Stopping is not an option. I can’t even slow myself down. Even my shoes are too wet to be of any use, if anything they just get in the way. I try to brace myself for each turn as they come, but they’re getting too unpredictable. At the start of the ride I could easily see the turns because the sunlight was shining through the walls of the tube, but the farther down I get, the darker everything becomes. It’s gotten to the point where I’m being thrown around harder and harder and the water keeps moving faster and faster. It doesn’t seem right. No slide would be designed this way. It’s not fun; it’s not even safe, and besides all that, it should have been over a long time ago.
I feel it suddenly, a surprising sensation, like the water is pushing me uphill. The wild turning has stopped; I’ve started zooming up a straight-a-way. The tube in front of me looks like it extends forever, and even though I’m clearly fighting gravity, I can distinctly feel myself speeding up, being pushed forward by the water as it puts on more and more speed.
As I near the top of the climb, I can feel the tube begin to curve gently downward in an elongated arch. My balls ache incessantly with the prolonged sensation of falling. I hate that feeling SO much. A grizzly, old trucker once told me how that feeling meant that your balls were in the devil’s ‘Yatzee-Cup’, which I always thought made the sensation feel even weirder.
The sensation of falling doesn’t stop. The tube isn’t leveling off, it just keeps turning downward until I’m in total freefall. I scream reflexively, letting a bit of water get inside me. I cough uncontrollably as I fight to clear my lungs. I’m trying to find a pocket of air to breathe but the water is all around me now like a downpour within a downpour. I pull my shirt away from my chest, slowly peeling it away like a second skin until the suction releases. I draw it over my face as a filter and indulge in one final lungful of air before I’m thrust underwater.
I’m being battered by a constant waterfall from above, sending me into somersaults, barrel-rolls, and everything in between. My clothes weigh me down and my shoes, especially, make it almost impossible to swim. The water and I are flowing within a confined space and the currents along the walls tend to move upward. I take advantage of that momentum and ride the flow back to the surface. By luck, my flailing arms catch onto something solid. Some sort of ledge? Yes! A solid platform, just above me. I grab onto it shakily and haul my body from the churning pool.
I catch my breath and take in my surroundings. The light is dim and I have a hard time making anything out at first. Eventually I piece together that I’m in a small room, about the size of my parent's closet. I'm standing on a thick, rubber platform no bigger than a doormat that extends partway over the churning waters that fill the base of the room. The only source of light is a dim glow from the slide which juts out from the ceiling and spews water in the shape of a column, like a roaring funnel. Other than the pool beneath me, the room is empty and featureless. There doesn’t seem to be any way out, besides the impossible option of returning up the slide, or following the water to where it drains from the pool.
I feel along the wall behind me for any sign of a door, but find nothing. I cover my ears to shut out some of the constant noise as I try to grapple with my complete lack of options.
It’s been a while, and I think I hear something new. An unnatural sounding tone, less chaotic than the roaring water. I’m not sure if it’s just my imagination or not, but I finally decide that it might not be a mirage, and uncover my ears to hear it more clearly. For a while I try to localize the sound, but I find that I can’t hear it anymore.
My mind starts to wander as I stare into the ever-flowing water. Where does all that water go? Is there any way out of here? Is anyone looking for me? Does anyone even remember me? I’ve lost track of time again; my legs are tired and my feet are getting sore from standing. I start to shift my weight between my legs and pivot about on my tiny perch in an attempt to get a bit of relief.
My heart stops in an instant, and I’m struck hard in the chest with the reflex to scream, but I’m too startled to breathe. I nearly fall back into the water as my mind struggles to make sense of what I see. The wall behind me has disappeared and an opening into complete darkness now stands in its place.
Experimentally, I reach my arm into the dark. I feel nothing. I pause for a moment before taking the first step away from my perch. As I do, I notice the sound of the waterfall shifting slightly in quality, as though it were having to expand to fill a much larger space.
I keep one hand on the wall beside me as I press deeper into the darkness. I cannot see at all. I’m being especially careful with my movements; I don’t know what lies ahead of me. I start to think about having to navigate for miles like this, about getting lost in underground sewers with no escape...
*FLASH*
I’m exposed! A dim, yellow-tinged light floods my surroundings. My heart catches in my throat as I take in the new visual information, fear paralyzing me. I’m startled yet again as I realize I’m not alone...
It takes me a moment to recognize the shape. It’s the body of a young man. He looks to be around my age, maybe a little older, perhaps thirteen, and he’s lying unconscious on the floor in soaking-wet clothes. The room we are in is nearly featureless and about the size of a two-car garage. It is divided into two chambers by an enormous, transparent wall of glass or acrylic. The young man is lying perpendicular to the glass wall, with his legs extending through two small openings at its base so that his bare feet are held securely within the opposite chamber, as though he were restrained within giant, transparent stocks. The gap between his legs and the glass is packed with a sticky looking black rubber, sort of like the butyl adhesive they use to seal headlights.
Suddenly the boy sits up with a jerk. He looks wobbly and unsteady and uses his arms to brace himself from falling backwards. Water seems to burble from the sides of his mouth as if he were drooling uncontrollably. I note that his eyes are flitting back and forth repeatedly, moving slowly in one direction before jerking rapidly in the other, and he doesn’t seem to notice that I am here.
“Hey… Are you alright?” I ask in a stark whisper, but he is unresponsive.
I place my hand on his shoulder and he jolts a bit with surprise before reaching out deftly into the air as if to try to find me. I grab his arm to steady him and he eagerly accepts it, leaning into me for support as his eyes slowly begin to cease their irregular movements.
Once his head seems to have cleared, he looks around with growing signs of terror, culminating in wide-eyed panic at the sight of his trapped legs. More than a gallon of water begins to pour smoothly from his gaping mouth as he attempts to scream. I jump backwards in surprise as he clutches at his mouth. I can see free-flowing currents of liquid spilling uncontrollably from his lips. Impossible amounts of water burst unrelentingly out from his mouth, squeezing past his clenched fingers, seemingly undeterred by his attempts to hold it back. He tries to speak, but only succeeds in producing a torrent of haunting, gurgling noises that send us both even deeper into the grips of panic. I’m worried he is drowning, that his lungs are filled with liquid, but other than being terrified he doesn’t seem to be struggling to breathe.
Before I have a chance to render assistance he closes his mouth, immediately stopping the outflow. and clenches his eyes, gritting his teeth, then he immediately begins to frantically pull at his legs in a feeble attempt to free himself from the glass wall, but his feet do not budge in the slightest. He hammers his fists repeatedly against the glass barrier and shakes his body in outrageous frustration but neither I nor he can seem to do anything to free him from his predicament.
I try to calm him down, but he rebuffs my efforts.
After exhausting all attempts to struggle and fight against his situation, he looks around the room again and hunches his body over into a weary heap, reaching his hands up to his head and clutching at his scalp, grabbing fists-full of hair in frustration, anger, and sorrow. I think he is beginning to cry when suddenly an opening appears in the wall of the other partition which sends him into renewed bouts of fevered panic. He grabs his left leg under his knee and pulls with all his might in a last-ditch effort to free himself, but the sticky, black, material that holds his legs in place barely yields. The seal it forms around his lightly-haired ankles seems unbreakable.
It’s clear that he is terrified by whatever is about to come through that opening. My own imagination is running wild with thoughts of what monstrous creature might be about to reveal itself and what it must intend to do that would scare this guy so deeply. I don’t want to admit it, but I am almost convinced that his feet are going to be eaten by a vicious monster