ASBO-Boy - The Drowned

Around him the oily water shifted and swayed with the tidal currents. The sea was rising again. These days, Swansea bay didn’t come in and go out, it rose up the sea wall and diminished again. Like the waters of the Nile, its progress was marked up against the side like the growth of a child against a doorframe. Each month it grew higher and higher.

Omen, suspended in water and staring up into the sky, watched the stars as they swam in and out of the clouds. This wasn’t his dream and he knew it. He didn’t need to pinch himself or pick up a book to know where he was, his dreams had always been a staple part of his identity – but now he was slipping into other people’s and he didn’t know why.

“I’m glad you came.” Said a voice. He looked up and saw a girl in a dark skin-suit. She was standing in silhouette, the light pollution from the city behind her glowing like a halo. She was standing on the surface of the water. He floundered and splashed to get nearer to her and she laughed. In the same way that he knew he was dreaming, he knew that he wasn’t dreaming her, she was real.

“Who are you?” He spluttered.

“I am…,” She began, “You wouldn’t know me.”

“Are you the voice? The one who speaks to me? Are you Pantheon?!”

She didn’t answer for a time, she just stood and looked down at him as he wasted energy treading water. Eventually, earnestly, she replied. “No. Follow me.”

She began to sink under the surface and as she went she took his hand. He held his breath for as long as he could and he heard her laugh, the sound echoing in the gloomy waters. Finally his lungs exploded and he inhaled a lungful of Swansea bay. At first it hurt, then he began to savour the taste of the sea, the power it seemed to give him.

“Good,” she said, her hand releasing his, “We’ve passed through. You’ll start thinking like him now.”

“Who?” he garbled, but all that came out was bubbles. She smiled and pointed. He followed her finger, his eyes adjusting to the light. Up ahead he could see a form in the water, swimming in barrel rolls, up and down, around and around for sheer joy. It reminded him of –

“Spout.” She said, watching him like a ghost.

Omen reeled back and tried desperately to swim upwards but he was caught in a downwards current. The girl grabbed his wrist again and they followed after Spout as he swam. Omen didn’t want to be seen, he didn’t want to be recognised. This was an invasion of privacy – to see someone else’s dreams! It was bad enough that this girl was in his, but for him to be in someone else’s, a friend’s – it was repulsive.

The girl’s face hardened as they swam onwards, their pace increased as she led them on, faster and faster. The environment changed, they passed a wall in the water, the roots of the dark stones rising up out of the sand. Spout swam down to the sand to inspect something – an anchor from one of the static ships – they were in the marina now.

There was a splash from above, muted yet distinct. Spout cast it a cursory glance then ignored it. The girl seemed to fade, her hand gribbed Omen’s like a cold clamp. Omen watched as the shape fell silently to the bottom of the marina and sat there. It was long and wrapped in plaster strips, weighted at one end. Spout swam over to investigate, running his hands along the bone white surface. Soon, there were more splashes and identical forms all hit the sand one after the other. Curious, baffled, scared – Spout began to investigate further, with his sharp nails he began to tear at the plaster and peel it apart.

Omen could feel the girl shaking, he was compelled to watch but the sense of horror and expectation grew with each passing moment. Ten, twenty, thirty; he lost count as the sand bed filled with cocoons. Desperately Spout’s fingers bit into the plaster and tore away at the shell until it burst apart in a cloud of watery dust and debris. Omen grimly squinted into the cloud, his eyes morbidly desperate for details, for closure.

“They lied to us.” The girl said and she seemed to speak with a chorus of voices, all the same but magnified by ten, twenty, thirty…

Spout reeled back and tore open another cocoon. Omen caught a glimpse of his face, frantic and fixed in an expression Omen had never seen. Soon the water was clouded with white smoke and everything disappeared. The girl held Omen’s hand and they began to rise, up and up until they were out of the water and standing on the quay-side. Figures dressed in dark clothes were scouring the water with long poles, they were speaking in raised whispers. Bubbles were rising from the water – something was happening beneath the surface that wasn’t meant to and they wanted it to stop. Omen looked up at the girl and for the first time he was able to see all of her face, each of her mousy features set in an unreadable mask of stone. He turned back to the water and watched as black shapes bobbed to the surface; the men dragged their nets desperately through the water as more and more black shapes appeared. One of them shouted – he’d snagged something. In an instant they were all struggling to pull whatever it was out of the water.

Like a tug of war, the men on the quay-side pulled and pulled until the surface erupted in flurry of splashes. They’d caught Spout and he was struggling with every ounce of strength he possessed. They dragged him up the side of the marina and over the cold stone and bundled him, kicking and screaming into the back of a van. Within moments, the vans were gone and the only evidence that remained were the black forms in the water.

“They lied to us,” the girl said again, her voice hollow and drenched in sorrow. Omen mustered all the strength he could to turn his head one last time. He had to know, he needed to know…

The oily skin of the marina’s filthy water lapped against the wall and Omen held his breath as he poured over every last detail. Forms became distinct. He saw limbs, he saw hair and ultimately he saw faces. But not different faces, the same face. Every body was identical and all of them looked like her.

“They lied to us.”

He was awake. The sound of water exploded somewhere behind him and he heard frantic footfalls on the floor of the caravan. The door slammed and Omen opened his eyes. The smells were familiar and all that was different was the layer of sweat on his skin. Omen tore away the quilts and sat up. The terrible truth burned in his chest like a molten stone, sitting on top of his stomach, smouldering away and eating him up. He stood up and paced for a moment, walking backwards and forwards aimlessly, his mind racing, unsure of how he could go on knowing what he knew. He looked over at Spout’s tank and the watery mess on the floor. He’d gone.

Omen slammed the door open and peered into the darkness. There was no one. Watery footprints led off into the moonlight but were soon dry and indistinct. Lost. Omen knew that he had to find him and fast or no-one would ever see him again. He felt like he’d committed a terrible crime. What he’d seen was beyond personal, it was an affront to everything he understood to mean right and good. He’d gone, unwillingly, but he’d gone into the place where everyone was truly alone. Something had changed, so much had been flipped on its head that he had to run – just run until he found Spout.

Luckily, it didn’t take long for his power to kick in. Omen ran out of the Circus field and onto the main road that ran up against the sea wall and led, eventually, to the Mumbles. Spout was lying at its base, all of his strength gone. Omen saw the chipped stone, how he’d try to scale the wall and escape to the sea. Spout shook in the tall grass, his blue scales glimmering in the moonlight. Omen could see now how much younger he’d been when he was captured, the boy they’d pulled out of the marina wasn’t this gangly wretch.

“You don’t want to go back there.” Omen muttered, his voice shaking.

Spout shook his head. It was true, the sea wasn’t the answer.

“It was all real, wasn’t it?”

Spout nodded. Omen was once accused of having seen something he shouldn’t have, something he hadn’t understood, but this – he wished more than anything he hadn’t seen this. He kneeled down and put his hand on Spout’s back. Through his hand he felt the shaking; unrelenting, unstoppable…

“I didn’t want to see – I didn’t mean to – ”

Spout spun around and for an instant Omen thought he was going to hit him, but he just wrapped his arms around Omen’s neck and wept.