Level Eight: Hydrophobia

"We can't watch him mope around like that forever, Cams," I brought up. I was only willing to catch Blake out of the corner of my eye. It's not that I didn't want to be there for him, and support him for the loss that I felt empty for myself, when he's spent years with her, but I didn't know how to. I was afraid of making everything worse, and I doubted that he'd want to see us anyway.

I hate knowing everything not to do, but not what to do. It's a tease to a proper solution that doesn't exist, and with that in mind, they're all irritating.

"I know you're right, Mars, but what am I supposed to do? I was holding the knife that made her bleed to her death," his eyes were shut, remembering every minor detail of what he had to do, that just didn't end up in his favor, or anyone's for the matter. "I think that if there's hope of cheering him up a little bit, it's gonna have to be you. You're probably the only one he can bear to look at right now, and I hate breathing knowing that he hates my guts, but what can I say? I made a mistake I didn't have room to make, and she died. That's on me. If he didn't hate me, that's when I'd be questioning things."

"You can't blame yourself either, you know that. You did the very best you could. What more could we ask for?" I pointed out, rubbing his back as I embraced him in a hug. "It's not like there's no hope. This gives us even more reason to pass this entire game and get it done. Then Shyrene will be back."

He smiled a sad smile. There wasn't much I could get out of him right now, and I was happy I even got that far, but we couldn't go any time without hearing Blake's cries in our background. The grief, the sorrow, the mourning, — all of it that he screamed from the top of his lungs, was loud and emotional enough to cover the loss of an entire crowd. I cleared my throat, not wanting to feel sorry of him so much that I'd shed tears myself. "Should I go talk to him?" I asked Camdyn.

"I think you should try to. I'll give you both privacy."

I nodded to let him know I heard him, and we parted ways. Getting closer to Blake cracked my heart every time I took a step, like it fell from the top of a cliff only to climb back up and fall right back down again. I've never seen the phrase "the higher up you are, the further the fall" so accurate and so deep. This time, it wasn't in terms of money, fame, or glory. His love for her was a drug, an addiction, if you will, and now, he's lost without her. He can't be him. He can't be the person he once was. He's torn in two. Part of him is missing.

"Blake I'm sorry—."

"I want to die," he blurted out when he heard my voice before I could say anything that he could make sense of. "This doesn't make any sense. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. I've never wanted to die this much in my life. At least before, when my days sucked I had Shyrene, this golden gem in front of silver carvings. Now what? What am I supposed to do?"

I debated on answering, but when I saw his face looking up for a split second, before he hid it again, looking down at his feet, I thought he might need a friend more than he needed advice. What he wanted was someone to sit next to him and listen. Not necessarily someone who would tell him everything will be okay when it's not right now, because that will only make him doubt that it's possible it ever will be. I considered myself to have made the right decision, when he picked up where he left off.

"I don't even believe that I'll go anywhere. I remember before I lived here in your head and I lived on an actual planet that spun on an actual axis, people believed we'd go to heaven or meet the ones we love again in the afterlife, and I went with it all, whatever I heard. None of us really know what happens when we die, do we? A lot of these beliefs differ so much from each other, but they have the same hope; that the end isn't really the end. Yet this fact remains the same: when we die, we can't tell anyone what happened to us, so no belief is set in stone. That means I can make my own belief.

"Mine is that it's all a defense mechanism. It's a way of coping with the end actually being the end, when the real truth is, when we die, we simply perish, back to the way it was before we existed, and before we were born, living no where else except in people's memories. Maybe one day God will come and bring us back to life from that deep sleep to a perfected world where we can live peacefully, but for now the end is simply the end and that could be how it is forever. Nothing more, nothing less. Not like I can believe in anything good anymore."

He shut his eyes, as if to picture that nothingness, and he was inhaling and exhaling, appearing to have gotten ahold of himself a bit better after opening himself up, but I had a feeling I knew what was more he was going to say, and it didn't comfort me. It got worse when he confirmed me as right.

"And you know what? It doesn't sound so bad; that deep unconsciousness. There's no thoughts there, so that means no misery or carrying so much weight on my shoulders. This isn't a corny or tragic story of Romeo and Juliet, and I don't want to die just to be with Shyrene. I don't believe that that's gonna happen. We won't cross paths because there's no paths to cross there. Life has always sucked, and I had my ways to make it a little more handle-able, but those ways aren't possible anymore I don't think. That place of thoughtlessness; I long for it, now that my future is trashed. After all, I don't want to go to earth by myself."

"Blake, please. If you bear it for just a little while longer, you can see Shyrene again. When this game is all over, you will. She would've loved to know that you fought for her; that you fought for your love, so that it had the time it needed to blossom into the entire garden that it is! Don't give up like this!" I urged him, trying to use phrases that would tug at his heart and make him want to stay in the race.

"That's not going to happen," he replied, without thinking hard about it, and my chest went numb. I was failing with a tactic that would be expected to be his weakness, but he was too firm on the direction he wanted to head, that even that weakness wasn't enough to convince him.

"Have faith in us, okay? You'll be able to live up all the dreams you ever planned, the bucket list you might make, and the future you have in store. Life and love both."

"And why would I have faith in you?" He raised his voice, and it nearly made me fall right to the floor out of the failure of my own two feet, because of his explosion that was so striking I thought about taking cover. It's as if he had to have been compressing it as we spoke to have that much boom to his yell. "I had faith in Camdyn and you, both. It wasn't even the size of a mustard grain, but it was there, and that was too much. It was faith that Shyrene would come out of that level alive because of you, and that you'd he saviors but look! Open your eyes, and see where I am now.

"I'm going to die too, Ell. You're not going to stop me."

LEVEL EIGHT HYDROPHOBIA,

FEAR OF WATER HAS BEEN LOADED

PLEASE WAIT FOR THE GAME TO BEGIN

"Well that's scary," I said the words on instinct. "Last time it targeted a fear that I could've bet money neither of us had, it ended up being a hella dreadful level."

Camdyn's breath hitched, with an accompanying scoff. "Like not all of the levels were dreadful?"

"That's not what I meant," I answered, with a look that proved just how done I was with the crap he keeps pulling.

"You remember that time we went swimming and we—." I abruptly stopped myself from going on when I realized what I was about to say: we shared this best kiss I could ever remember.

The vast bright sky reflected itself against the waters, faltered by the delicate waves. My legs were wrapped around his waist, and I knew even though I couldn't see us from a distance we looked like that couple. The one that got put on romance novels' covers, and the ones with an aesthetic that'd show up on Pinterest. We joked for hours after that that if we came with someone to take a picture of us, that it probably would've happened. That's the kind of relationship we had.

He noticed my stop when it lasted longer than I should've let it, and I saw it in his eyes; he knew exactly what I was thinking of. I finished it off with whatever would come to my head. Blake likely didn't want to be hearing a cringe love story anyway. Not at a time like this. "We had a race all the way out to the middle of the ocean that we couldn't see the shore? If someone's afraid of water we would know. It's not up for discussion."

Blake looked at me suspiciously. Pausing where I did didn't make any sense, and he was onto that, but he wasn't in the mood to put up with it, so he ended up pretending not to hear any of it. As ruthless as it is, sometimes someone's hardship works to your advantage. If Shyrene was here, it wouldn't be like that. She doesn't drop anything.

Oh, if Shyrene was here.

"Ah, yeah. Yeah, I remember that," Camdyn was flustered when I didn't say what he must've expected me to. He probably thought he was imagining things when that look of longing for that day in the past took control of my face. He was right, he didn't make it up, and I have no idea how to tell him that. Right now didn't seem like a good time though. Not when there was this glowing snow globe-like thing hovering over his head.

"Camdyn? That thing? Above your head?" I mentioned it in choppiness, doing nothing but pointing at it. His eyebrows creased whether he looked at me, or searched for what I followed with my finger. It moved, like it intended to hide from him, until it revealed itself like it was a time to play around. That thing had a life of its own, and man, did it seem content with its teasing.

"That thing above your head, Mister Sacar, is what we call a Memory-Trailer," someone spoke from what would be the sky if we had one, with that same thunderous voice from before. "We have three incidents of your encounters with water, and we've decided to let you choose which one you'd want to impact your level. You'll all be able to see snippets of these memories through this trailer before making your decision."

"You've had three bad incidents with water?" I exclaimed, but he was confused himself, not able to think up something that matched the anonymous person's declaration. That was enough to make me shut up, but when his shortened supposed-memories began playing from the bubble now between the circle we had formed, that shoved me into my place like the victim of an arcade's Whac-A-Mole. I glued myself to the ball that had the powers in the hands of the villain from the Princess movies, and kept both still and quiet. Through it, it was like watching the news.

"Camdyn Matsumoto Sacar, Japanese-born half Filipino, age 18, has been found facedown and unconscious in a backyard swimming pool, filled up below halfway early this Saturday morning. The family that had lived there had moved out three months ago, and it has been left empty since, other than this trespass. Investigators have not collected enough information to decipher the incident to be suicidal or homicidal, as other people being present at the crime scene has not been confirmed. However, people have said they'd be surprised that Sacar, not only an excellent swimmer but a man of good conduct, would either accidentally or purposely involve himself in a case like this on his own. He is currently at the Tagbilaran City Hospital, excepted to fortunately, make a full recovery."

Camdyn shuddered. Showing pictures from the incident and videos that were found at the time, I wanted to pity him, but our lives were counting down and Blake hasn't been a stable source for the lives that remained. I had to control myself or it'd be death for all of us. I tried to listen with only half my soul, like it would make a difference.

"Actually, I do remember waking up in the hospital when I was around that age. I still don't remember what happened or that I was ever in a pool. My dad kinda shrugged off the incident and never talked about it again. He didn't like that attention being drawn to us after Mom died and it was still new then. He still doesn't like it, but when I got out of the house I had to deal with those things myself."

My expression was the definition of an exclamation point, I knew for sure it was, but I kept my head down at the bubble, as not to draw attention to it. "How many times did you go through stuff like this?"

He didn't answer, his head down like mine. Maybe he shrugged. Maybe the fear was starting to get to him. I wouldn't know.

"An unidentified male, at about 18 years old, Anda tourist, said to have been currently living in Dauis by city-natives and passer-bys that have admitted to speaking with him, has been found in the bathtub at Casa Amihan Resort, unconscious, a thin rope tied from his neck to the shower knob. The room was not reserved to anyone or currently in use, and the suspect list is extremely limited. Last update we've gotten is he is receiving medical assistance and was on his way to the hospital by ambulance. We will have more details on his identity soon, according to hospital records."

"You just don't die, do you?" I joked, to ease the atmosphere that was pushing in at my neck, more for me than for the others.

He grinned, openly accepting the joke in the way I intended. "I guess not. Even if I tried, it doesn't work out for me."

Blake huffed, upset with it, which closed in the atmosphere again. "You and me both."

Maybe I was too soon to say something like that. I'm getting used to be selfish as Queen of the chess game, like Blake once said, and it's ripping my goodness in shreds.

"Camdyn Sacar, seven days short of 19 years, has been found in the men's restroom at Bohol Plaza, with his head shoved into the toilet, not breathing. After a series of tests, it's believed that he had been submerged repeatedly off and on for five or six minutes. There are signs of struggle on his wrists, his left shoulder, and a bash on his forehead, so it's understood that he fought with someone before he came to this outcome. However, there is no evidence of who this person could've been, and police are currently on the lookout. He has suffered no concussions, or other complications, but will be watched closely for the next few days at the city hospital."

"I remember this one, a little." Camdyn coughed, removing a lump from his throat. It affected him, watching news about him from the past, and I was near to giving in to how it tugged at my heart strings.

I asked the one question any would wonder, with eagerness, and I scoot closer to him when I did. "Who did it to you?"

"I don't know. It's blurry. I can't remember. The other two, I can't see at all. I was doing my own thing, and then everything went black and I'd wake up in a hospital."

"Who was the last person you were with?"

He didn't answer right away, thinking it over, and when realization came across his face, it wasn't out of excitement for finally understanding things, or creating possibilities. It was of disappointment, and dismay.

"It was your father, Mars. Soren, I mean. Every single time."

Self control, I thought to myself, self-control. This isn't the time to react bitterly so hastily .

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.