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The lights flick on automatically as Team steps out of the locker room. The nervous thrum of rebellion courses through his veins. He steps up on the diving block, and his head abruptly clears. All his thoughts fly away, and he’s confronted with the reality of lazily lapping water feet from his face. He takes a shaky breath in, willing away the beginnings of flashbacks. Willing himself to focus on the present, and not get lost in the past.
The buzzing of fluorescent lights lets a pleasant static fill his brain. He takes a few more calculated breaths, then crouches down into a diving position, and springs off. His hands cut through the water and he lets muscle memory take over. He propels himself with the dive as far as he can until he inevitably surfaces. His legs burn in the best way as he kicks wildly. He feels good about this. He reaches the end of 50 meters and whips his head to the clock.
32 seconds.
Fuck . He did better than that in goddamn middle school.
He shakes it off with a roll of the shoulders. Determined not to leave until he pushed his time at least under 27. Even running on 4 hours of sleep he should be able to get under 27. He allows himself one more frustrated huff before pushing off the smooth tile and going again.
34 seconds.
Team wants to scream. His cotton-filled head was too tired to take into account the lack of dive, and how it would negatively impact his time. He was too fixated on that arbitrary number. 27. He can’t stop until he’s under 27. He goes again.
33.
Again.
31. Again.
36. Fuck . Again.
33. He’s getting dangerously tired, and logically Team knows he should stop. He’s trained for sprints, and right now he’s basically endurance training. It’s ridiculous to expect to beat his previous times now that his muscles are tired and strained, but he still berates himself. He should be better than this. He needs to be better than this. Again .
He’s about halfway down the pool when his left leg suddenly seizes up in sudden pain. Immediately he’s 9 years old again, and petrified. Primal instinct makes him flap his arms wildly, trying his best to pull himself above water, but he keeps bobbing back under, his leg dead weight under him. His brain is torn between the present and the past, and reality is hard to discern. Logically he knows to hold his breath, but some deeper instinct forces his jaw open and he gulps in a mouthful of water. His lungs scream in protest, and his throat closes up. It feels someone has forced broken glass down his throat. His chest is on fire, and he doesn’t know if he’s ever been in this much pain before.
His eyes burn, and he thinks he may be crying, his tears mixing with the water completely unoticable. His whole body begins to feel heavy, as if he’s falling into a deep sleep. He still tries to struggle, stil tries to kick and pull himself up, but his body isn’t responding anymore which may scare him more than anything else.
This is it , Team thinks. It takes less than 60 seconds to drown, and Team feels like he’s been submerged for hours.
There’s so much he still wants to do, so much he still needs to experience. He hasn’t gotten to live yet, not really. Sour regret floods his senses. His life doesn’t flash before his eyes, instead he sees the people he loves the most in this world. His parents. His brother. Pharm. Manaow. Hia Win. He’s so sorry he won’t get to say goodbye.
Darkness threatens the edge of vision. And a blanket of calm stifles his terror. He takes a second to appreciate the beams of light filtering through the teal water. Unwillingly his eyes slip shut.