This time, the pain didn't just sting — it snapped Eli awake.
The cold pressure of the water crushed around him, familiar and suffocating, that same old sensation of drowning threading through his ribs like a vice.
He could see it through the blur: Kairo's body jerking as dozens of those nightmare phantoms clawed at him, their red eyes burning in the dark like coals in a pit.
They looked even worse up close.
Not just shadows anymore but things — wet, skeletal, scaled hands dragging, tails whipping like eels.
Their skull-faces split open as they hissed, teeth like cracked coral snapping inches from Kairo's boots.
Eli's whole body tensed, but he couldn't move. Kairo's arm was still locked around him like a steel bar, keeping him pinned to his chest.
He wanted to speak. He wanted to scream.
"Do something."
But they were still under water, and his voice would be nothing but bubbles.
Completely useless.
