The next thing Karza saw was the ocean. He was sitting on a rock along with 5 others. Sitting on the adjacent rock was his two close friends, Lily and Anita, whom he studied with back in secondary school. They were busy putting on a wetsuit in preparation for a dive. On the other rock he saw his best friend Andrea and a stranger white male with shoulder-length curly hair, also preparing for the dive.
There was another person, presumably the diving coach or the group leader, who had no face or body. His only presence was a medium-to-high pitch male voice.
“Let’s go,” said the voice.
Everyone jumped simultaneously into the water.
Unlike the scuba dives that Karza’d had before, the sea of this dive was lifeless. It had no fish or anemones, or even any sign of life. In compensation to the lively ocean however, this sea was full of caves and canyons. They looked just like the caves and canyons that could be found on land, but underwater.
The group was gliding above these canyons and caves. At this moment, Karza was feeling like a bird, a bird that could always just admire everything from above. He faced downwards and locked his eyes on the canyons.
How magnificent!
He was breath-taken by the view, but he also didn’t forget to pull his sight back once in a while to check up on the group that was slightly above him. Just like in real life, Karza felt the responsibility to keep track of the group although he wasn’t the leader of this dive. He just liked protecting people.
Unable to contain his curiosity, however, Karza descended onto one of the caves. It was just a random cave luckily chosen by him out of the million others in the ocean.
He saw the isles of stalactites, just like those inside the caves seen in documentaries. And in front of him was a narrow opening which could potentially lead to a smaller cave. He swiftly swam through the opening despite it clearly being only wide enough for his body and not the gas tank. But he didn’t question why.
The smaller cave was also kind of like the first cave, except the stalactite isles shrank in size proportionally and the bottom became sandy. There was a single clam shell on the sand. It was white and bright as a lamp. It had to be the nature’s way of saying welcome.
In front of him was yet another smaller opening. This time, however, the opening was clearly narrower than his skull and shorter than his shoulder’s width. But he still gave it no thought and amazingly he somehow passed through this opening effortlessly.
This even smaller cave had even smaller stalactite isles. But now Karza started feeling paranoid as he could no longer feel any ocean current in the cave. It was a dead pool of water. It had to mean that this was the dead end of the caves. Starting to feel nervous, Karza swam back out to reunite with his group.
As he exited the cave, the weather had changed drastically. A storm had approached with lightning and heavy downpour. The sea had become so rough that his vision was completed blocked by the swirling particulates. It was a complete chaos. He couldn’t even see his fingers, let alone his group.
He swam back to surface and through his fogged-up diving mask he saw two shadows drifting away from him. He assumed it was Andrea and her new friend although it could be anyone, or anything. The waves kept carrying them up and down – just like a roller coaster but less exciting and more worrisome. Another wave bore down on top of him and, when he tried to look for them again, they were gone.