Waking up in the cave was completely senseless. At 600 hundred feet below the surface, opening my eyes was a total waste of time. All I had, all there could possibly be, was the oppressive darkness, total numbness, and the roar of tinnitus.
Even starting loud, the ringing just kept growing. It blew up inside me getting faster and louder and higher. I felt it push through my eyes, pop my ears; it beat against my skull, until even the numbness shrank to its fury. And then, all at once, the crescendo shattered.The first input wasn’t pain. It was the sound of pain. It was my ragged breath, the echo of my heartbeat on the water, the syrupy sticky snapping of congealed blood breaking when I moved my arm. Only then, pawing at my helmet, did the pain hit.
I didn’t scream. I don’t think I could have, actually. That needed some level of consciousness I didn’t quite have yet. Instead, I felt my rough breath speed up. I could only expand my lungs one mouthful at a time, like the weight of the dark was determined to strangle me.
Gasping, I focused on my arm. There! I could feel it. I squeezed the button as hard as I could, but my fingers just wouldn’t close. I heard them scrape against the headlamp but I couldn’t get any force behind them. I could still feel them though. I could feel as they slipped off the rubber bumps. As they slid down the glass. And As they ran a thick warm line across my face before hitting my lap.
I tried to turn- to free my other arm and test its luck, but a sudden spike of pain cut my movement short. Something deep- something ancient rose up inside me: some lizard instinct I would never have predicted. I couldn’t fight, I couldn’t even run, all I could do was simply empty myself.
I puked. The pain faded, then the sound, then the dark, leaving me with nothing once again.