ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY
This is a nonprofit work of fanfiction.
My character and plot belong to me. I do not own the My Hero Academia franchise, nor am I affiliated with Kohei Horikoshi.
THE NECESSARY END
'death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.'
—William Shakespeare
Have you ever been in zero gravity? I have, though just once. Without weight or resistance, I was caught in the air, floating, as if nothing could touch me. I was in space—no, I was still on planet earth—but it was if I had no weight. My unbuckled body hovered a few inches above my seat, my hands released the steering wheel and grasped at nothing, my hair drifted above my head just slightly; my battered vehicle was tumbling mid-air off the collapsing bridge in a free fall. In my weightless state I watched the sky through my clear sunroof window, a brilliant blue and mockingly heavenly on the day I should fall to my death.
I screamed, and I plunged.
Gravity hit me like a ton of bricks. I fell into my chair as my car landed into the water, wheels first. My head slammed into the steering wheel, and I reeled back, moaning, as blood immediately poured from the open wound and onto my finger tips. I couldn't breath, the wind was torn from my lungs on impact and my eyes were spinning in my sockets; my temples pounded and my ears screamed—as my car sank, sank, sank into indigo waters.
My side was burning, I must've broken my hip, or my leg, I couldn't tell but something was jutting out oddly under my skin and leaving me crippled in a rapidly sinking minivan. When my vision cleared a little more and I could hear past the ringing in my eardrums, I noticed the water that was soaking into my socks and seeping through cracks in my windshield. The seawater rushed in like it owned me—it entered cold and murky, stealing away the air that could save this fragile body. I could smell it, the dirty, polluted sea, foul and unclean. It was dark in the depths; I was sinking quickly.
I did what anyone else would do, I panicked. My mind was wild and unfocused, I must've had a really bad concussion, my bone was threatening to tear through my upper thigh, and I was going to die at the measly age of eighteen. My chest constricted in on itself and I twitched violently when the chilly water collected around my knees.
My panic attack didn't last long, but long enough for the liquid to reach my waist and continue flooding the car. However, above me was the sunroof, a glass door to freedom, and on my feet were a pair of flimsy heels.
When I bent over I was crying, sobbing from the pain. Something else in my right limb snapped, and I felt it through my whole body, pain, pain, pain, I saw black, mocking spots in my vision but I ripped the shoe off my left foot; I eased back into my original position. I ignored the tears streaming hopelessly down my bloody cheeks, mixing with the red and dripping on my white button-up.
I screamed again, guttural and desperate. Slam, slam, slam, the shoe against the sunroof window. Slam, slam, slam, not a dent in the glass. My shoulders shook and I futilely slammed the shoe again, only for it to ricochet back uselessly. With one more hit the heel broke off the sole, the cheap footwear now pointless, sending my only hope of escape down into oblivion. A sense of anguish, more so than pain, had taken rule of my heart. The water, so eerily murky and swimming with my blood, pooled under my chin; I lifted my neck to gulp the little remaining oxygen in my car. It was cold, it was dark, and I was alone—I took my last breath and the water slunk over my head.
The car was now full of water, and I was going to drown.
I had held my breath in a pool before, this wasn't like that. My lungs wanted so desperately to inhale, not caring if it was air or briny ocean. I was going to die; this realization sent shivers through my body once more. In moments I would float like the seaweed, nothing more than flesh and bones ready to decay in the currents and tides.
My knuckles were tearing and bleeding when I punched the unbreakable glass, and I knew this because the salt stung my hands like needles. My head was in the same state, the damage both inner and outer. I pushed my hands towards the window again, feeling for a crack, a hole, a break—feeling for the switch.
Adrenaline filled me with painful joy, and I clicked the small plastic piece.
It opened. The sunroof slid smoothly when the water pressure inside and outside the car had evened out; I pushed out of the roof, with weak, trembling forearms, the current pushing past me like a heavy wind.
I reached towards the surface, limbs moving like a ragged stuffed doll, mind losing focus faster than a child at a fun fair. Only there was no fun, only fear, fear enough to make me fight harder for the blurry light above me. I needed my head to break the surface before the strength could leave my body. I needed my movements to be calm and calculated—but my primitive reaction had taken control and I thrashed with no more mind than a monkey in a whirlpool.
My heart was hammering, increasing in intensity and speed, like a bird trapped in a cage. My throat seared in agony with the rising pressure of trapped air. My head pounded with panic, threatening to explode any second.
It wasn't fair. Fuck, the last thing it was was fair, because I could see the sun shining through the hazy waters, teasing me with the world above—my friends, my job, my home, my little brother, everything I've ever worked for—and the last thing I saw was that godawful blue.
I couldn't grasp my own thoughts anymore. The content of my head was little more than a spiral of wool, which was slowly turning as it unravelled. One more revolution, and the final strand would release, to allow my fragile mind to slip through the gap, and float slowly up and away.
Now I was drifting, drifting, drifting down through a bed of gently swaying strands of seaweed; icy cold water was thrust up my nostrils, a stream cascaded into the back of my throat and nose, sending jets of pain through my body. Slowly, the commotion and chaotic sounds of the sea drowned out to a low hum, which buzzed in my ears, gradually muting into silence, one with the inky darkness.
I gave up on the screaming, on the thrashing, and allowed the water to sink my body beneath the sea. As my vision blurred out and my consciousness faltered, my mind became numb. As my feet touched down on the ocean floor, I exhaled my final breath, which rose in a fascinating stream of bubbles back to the surface from whence it came.