Hey all! Whistlebird again. Uhh… sorry for the long waits between chapters. I hope No one's too angry I've been so absorbed in getting ready for and then getting used to college that it's taken me a while to get back to writing anything. So here's the next chapter and back to Miles' perspective! Hope it's ok…

And I don't own any of the characters from Surface

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I wasn't sure but the impact as I hit the water must have knocked me unconscious for a second or two because I awoke to the very literal feeling of sinking. My first thoughts were of confusion. Where was I? A second ago I was… What was I…

Tiny bubbles left over from the surface slid up my arms and from my clothes. My limbs seemed to be trailing limply above me. As I opened my eyes I could see nothing but streaks of light upward and a murky darkness below. I felt somehow heavy, like I was being pulled downwards, deeper. And there was no resistance from me.

How had this happened? I wasn't thinking clearly… Umm… Dimly, I remembered a green light… I fell. Into my hometown…

My next thoughts were of how badly my back and legs burned where I must have hit. And my head ached, throbbing with the memory of something that had felt a whole lot like concrete. Wasn't water supposed to be a liquid? I might as well have fallen out of a car onto cracked pavement. I could hardly move. Dude, my back could be broken for all I knew. I could be paralyzed for life or something like that. How was I supposed to swim when I was paralyzed? For a second I started to panic—I was paralyzed, wasn't I? What would happen to me if that were true?? Where was Nim?

I continued to sink for what seemed like a millennia, straight into the cold depths. The surface light began to dim and the darkness rose to meet me. For a moment, it almost seemed calm, secure…distant from the cares of the world… My thoughts clouded over. Everything, everyone still up on that tower seemed so far away. For a second I began to forget again. Instinct… They were calling… I struggled to think.

And then a thought, entirely human and completely rational, entered my mind and I felt like I'd fallen headfirst into the water all over again.

How was I not dead?

I came back to myself almost painfully. Good question, Miles. Why are you not dead?

How long had I been down here? A few minutes? An hour? I should be long gone. Forget for a moment the fact that I'd just fallen more than ten feet into freezing cold tsunami water onto my back. Forget that I was now sinking in the direction of what could have been a street I'd walked over a thousand times in the time I'd lived here. Forget that that same street was now covered in I-didn't-know-how-many feet of water swarming with bigger Nims than I had ever seen. Whale sized man-eating Nims. I couldn't see any of them for the moment, but I could sense them, just as I could sense Nim somewhere above me. But forget all that for just a second. Here was the real question:

People don't breath underwater. How was I not dead??

I should be suffocating by now. I was so far below the surface of the water the pressure alone should be killing me and all I could think about was how much the impact with this ocean had hurt? How weird had my life gotten anyway? Where was Phil to joke all this away?

If I hadn't been forced into thinking so clearly—or at least I thought I was starting to think clearly—I would have played with the idea that I was living some kind messed up dream. Some crazy by-product of too many caffeinated sodas and chocolate pumpkins from Halloween six years ago, all before falling asleep watching some creepy science fiction Horror film. And Phil was drooling on the couch pillows. I mean, what else could cause me to dream up all this insane…whatever it was? Maybe I was really locked up somewhere with the men in white coats, just like what always happens in those movies they tell you not to watch.

No, this was real. I didn't know how, but I knew it was. The town was covered with tsunami water full of Nims and I had just fallen into it, leaving Caitlin and two complete strangers behind on top of the Chapel. And for some reason, I didn't need to breathe.

With an immense effort, I finally convinced myself to move. I wrenched my body into what I thought was an upright position. Well, at least I knew I wasn't paralyzed… I even almost managed to begin swimming with my arms, when my feet bumped something and I suddenly, with a bump, found myself half sitting, half floating on top of what must have been a roof.

I was sitting on a roof. Underwater. Where was the man with the video camera?

So I had finally reached the bottom. Now what? I had no clue what I was doing. I just sat, staring around at what I could see of the clouded, eerie remains of my town. It was dark. And I had no one but myself to keep me company, and the tingling fragments of non-human thoughts I could always feel hovering at the corners of my mind, now clearer and closer than ever. For some unexplainable reason, I didn't feel cold. Not in the least. I felt uneasy. Stubbornly, I ignored the strange green light emanating from around me, allowing me to see almost everything from my rooftop overlook.

This was a ghost town now. And I was the ghost.

Enough of this. I couldn't stand it down here any longer.

Guess I should try to get back to the top, I thought. I would have shivered as I thought of the people I had left up there. What would Caitlin think of me now? She already knew I was a freak. And I guess I had already spent a night underwater with all those Nim's…although I couldn't remember and probably didn't want to remember most of that. But really. Even a girl like her could only take so much. Heck, I wouldn't have wanted to be around me if I was going to get fried or covered in goo every other day.

And what about those strangers? I bet they'd seen what I did. I knew they didn't like Nim. What would they think of a dangerous kid that could zap people just like one of his kind? They'd throw me off the building again.

I brought my feet up with and effort and pushed off the roof with my feet anyway, rising quickly toward the surface. I wasn't getting anything done down here. If I stayed and thought crazy things any longer I might lose it again, grow scaly skin and swim off forgetting I'd ever been a person.

No. I hurriedly pushed that thought away, for the hundredth time. I was still a person. I was still human, wasn't I? So what if I could breathe underwater. My hands were still hands. My face was still my face.

The light began to brighten. I could tell I was coming nearer to the air again. Back again. How would they react? How long had it been?

Nim was in the water with me now, just a little ways up. I could feel him. And the others were not far away. And something else… what was it? Something else in the water… Not something alive, but something that was coming… Vaguely I could sense the tremor of it in their minds… I didn't know, but something told me I had better get to the surface quickly. Whatever it was it was coming fast.