One second.
Five.
Ten.
It doesn’t.
My heart starts beating faster.
No-no-no-no.
I get up, frantically looking around, turning, searching and searching for him. Too much time has passed, but there is no sight of him.
“Kai,” I say quietly, my stomach turning.
“Kai,” I repeat louder, my voice echoing through the empty cavern.
My heart starts hammering.
He can’t hold his breath underwater that long, can he?
Is this a punishment?
Is it supposed to be a joke?
What if it’s some screwed-up revenge that he’s been plotting all these years to make me regret what I did for the rest of my life?
What if it’s an accident?
“Kai!” I shout, his name bouncing off the walls, the boat rocking under my feet as I spin around, my eyes searching the water.
My heart is beating so fast that it’s hard to breathe. Bile is rising in my chest, and I want to throw up. I am so scared.
What if he is gone?
The feeling comes back—that same feeling when I worked with my aunt in Alaska, helping her at her food stand at a local fair during spring break when the news of the Change came.
That same feeling that makes the world spin around.
That nasty feeling that makes you wanna throw up, and you do when you find out that the major cities were bombed, and your parents were in one of them. You have that hope that they were not there, but you know perfectly well that they were.
And they are gone…
The news comes on the TV stations, however, few are streaming.
It’s on the radio.
It echoes with the cell phone signal that one day goes dead. So does Wi-Fi.
It’s in the news that there are few survivors in the big cities.
And your hometown doesn’t exist anymore.
The memories and the feelings take me by storm. They bounce off the rocks around and above me that start closing down, suffocating me.
Panic spins the world around, simmers in the pit of my stomach, and I am free falling.
“Kai!” I scream.