Chapter One:
You're Special
"They told me, 'Son, you're special. You were born to do great things.'
You know what? They were right." -Jack
1960, Mid-Atlantic
I took a puff on my cigarette, watching the hypnotic trail of the tobacco smoke as it drifted up towards the ceiling from the lit end of the Camel. Exhaling, I fingered the cigarette, transferring the paper-wrapped stick of tobacco to my left hand as I picked up a brown leather wallet from the floor with my right. As I flipped it open, the faces of my parents stood out from a yellowed, black and white photograph in the sleeve of the wallet. The picture had been taken when I was younger, when I lived on the farm with Mom and Pop.
I didn't remember much about my parents, except that Pop and I weren't very close to each other. We'd never bonded in the way that a father and son were supposed to. Hell, I didn't even know if he actually cared about me. What a great dad.
Mom wasn't around much either. Said she didn't agree with Pop on some of his political beliefs. Pop was always talking about "escaping the common world", living in a place where we wouldn't be restrained by anyone or anything. Mom thought he was crazy.
I guess he was, in a way.
I set the wallet down on the floor of the plane, closing the two halves of leather. Next to my seat was a box, wrapped in blue gift paper with a red bow attached to it. I picked it up and looked at it, reading the note tucked under the ribbon.
To Jack, with love from Mom and Dad, the letter began. Would you kindly…
The Fasten Seat Belt light flickered on suddenly as the plane shuddered. What's going on? I wondered. More turbulence? Several passengers looked uneasy, glancing out the windows to see what was wrong. Without warning, the whole airplane tipped forward into a nosedive, the noise from the engines growing louder. In a panic, I gripped the edge of my seat for dear life, holding on as the screams from the passengers reached my ears.
A massive splash, then darkness.
When I came to, I was surrounded by water. The suffocating weight of the ocean pushed down on me. I couldn't breathe. Pain filled my lungs. Desperately, I reached out, swimming towards the surface of the ocean, about twenty feet over my head. Through the greenish water, I saw a handbag, containing a photograph and a pearl necklace. It floated down into the depths, trailing white pearls from its broken string.
I looked up, my lungs screaming for air. On the surface of the ocean, I could see flames coming from the wreckage of what had once been my airplane. The whole thing had crashed into the sea. One of the propellers of the plane sliced through the water not three yards away, still whirling like a child's spinning top. Part of the plane's fuselage broke off and sank past me as I thrashed to the surface, blackness threatening to enclose my senses.
I broke the surface of the water with a gasp, unable to move, I was so weak. Fire surrounded me as burning airplane fuel gushed into the ocean, enclosing the patch of ocean I was swimming through in a ring of flame. Up ahead, a stone tower with a bright light on its top rose out of the water, seemingly placed right in the middle of the ocean. Curiosity taking hold of my mind, I began to swim toward the structure. Sparks drifted down from the sky, hissing as they hit the water and were extinguished.
Paddling my way through the burning water, I came across the tail of the plane. Its light still blinked red, bathing the ocean in a crimson glow. With a rumbling noise, the tail sank into the depths, bubbles rising out of the water from the air inside. I swam my way to the tower, away from the plane wreck and the burning sea. A small dock, lit by flickering lamps, lay at the base of the tower, followed by a flight of concrete steps.
I pulled myself out of the cold water, gasping for breath, and retched onto the concrete. Water poured out of my mouth and dripped from my soaking clothes and hair, splashing onto the stone stairway. Unable to believe my luck at being alive, I took a few deep breaths and walked up the stairway. The stones were wet, and it was difficult to keep my balance as I took step after weary step, finally reaching an ornately carved door in the side of the stone tower.
I pushed the door open and staggered inside into darkness. Only a ray of light from the moon outside shone through the doorway, illuminating a patch of ground near my feet. The door swung shut behind me with a clang. I jumped and whirled around at the noise, but the tower had seemingly locked me inside. Behind me, lights flickered on, revealing a massive golden statue of a man gazing down at me, above a red banner that read, "No Gods or Kings. Only Man."
What the hell is this place? I asked myself, staring at the stern expression on the statue's face. There was another doorway ahead, so I walked towards it and stepped through, walking down another staircase and into a large room with a strange bronze-colored machine in the center. It looked like a submersible. Haunting violin music from the 60s played out through the room. I think it was La Mer, by Trenet. I'd heard it before on Pop's radio when I was a boy.
The door of the craft was open, as if it was expecting me. With no thought for safety, I stepped inside the machine. A lever reading "Bathysphere Control" was placed in the center. I pulled it back. There was a hissing noise as the door of the bathysphere sealed shut, and immediately, the bronze bubble began to descend into the depths of the sea.
Bubbles shot past the window as the cabin pressurized itself. A lamp on the side of the sub flashed on, shedding light on a sign that read "10 Fathoms". A carved statue held up the sign as it rose past me, but the machine was descending too fast for me to be able to take in the details. Another sign rose up in front of the window. It was 18 fathoms, from what I could see. Now if I only knew how deep a fathom was…