BEN BRIAR

I reached out for her hand, my need to exert more bubbles; a sign that I was running out of oxygen. I clutched her wrist and pulled her to me. I held her and we floated to the surface. I was met with the rush of air which I reacted with breaths that sounded like outbursts.

Jennifer was unresponsive. I checked her pulse and shook her head a few times. She wouldn't wake up. The hypothermia was arresting her, putting her in a coma which was the best scenario that could come from her condition.

Val had stooped over to watch us. Why was he in his underwear like the rest of them? His face gave off the atmosphere that he didn't know us and was genuinely concerned for Jennifer, instead of faking it. I didn't buy it for a second.

Maybe he had forgotten who we were. Or he had become exceptional at lying through facial expressions. He had my father trapped in a bubble drifting above us. He had the upperhand by ridding us of the only powerhouse, the only variable worth the observation.

I noted, "Step back." But, I realised in that moment, I cared more about Jennifer than my father. My father who I had not seen for decades upon decades.

I had a girl in my arms who needed to be treated, who I had known since she was young. And it didn't matter if I had to ask my worst enemy for help. If he even was Val.

I couldn't possibly identify any major differences, but the way this man spoke, walked, was postured and his mannerisms were not those of the Val I knew and hated.

He was a tad bit more tan as well, but who wouldn't be with the sun that I had caught a glimpse of before. It was large, I could remember, and scoured the sky to be free of clouds.

"Is there any place she can get better?" I asked, "can you take us there?" Val, or the Nice Val, nodded and offered me a hand. I took it and he pulled us through the water as he ran towards a pipe, the same thing the crowd-surfing line was leading to.

I looked back at my father whose eyes glimmered with melancholy as he watched us leave him. Just as I had watched him leave for his last expedition.

And it was meant to be his last expedition before he stayed at home, played ball with me, watched me grow up, met my girlfriend, came to my graduation and saw me move out.

The life of a normal father. The ice wouldn't let him. It held onto him until he was frozen in it. And now he's here and I'm here and I didn't believe this would ever have happened if it wasn't for Val.

But the life of a girl is now in my hands, and it's the fault of Val to push her down the cliff with me.

"Find me when she is well!" my father called out to me. I gave one last look at him because I could no longer see him through the spraying water that I was being pulled through.

                                                                   ...

No words were shared between me and Nice Val while on the path to the huge pipe. I didn't feel like trying to work out the identity of the man and why he shared the same face as the man I loathed.

My arm was being strained from his pulling, but I needed to keep my pain tolerance to a maximum for Jennifer's sake.

The first stars appeared in the darkness of the night, and I realised that it must have been our world. I sobbed for I was even further away from home than I was in the Antarctic. Further might be in terms of time and this thought brought me more misery.

"Why do you cry like a baby?" Nice Val stopped at the pipe and let go of my hand which I reeled back underwater to massage. He opened up a glass panel over the head of the pipe.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"You hear, do you not?" he said, 'Why do you cry like a little baby?'" He held out his hands and gestured for me to give Jennifer to him. I used all of my strength to bring her out of the water and lift her up to him.

"I'm not crying. I am simply contemplating my predicament." He placed Jennifer onto an elevator floor within the pipeline.

"By crying," Nice Val repeated. He hopped into the pipe and I heard him land onto the elevator platform.

"Wait, how about me?" I asked. The glass panel closed automatically over the pipe. "Val? Val! VAAAAAAL!" The pipe was too tall to even reach the glass panel. I swam down and began to smash my fists against the glass. It was no use. Jennifer was in the care of a water walker now.