Chapter 34
In the partially lit blur of the birthing valley, John Sheppard was running out of air.
He had no idea how long the oxygen tank was meant to last, nor had he a clue how long he'd been in the water, but he found it increasingly difficult to breathe and figured the tank was almost depleted. He struggled, trying to get the Goh to notice something was wrong. Then he wondered if struggling would only hasten the emptying of the tank so took shallow breaths and tried to remain calm.
How long would it take for the Goh to realise he was once again dying? Would it be when his dead body turned cold? Would it be when he finally convulsed in search of air that would never again fill his lungs? Or would they continue to doggedly guide his lifeless body around and around the birthing valleys until it rotted away? None of the scenarios were particularly thrilling to entertain.
He was starting to worry now. His lungs were starving, his chest burning, trying to inflate from a vacuum while causing his rib cage to heave erratically. Though he tried to remain calm, and steady his breathing, he soon realised the tank was completely empty.
Fear tore through John like never before as he contorted and grabbed for the mask covering his face. To remove it would be to drown, to keep it on would be to suffocate and he liked the idea of neither. The Goh on his arms and hands powered their little limbs to keep them away from his face. No matter how John fought against them the Goh in such masses were stronger than him in his weakened state.
His struggling increased as his body jerked painfully in its quest for oxygen. Soon he was in full panic mode, fighting against the Goh, clawing at his face and neck, his brain firing messages to accessory muscles to help restart respiration that would never kick in. He could hear himself struggle, heard his own death in the thrashing of his limbs and the diminishing panicked noises in his throat that sounded dull and strange under the water.
Within minutes his mind began to dull. The panic soon became a distant annoyance; something rapidly becoming removed from his thoughts.
He was fading.
The jerking began to subside as his body finally gave up the fight. His brain kept on trying to secure his continued existence by sending all kinds of messages throughout his body to keep on fighting, but there just wasn't the oxygen in his blood to maintain the battle for survival. As a result his extremities twitched; arms, fingers, legs, all in ever decreasing intensity, just quivering nearing the end.
John vaguely noted a change in the movement of the Goh. Their speed had accelerated as if they had tired of the rapid natural movement of the water. It was a strange feeling as he could hardly feel the passing of the water but he felt a rhythmic and frantic beating on every inch of him as the Goh used their tiny limbs to propel themselves and him more speedily. The alternating changes from light to dark also sped up as he passed through luminescent tunnels into darkened ones more rapidly. John decided they had noticed he was running out of air after all.
He also decided that they were too late. He was going to die in these tunnels, he was sure.
Just as he thought his time had come, John felt some Goh converge around his head and tear the oxygen mask from his face as he felt himself torpedoed from water into air where he thrashed and gasped before he and a multitude of tiny Goh fell back into the water. He resurfaced and raised his face and breathed in so deeply he thought his lungs might explode. Gasping at the air, he was uncaring of the weird noises he made as his body came back to life from that first, yearned for breath. For long moments breathing was all he could think about; the surprising clearness of the movement of air through his airways, in and out, in and out, filling his greedy heaving lungs which filled to bursting.
When he eventually calmed and realised he wasn't going to die, John took note of where he now found himself. The space was approximately eight-feet wide with a hole-ridden dome of rock around four feet above him. Through the holes dank rushes of air blew and chilled the area. John trembled, only now noticing the icy coldness of the place. The rock was luminescent and he managed to make out many tiny Goh swimming around him in the water.
He wiped water from his face, his hand stalling over his now prominent cheekbones and sunken cheeks. He imagined he must look cadaverous and hurriedly patted around his body, realising just how malnourished he was due to the Goh's theft of his body's nutrients. He understood that although the Goh had somehow saved him, he still faced months of recuperation if he ever made it home.
Then it dawned on him that he might actually be more screwed than he first realised.
The Goh would have rushed him to the first area they knew they could find breathable air for him. What little he could remember of those hurried moments was how long it took to get him to this place. He wanted to believe it just seemed to take a while and seemed a long distance just because he'd been panicking. But with his wits about him now, he realised that this pocket of air might well be the only one in the valley, or at least, for some distance. If this was the case, he had no hope of ever reaching the surface and was stuck here in this dank cave.
It seemed he had traded death by drowning, for death by freezing. Yes, there was air coming in, but it was also freezing cold and he shivered and trembled as he bobbed in the water.
"Well that's just great," he said to himself, his voice husky and rough.
He was starting to lose hope of ever seeing Atlantis again when his attention was caught by a rather plump specimen of Goh that repeatedly jumped out of the water and splashed back. It was an adult, black in colour and far bigger than the little ones swimming around John.
"Primus?"
The creature swam towards him, undulating up and down as if in affirmative answer.
"I wish I could understand you, buddy. But, thanks for trying to save me."
The little creature started beating the water with one limb in a slow pattern of thumps. It took John some time to realise that Primus was beating words into the water with Morse code! He tried to concentrate while wondering exactly how the little thing even knew of the code. Even though John understood Morse code very well, he was still weak and his mind not working to full capacity. So he spoke aloud each word as Primus beat until sense could be made. When he got the word wrong, Primus would drop below the water and start again.
"I... learned... mister..."
Primus sank beneath the water then arose to start again.
"I ... learned... the... code... from... your... mind... Ahhh, now that's clever!"
Beat beat beat...
"The... grails...?"
Primus sank beneath the water then started again.
"The... Groten... attacked... What? Where? Did the others get out safely?!"
Beat beat beat...
It was a laborious and time consuming task, but Primus was able to inform John of what happened while he was unconscious. Primus explained that the oxygen tank was damaged during the rush to get him to safety when the Groten threatened to attack. It had slowly leaked the precious air that John depended on. Primus also told him that the Groten had attacked when the Jumper full of his friends was spotted and that all reports said his friends had survived and stopped what would have been a cull of the Goh.
Primus also informed him of his current situation.
The tunnel he was in was one of many such air bubbles. The problem was Primus didn't think John would be able to make it to the surface by using these bubbles as they were distanced too far apart.
"So what options do I have?"
Not many, John Sheppard. It would appear you are stuck here until your friends return.
"Here? As in, right here?"
There is little possibility of getting you back to the surface without drowning first.
John looked around his tiny, cold domain.
"I'll die of hypothermia if I stay here," he whispered as his teeth clattered and body shivered violently.
Primus disappeared beneath the water. The infant Goh followed it and John was left alone in his little bubble of stinking air. Unless the others returned for him he would spend the last moments of his life in this little hellhole dying yet another version of death. He was tired beyond words and becoming weaker by the minute. All the trembling muscles trying to keep him warm were burning through what little energy he had and several times John dropped beneath the water only to fight harder each time to resurface. If he didn't shake himself to death, he would most assuredly drown. Faced with these two possible ways to die, he decided that being consumed by the tiny babies of alien tadpole people almost seemed the better way to bite the bullet.
John lowered his head back and allowed his body to simply float upon the surface of the water. Though he still trembled with cold, it was easier to stay afloat this way and he cursed his dimmed wits for not thinking of it sooner. He stared up at the rock above him and could see tiny glimmers of light shine through one or two of the air providing holes. It was sky he could see through them, daylight from an alien sky he might never fully look upon.
He wasn't sad about this. He'd seen many an alien sky and though each had its own unique beauty, right then it was such a simple, almost insignificant thing to dwell upon. He didn't mind the fact he might never see another sunrise, might never gaze upon another unfamiliar star lit sky. What bothered him more about his current predicament was not what or who he might never see or experience again, it was that the one thing that might save Kerria, would die with him, and be the death of him.
But while he was at that moment incapable of seeing a way out of his predicament, a new fight for survival grew within him. From this growing fight came strength to keep on going, a will to beat this latest hurdle, and a need to get his sorry ass out of this particular difficulty. And so John Sheppard closed his eyes and whispered to himself about what he wasn't going to do.
He wasn't going to die trapped beneath the water of an alien planet he had never seen with his own eyes.
He wasn't going to entertain the notion that his final moments would be spent floating in a musty bubble of stale air while gazing at pinpricks of light in some mouldy old rock.
He wasn't going to leave for the heavens without somehow seeing Kerria one last time at the very least, and saving her, at the very most.
He wasn't going to give up, ever.
His friends had not given up on him. The Goh had not given up on him. He'd be damned if he was going to give up on himself. He would take the chance. With the help of the Goh he would get to the next air bubble, and the next, and the next after that and on until he reached the surface. And from there? Well, that would be the next hurdle, and he'd decide how to jump that one when he got there.
.
.
TBC...