VALERY KONINGSBRUGGE

I felt the water splash over my feet a few times, the tide growing higher by the second. But I could not look past my memories for long. I saw glimpses of Molly, her promise to get help by venturing into the underwater station by herself. She told me through writing on stone with her whittled quill and decanter of ink that she kept in her seaweed pouch.

I tried to look around at the pipe but I couldn't. My concept of time was slipping through my fingers and I could move nowhere except in my memories. The iceberg could have melted by now and I would miss it.

What I could see was the sea, and the sky above it that dimmed from the clouds that covered the sun and the sun that opted to move around them. It became a backdrop to my memories and the only memories offered were the memories that involved the same shade of sun that I had encountered before but catalogued as a small element. For example, if I ever noticed the sun acting strongly against my bare back, those memories would explode in a calamity in my brain and I would be forced to pick one of them to watch until the next sun.

It was torture - mentally - self-caused by my missing recollection of events that accumulated towards my coronation as leader of the children that I cared for. Something peaked my interest in the reality of my situation. Molly had returned from the underwater station and my heart swelled with pride because she had found someone.

A man around my age wearing the strangest clothes, floated into view. He looked nimble in the water, but not as eloquent as a Floater. Floaters couldn't even breathe above water so he must not have been from either tribe. There was only one other tribe that didn't have any of our qualities or the Floaters's, and that was a Compeller.

I once believed that Compellers were a myth and told in stories to frighten the young. Water manipulation was unheard of and a superpower compared to our adaptations. Manipulating water does not help us adapt and this sound logic was what I directly knew as truth and nothing more.

The man in the water looked human and not as monstrous as the tales lead me to believe for I was once young and told these stories of brave Wayfarers and Floaters abolishing the tribe of Compellers. I grew up and I realised that there were no brave Wayfarers and Floaters, only politics and power withheld.

The man seemed like he had awoken from suspended animation because he was speaking all over the place. I couldn't hear one word he uttered because of the cursed memories sounding louder in my head than the words that should have entered my ears. He was talking to Molly and then back to me, and then to himself as I could tell from his facial expressions and where his half-formed sentences spewed towards.

Now, I seriously doubted that a crazy Compeller could give a nudge greater than the heavens to pull me from the gates of hell which were where my memories would be taking me if I could not pull away from them soon. I could go catatonic and I would stay in this position until I had nothing in my belly and no skin on my bones. Or my lips would go dry from the dehydration which was funny given what I have been standing on for my entire life.

But then a miracle happened and it was a testament to the tribe name of which I suspected this man belonged to. He compelled the water, shifting the waves into strands of liquid blue that elevated towards the sky. The strands filled the space around me and I tried to switch to my bodily functions to hold my breath as should all Wayfarers do if they find themselves losing their adaptation. It wasn't necessary because he had left a dome around my head which was dispensed with air from the outside.

The water capsule that he had formed from the sea beneath my feet, was so meticulously created with the breathing apparatus and mobility. I had been given my wish of being surrounded by water, but I would have enjoyed it more if I could look past my memories for longer. The water felt so different to anything I had felt before. It was cold and seeked every corner and inch of my body for refuge.

Then it hit me. I had no memories of being submerged in liquid other than the moment I was experiencing. I was free of my mind's prison and I began to breathe normally. I let out a sigh of relief and moved my wet hands to my face, splashing water on my tired expression.

The Compeller was about to let the water fall to help me be free of the capsule as well, but I refused.

"Wait, wait, wait," I told him, slowly falling asleep, "let me float in here for a while longer. Just bring me back to my pack..."