161 Meters Down

A Predator In The Water

Had it not been for the heat that touched her freezing wet lips, Kristina was sure that the cloak of coldness accompanied by the invitation of the abyss would have swallowed her whole.

Kristine's eyes were closed, wholly detached from the horrors brought by a myriad of possibilities surrounding them. Her hands linked with Lucas's firm ones as she held onto dear life. The force carried by the current was doing its best to tear them apart – yet Kristina refused to let go, not this time. Kristine did not want to let go for reasons, not of her own.

The chilly blue and black hue veil could not stop her heaving shoulders. The forceful pull into the depths of the sea did not deter Kristina's kicks through her fins as she tried her earnestness to cling onto her life support with her mask and tanks gone.

Hair splashed like a curtain of kelps around Kristina, yet the tickling sensation whipping the connected lips did not stop Kristina and Lucas from drawing life force from one another. As the other drew a breath, the other would blow, and if the latter would draw air, then the first one would blow – an equivalent exchange for survival.

Kristina could not inch herself away even when she freaked out the first time since a firm hand kept her nape from moving. Lucas's other hand hugged her waist, holding her body from being pulled away by the raging current.

Lucas's hands were so big that it felt powerful for Kristina, so powerful that she wanted everything to be a part of a nightmare that she would eventually forget once she opened her eyes.

Amid the darkness, as the last flicker of the artificial luminance faded into the abyss, two beating hearts ricocheted against each other. Like a compass in the middle of an eternal storm, somehow, Kristine did not know how, but the next thing she knew, after the give-and-take breath session, her lungs were bombarded by the sudden rush of air, which made her cough.

"You alright?" A pair of calloused hands gripped Kristina's jaws.

The deep rumble of Lucas's voice was the last thing that made Kristina freeze. The soft gush of air on her wet face made her open her eyes, followed by a sharp intake gasp.

Kristina flailed her hands, the splashes echoing inside the room. Familiar-looking ceiling made of white and blue paint, walls that were made of UL-752 Level 8 bullet-resistant glass, and the red blinking emergency light that provided the only light in the dim room; all of these were images that would lead to the conclusion that they were indeed back at the bottom level of the Poseidon Hotel.

Kristina turned her head around and found out that this was not the room where the hatch was located. It was the room where she was bounded in the chair, the unused storage room! She shifted her attention to Lucas, who was now inching away from her after making sure that she could manage independently. 

"The current brought us here? But how? And the water."

The water that Kristina could conclude to be as tall as her from the tiled floor, though she was now floating, it still reached her chest area.

Lucas did not answer Kristina. Instead, he turned from her and swam to the nearest pile of crates that protruded from the water, which overran the entire lower floor.

Upon sensing that she was not following him, Lucas looked back at her. "Are you going to stay there and let your pet fish eat you inside your pesky durable hotel, woman?"

With the mention of the apex predator that chewed her tanks to pieces, Kristina visibly flinched. The events that transpired inside the ruins were blurred in her restless mind, but one thing was for sure, she knew Rodolph well, the four-foot whitetip mako shark. And the circumference of the shark's body that almost got her was definitely not Rodolph.

'Then, is there a shark inside the premise of the hotel's waters? But how did I miss it?' A deep knot lodged between Kristina's brows as she recalled the last bit of memory before she closed her eyes.

"Kristina! Fucking swim!" Kristina's train of thought was cut off when Lucas yelled his lungs out. On instinct, Kristina's gaze snapped in his direction, only to see him climbing up the crates with his feet now an inch from the waters.

Kristina did not get why he was screaming as if there was a life and death situation; she realized it too late when Lucas's foot merely escaped with only a hairbreadth distance from a colossal gaping mouth of a shark that she damn well knew that it was not Rodolph.

With only a few meters away from the piles of crates, Kristina's body moved before her mind commanded it. The next thing she knew, she was swimming as a woman possessed. Her gaze remained fixated on the shelf, the next tall thing to the piles of crate that was above the water level.

"Damn it!"

Kristina heard Lucas spew his trademark profanities, but it was the least of her concerns, not when an apex predator was chasing her to death.

Gone was the nice and slow movement that she took pride in her strokes. All she was thinking was not dying to report what catastrophe had befallen the Poseidon Hotel's lowest floor. The splashes of water grew more extensive as the seconds ticked. Kristina's ears twitched at the movement she heard from behind her.

Perhaps it was human nature to look back, even when every logic told her to kick her fins with all her might. But what welcomed her was a sight that drained all the colors of her face.

The shark's fin was now approximately two meters behind her, judging by its fin. The waters parted for the colossal beast aiming at her.

"Kristina! Swim, you idiot!"

Lucas's voice snapped Kristina from her trance. With renewed vigor, cold sweat trickled down her wet chin.

'I need to live and tell the management that the earthquake caused severe damage here!' Kristina thought as she swam. With Kristina's life depending on it, the moment her fingers touched the edge of the shelf, her willingness to fight for her life doubled.

At this second, with the shark closing in, her fingers slipped.