[Todd]
I go up the spiral staircase and I stick my head up into the air bubble for a second and I realize. Viola's not here. I take another deep breath and swim down the spiral staircase. I look into the cathedral. And I see Viola. In the air pocket.
Oh, thank god.
But then she starts sinking.
What?
How?
Viola?
VIOLA!
She's not moving. She's just sinking. She's lying on her back, which is arched, limbs dangling. I swim up to her fast. I put my hand on her back and try to push her up. The water makes things lighter, so it's not hard to do one handed. I bring her up to the surface of the bubble, and I try to wake her up. I shake her, I yell at her, I even hit her across the face. She's not responding. I can't do anything about it. She won't wake up. My thoughts go messy. I have to get her to the surface.
I take a deep breath and I drag her down with me. Time slows down. I go up the spiral staircase and I put my head into the smaller air pocket. I go back down and I hold her up there for a second, cause if there's a chance she'll gat some air, I might as well. I pull her down, and I push her through the hole and I am quick to follow. I had to let go of her to get her out of the bell tower, so I grab back onto her, as If I was carrying a plank of wood or a ladder, and shoot strait for the surface a meter away, but it feels like a kilometer. And I know it's a strange thing to notice at a time like this, but the sun is blinding through the water.
I get to the surface and I put her in front of me and I push her back to the ledge where we were having lunch, and as I turn the corner of the top of the steeple, I see Lee already on my feet. "What happened? Todd? Viola?" I start balling up, and I don't know what to say, but I try to make my thoughts clearer so Lee can at least see. "I–I don't know." Is all I can manage with my mouth. "Oh my god. How did–" I put Viola on the ledge, and I remember something that Cillian taught me once.
I kneel down and put my lips to hers, hold her nose, and I try to force air into her lungs, make sure she's getting oxygen. I back up for a second, 'cause I feel her move, but as soon as I do she just starts violently coughing up water, sending spray everywhere. And for a second I think she wakes up. But it's just unconscious coughing.. And I hear the genuine terror in Lee's noise, and of course he's seeing everything through me so it's all blurry and confusing and it's his horror on top of my panic so it's only making it worse for him and Viola stops coughing so I go back down and try again to get some air into her lungs but I don't know if it's working so I just give up and I think We've got to get back to land, so I put her on our pathetic little rubber boat, and Lee follows.
I frantically paddle with the oars, and Lee, in an obvious panic, flails his hands at the water in the back. I just can't think of anything to say or do or anything, so I just oar. That's my job. That's my part in saving her.
We get to land Lee, almost like he's prepared, gets out first and stabilizes the boat as I get out and lift Viola up and carry her our into our yard as fast as I can holding a person, and me and Lee screaming for Ben all the way. Just as I get to the point where I'm about to put her down, Ben comes through the front of the house, his noise confused. But he sees Viola on the floor and hears Lee's noise and mine, and he just gets to his knees. "Oh no… How'd this happen?" and I show him and he looks at me the whole time with a terrible look on his face and he just crawls over to her and does that CPR thing and she's still not waking up and I don't know if she will but is she dead? Is she still alive? She doesn't have noise so I can't tell by that and she isn't breathing but that doesn't mean she's dead. Does it?
Then she just starts spitting up water again and I don't know what to do and Ben must hear my confusion and he looks and me, not bending over anymore and just letting Viola cough. "Go get help!" I realize my goggles are still on, for some reason, and I take them off and I run up the hill to the medical tents. All the plants on the path whizz by, and every thing is streaky and fast. I trip on a rock, and my nose starts. But I can't let that stop me. I get up and I start running again, and I get to the medical tents.
I run into the closest one, and I scream for help. I don't know anything else to do. I just scream "She's drowning! She's drowning!" over and over and I feel like and Idiot, but the healers and the doctors both Human and Spackle must hear the franticness in my noise or my voice of both 'cause they look at me and I run back to the house and the follow me. I get back and Ben's doing the CPR thing again and Lee is stiff and Ben is trying to hide the panic in his noise and I try to look at her but I can't because it hurts too much.
The healers and doctors come a second after me, and come and ask me what happened and I tell them in a rushed but also reluctant way and then they ask me how long ago and I tell them, and one of Spackle doctors runs back up the hill and one of the healers goes to Viola's side and stops Ben and then gets right to doing the same thing he was, and a male doctor asks me more questions about what happened and I just show him my noise and the Spackle doctors comes back down with a stretcher and some contraption hooked up to a tank. Two other healers lift Viola, unconsciously coughing now, onto the stretcher and the doctor who was talking to me puts one end of the contraption, which is a mask, onto her face and opens the valve on the tank, and they all take the stretcher back up the hill.
One healer stays behind and she talks to us about what they have to do to her, and when we can see her, and I'm not listening 'cause I want to follow the stretcher going up the hill but I'm frozen, just frozen so I can't. But I can't, especially after the healer starts talking about "chance of survival." 'Cause I remember the when she was shot, when she almost died, and I ask myself about her chances of not dying a second time, and it doesn't look good, and I don't know if I would be able to take it.