears grew rapidly, but he ignored the discomfort, fixated on getting to Haze as quickly as possible. He had to save Haze. This one burning priority was all that he could think about right now.

Nonetheless, the pain grew and grew until it became unbearable, until it felt like his eardrums were about to rupture. Forced to pause for a while at that depth, he took a moment to check his bearings as he held his nose and blew in an attempt to equalise his ears. As soon as the pain had subsided, he released more air from his BC and continued to sink deeper into the cold murky water.

His dive computer was beeping warnings sounds at him, telling him to slow his descent and to level out, but he ignored the noise. He knew it was dangerous to go through rapid pressure changes like this, especially since he hadn’t spent enough time on the surface in between dives. The human body could only tolerate the pressure at these depths for short periods, 40 minutes or so at most. Repeat dives were only permitted after extended breaks on the surface.

But he also knew that these rules were excessively cautious. This was an emergency situation. He could risk breaking a few safety rules if it meant that he could reach Haze in time. And now that he could see the trail of air, nothing in the world was going to stop him from getting to Haze.

Haze had to be okay. He had to be breathing at least if there was a trail of air bubbles.

Unless the tank was just leaking ...

Blake shivered at that thought, as doubts and uncertainties began to creep into his mind again.

‘Just what do you think you’re going to do?’ the inner critic asked, taunting him from inside his own head.

Truth be known, Blake didn’t have an answer.

Why wouldn’t Haze have swum back to the surface by himself? If he had an air supply and was alive and able to breathe, then why would he stay underwater?

In an emergency situation, a quick release of the weight-belt allowed a diver to float back to the surface naturally, without having to swim. Even with a cramp or an injured limb, it was still easy to operate the release.

Why wouldn’t Haze have done that already?

The more Blake thought about it, the more despairing and afraid he felt. Try as he might, he couldn’t seem to envisage a scenario involving Haze being alive and well and yet unable to return to the surface by himself.

Just how was he going to be of any help to Haze?

With a shake of his head, Blake forcibly put these questions out of his mind once more and focused on continuing his descent.

Haze was breathing, he told himself firmly. He had to be okay. Blake just had to get to him before the other boy’s air ran out. There was no point in obsessively trying to second guess what had happened right now. He would find out soon enough.

Below the first 30 feet or so the water grew progressively colder and darker quite quickly. The trail of air bubbles was still there, but it was getting harder to make out where they were coming from.

The bubbles didn’t form a constant line, rather the trail was made up of clusters of bubbles every few feet or so. As it got darker and darker it became harder to see beyond one or two clusters, making it easy to lose track of them altogether.

Several times, Blake thought that the trail had suddenly stopped and his heart would leap into his throat with fear. The tunnel vision of his mask forced him to move his whole head around in order to look about, so it would sometimes take several terrifying seconds for him to spot the trail once more.

The further he sank the colder and darker it got and the more he began to notice the effects of the steadily building pressure. The incessant warning beeps from his dive computer were easy enough to ignore, but the light-headedness he started to feel and the pain in his ears were something else. He knew that these were bad signs, but he did his best to ignore them and to continue downwards.

He felt a pain building in his sinuses too and right behind his eyes. His breathing felt scratchy and laboured as the pressure made it increasingly difficult to inhale, to expand his chest. If felt like someone was standing on his ribcage.

Eventually though, a dark formation of rocks began to emerge from the murky depths and Blake felt the tension in his body dramatically increase with anticipation. He scanned around him and then suddenly, he thought he could see something. Some colour amongst the dark rocks and weed, a familiar shape.

Blake kicked downwards as fast as he could, but instantly regretted the action as his head swam with dizziness and nausea and his ears and sinuses throbbed. He took a moment to clear his head and then he blinked his eyes to clear his suddenly blurry vision.

When finally he was able to peer into the darkness again, all he found was a mask and snorkel. They were tangled amongst some weed, but there was nothing else around.

Blake carefully picked them up and out of the seaweed, feeling his heart sink as his fingers traced the yellow and white lining around the rim of the mask.

It belonged to Haze. He knew that it did. He could remember this mask clearly.

On that day he’d gone diving with Haze, when the blue-eyed boy had so startled him by taking the breathing regulator out of his mouth. He remembered clearly the playful expression on his face and he could also recall even bluer than blue eyes peering out from this exact mask. The images were clear, there was no mistaking it. This mask belonged to Haze.

A sense of dread and foreboding began to wash over Blake as he wondered what on earth Haze’s mask and snorkel were doing here, without being attached to Haze. He refused to think the worse, but after searching all around him it was clear that Haze wasn’t about.

Blake kicked off from the rocks in search of the air trail once more, but he couldn’t seem to find it. At first he thought that he’d just momentarily lost track of it again, but after about half a minute of frantic searching, he realised that he had lost the trail entirely.

There were no more bubbles coming from anywhere around him and he couldn’t seem to figure out which direction he’d been swimming before the mask and snorkel had distracted him. The wave of dizziness and nausea he’d suffered going after the abandoned items had disorientated him and now he couldn’t even guess where the air trail was.

His insides twisted with guilt and self-loathing as it dawned on him just how hopeless the situation now was. There was very little chance of him being able to pick up the trail down here, he could only see a few metres away in any direction and he didn’t even know where to start looking.

Frantically, he studied his dive computer, as if it held the answers, but of course it was useless. He hadn’t taken any bearings, any measurements of depth or direction to begin with. He’d been so desperate to find Haze that he had just launched into the rescue without stopping to think or to plan. The information on his dive computer was meaningless without a point of reference. Now he had nothing to go by and no idea what to do next.

How long had it been? Blake dared not think, but it seemed more and more unlikely to him that Haze’s air supply could last this long. He knew that Haze was good at conserving air ... and maybe if he stayed still and tried really hard he could extend his air supply by ... by what? Fifteen minutes? Blake had spent longer than that on the surface.

Trembling began to set into his body once more, as despair and anguish washed over him. He felt disgusted and angry at himself for making such amateurish mistakes, mistakes that would now cost Haze his life.

Unable to see anything around him to offer any hope, Blake decided to surface again, to head to clearer, brighter, shallower water. Maybe he could pick up the trail again up there? Maybe there was still time to surface a bit and then to descend again in time to find Haze? Without becoming overwhelmed by decompression sickness himself ...

Even to his own desperate mind the plan made little sense, but it was just as well that he made this plan, for at that moment he looked straight upwards and noticed for the first time a shape drifting aimlessly in the water, directly above him.

It was a human body.

There was no air tank, no air-hoses that he could see and whoever it was, they were not moving.

Blake was unable to breathe for a moment as he stared at that ghastly shape. He tried to come up with alternatives for what he was seeing, but only one reasonable possibility came to mind.

Who else could be down here?

It had to be Haze.

Blake felt a stabbing sensation in his chest so painful that it felt like his insides were being torn apart. If he were able to he would’ve cried out in anguish, but underwater he could do little more than expel bubbles and moan with despair.

He was too late. He had taken too long. Haze was ...

No!

After a moments fearful hesitation Blake suddenly sprang into life, frantically kicking his legs to swim upwards and towards the lifeless body.

Maybe Haze could still be saved?

Maybe he could still be resuscitated somehow?

But as Blake drew closer and closer, he became more and more fearful of what he would see. Then, less than a few feet away, he froze in horror at the sight before him. The body was facing away from him, but he could see a familiar black rubber band holding back dark locks of hair.

This was definitely Haze, he recognised the wetsuit now too.

Blake’s heart seemed to stop as tentatively he reached out towards the body only to draw back for a moment, suddenly too scared to touch Haze, afraid of what a dead body might feel like. Sickness and nausea churned in his stomach, but he forcibly pushed aside his fears and reached out to grab hold of the boy’s shoulder, so as to spin him around.

He had to be certain that it was Haze. He needed to see his face. He had to be sure.

The second his hand touched that shoulder though, he got the shock of his life in the form of an elbow to his temple that sent his head spinning with shock and confusion. Stunned, he watched as the previously motionless boy flailed arms and legs all over the place, expelling a rush of air as he did so.

Too surprised to really take this in, Blake was paralysed for a moment. He quickly gathered his wits though and then he tried to approach Haze again, only to get a foot in the stomach this time.

What was happening? What was Haze doing?!

As the other boy struggled, he turned to reveal his face for the first time and Blake promptly realised what the problem was. Haze didn’t have his mask on. He couldn’t see anything without it. He was probably terrified and had no idea what was happening, no idea who or what was touching him.

Blake once again reached out to the other boy, but this time he took Haze’s hand in his own instead. He could feel Haze jump with fright at first, but then the other boy seemed to figure out what he was holding onto and he gripped Blake’s hand with such force that it made his knuckles crack.

Blake’s only response was to place his other hand on top of Haze’s and to caress it gently, soothingly. Haze seemed to relax a bit after that and finally he ceased his frantic struggles.

With Haze now calm and still, Blake approached more closely to assess the situation. He quickly checked Haze over, but could not see any signs of injury, no bleeding and no visible trauma.

Whether Haze was suffering from decompression sickness though, was another matter entirely. It often took up to an hour after a dive for the signs to appear. The symptoms were unpredictable, ranging from joint pain, itchy skin and memory loss to paralysis and death. There was simply no way of knowing at this stage, so Blake tried to put it out of his mind and to focus instead on what he could ascertain right now.

Haze was definitely breathing, he could tell that much. Now that Blake was up close he could see the air-hose stretching out from the other boy’s mouthpiece.

He followed the air-tube until finally he spied the BC and the air-tank too. They seemed to be lodged under a mass of rocks nearby. It wasn’t Haze’s gear either. It was hired gear from the dive shop.

How had it got trapped under the rocks?

He decided to worry about that later. Haze was alive and didn’t appear to be visibly injured, but he might still be hurt in some other way. Blake knew that he had to get him to the surface, as quickly as possible.

He took hold of his auxiliary breathing regulator and carefully wrapped Haze’s hand around it. Haze quickly understood the instruction and he swapped the mouthpieces so that he was now breathing from Blake’s tank.

With Haze now safely free of the trapped equipment, Blake took hold of him and manoeuvred his body, turning him about. He then wrapped one arm around Haze’s chest from behind and pulled him close, until the other boy’s back rested snugly against Blake’s chest.

For a moment Blake paused there, revelling in the warmth of Haze’s body as he held him close. The darkness and despair that had been his whole world up until now seemed to melt away and his heart soared. For the first time in what seemed like forever Blake dared to hope, to really hope that everything would be okay now. That Haze would be safe and that they would soon be back on the boat, laughing about all of this. After the terrifying search the sense of relief felt so good.

However, the respite was only temporary. Soon Blake began to worry again. Haze had been underwater far too deep for far too long. They weren’t out of the woods yet. He needed to get him to the surface.

With his free hand, Blake checked his dive computer and then began a careful, calculated ascent. They had plenty of air left, there was nothing to worry about there, but Blake did worry about their rate of ascent. He wanted to get Haze to the surface as quickly as possible, but not so quickly that it would cause him decompression sickness. It was probably better to surface more slowly than the dive computer recommended.

He positioned them vertically and filled his BC with short bursts of air, carefully monitoring their depth and rate of ascent.

Haze for the most part remained still, hanging limp in Blake’s arms, allowing himself to be directed, carried. The lack of movement from Haze worried Blake, but he had no way of communicating, no way of asking the blue-eyed boy if he was okay.

Blake worried about how he might be doing. How long had Haze been underwater for now? How much air was left in that other tank, how close he had come to running out? The more he thought about the situation though, the more other questions began to occur to him.

Every diver had two breathing regulators. Why didn’t Haze use one of the Italian girls’ auxiliary breathing regulators to get back to the surface?

Why would he swap tanks? Swapping gear underwater certainly wasn’t part of any emergency procedure that Blake could recall. It would’ve been so much trouble for Haze to struggle out of his gear and to put it on that girl. Why wouldn’t he have just lent her his spare breathing regulator and then abandon her gear?

At that moment, Blake was distracted from his musings by a wave of dizziness and other strange sensations washing over him. For a second it felt like his vision had blacked out, though he couldn’t be entirely sure. The pain in his sinuses seemed to increase and his head was hurting as black shapes danced before his eyes.

Groggily he tried to shake the feelings from his head and to figure out what was wrong. He checked his dive computer, but their rate of ascent was steady and well within safe limits. He checked Haze, but he seemed to be okay too, from what little Blake could see, anyway.

After a few minutes the sensations seemed to subside on their own, so Blake tried not to worry too much.

As they travelled closer to the surface the water got warmer and the light brighter. At a depth of about 18 feet, Blake did his best to keep their buoyancy neutral and to remain motionless for a safety stop. He wanted to communicate this to Haze, so he took the other boys hand in his own and tapped on his palm five times, twice.

He meant to signal a safety stop, 5 metres for 5 minutes, but he had no idea if Haze understood. He’d made up that hand signal.

After they had been motionless for a while though, Haze moved his hand and laid it across Blake’s own. He then gently pealed Blake’s arm away from his chest, rotating himself around until they were face to face.

Haze opened his eyes then, appearing as though he were trying to figure out who he was with. Blake could see his glassy bloodshot eyes squinting through the salt water, but after a few seconds Haze seemed to give up and to close them again.

Instead, he started to move his hands across Blake’s body, touching his face, his hair, his ear, his chest. The contact was less intimate, more exploring, but despite this, or perhaps because of it, Blake was reminded of the last time he’d felt that touch. In the cabin on the boat, a moment in time that seemed so long ago now. The kiss.

Despite the circumstances, the sensations and the memories they provoked brought an instant blush to Blake’s face. Now that all the real danger had passed, with Haze safe and the emergency over, it seemed that there was nothing to hold back the tide of anxiety. Blake felt the familiar twisting discomfort in his chest, the shortness of breath, the shakes and the trembles and then the barrage of critical self-talk and self-conscious embarrassment that accompanied these feelings.

Haze ran his hand down Blake’s arm, but then stopped, just above the wrist. For a moment, Blake wondered what was Haze doing now, but then he realised that the other boy could feel his hand trembling.

Was that enough? Had Haze figured it out?

As he watched, a small smile crept across Haze’s face and Blake felt his chest swell with that nervous kind of pleasure, the same feeling that often seemed to overcome him whenever he was around Haze.

Unfortunately, the moment didn’t last. As quickly as it had appeared, the smile vanished. Haze had let go, moving instead to take hold of Blake’s BC and jacket, breaking the physical contact and putting distance between them.

Blake was both puzzled and dismayed by the sudden change, which did nothing to quieten his now painfully restless nerves. Something had made Haze ‘switch-off’ again, revert to his introverted state. It drove Blake mad wondering what had happened. What did he do wrong this time?

However, he didn’t have much of a chance to obsess over this, because the noise from his dive computer distracted him, informing him that it was time to surface.

He took hold of his BC and inflated it to maximum, feeling the resultant buoyancy propel them both slowly upwards.

When finally they broke through the surface of the water Blake felt a tremendous sense of relief wash over him. The feel of the air on his face and the warm water trickling from his ears were welcome sensations. He tore off his mask and then quickly looked over to make sure that Haze was okay.

“Are you alight?” he asked urgently, scrutinising the other boy carefully for signs of decompression sickness.

Haze didn’t say anything at first. He seemed to have trouble making eye contact as they bobbed about in the water.

“Yeah,” he eventually muttered in a flat emotionless voice, his expression inscrutable. “I’m fine.”

“Are you hurting anywhere?”

Haze seemed to scrunch up his face a little, still unable to look up. He didn’t say anything, but he shook his head ‘no’.

“Itchy? Joint pain? Headache-”

“I said I’m fine!” Haze snapped, cutting him off.

Blake was baffled by the tone of his voice, the anger in his eyes, but before he could wonder about this for long, Haze’s expression slowly began to change. The scowl relaxed and softened, first into a look of surprise and then into one of concern.

Blake began to worry, but then Haze was suddenly reaching out towards him, towards his face. For a moment Blake thought the other boy was going to caress his cheek again, just as he had done before their kiss, and his breathing hitched in eager anticipation.

However, instead Haze dragged his index finger under Blake’s nose, causing Blake to pull back in surprise and confusion. He glanced back at Haze who was holding up his hand and that’s when he noticed the blood on Haze’s fingers.

Blake quickly reached for his nose himself, pulling his hand away to reveal more of the bright red liquid.

“You’re bleeding,” Haze told him, voice now tense and pressing.

“Yeah,” Blake gasped, suddenly feeling anxious and lightheaded again.

“You changed pressure too quickly.”

“I’m sorry,” Blake said, automatically.

Haze shook his head and muttered something under his breath.

“You know ...” he started to say but Blake didn’t hear the rest.

Dark shapes were dancing across his vision again and he felt himself blacking out once more.

“Blake!”

He could hear Haze shouting at him, yet he was only barely aware of his presence.

“Oi! Blake!”

Hands were touching him now, holding his chin upwards. The sun was hurting his eyes and he wanted to push that hand away, but he couldn’t seem to make his arms move.

“BLAKE!”

The last thing he could remember clearly was a brief image of Haze waving frantically and calling for help. After that he must have blacked out.