Drowning Lessons

The light sparkles and contorts over the water’s surface. I can see each ripple as it glides through the water. I lean my head back against the tile and stare up at the water. It’s been almost a year now and the feeling of fucking hell I’m breathing under water still hasn’t worn off. It’s honestly just gotten easier and easier. No headaches at all anymore. No mild hypothermia and no chlorine poisoning. Just a lot of time spent in pools and lakes and baths.
Unfortunately being able to breath underwater does not make me a better swimmer I’m too small or something and apparently being able to complete a race on one breath is so abnormal and disturbing that on my first gala I lost and was brought to the hospital. I don’t know why I even know why I wanted to be a swimmer, I guess everyone just wants to be good at something.
Someone swims directly over me and seeing me let all the air out of their lungs and splashed away in fright. I pushed myself to the surface and pretended to be gasping for breath even though I was perfectly fine.
“Fuck man, how long were you down there?” the swimmer gasped treading water a meter or so away.
“Not that long!” I panic, I hadn’t noticed the dude get in. “I’m trying to, uh, stay under for as long as I can… Training for um scuba diving…”
The guy looks like he’s thinking about it, trying to believe that I am a scuba diver or something. Suddenly his face drops, interest lost he grunts and swims away. I think this would be a good time to leave.
I face up in the shower and let the water surround me, fill my lungs and swim out again. I don’t know how it works, I don’t have gills I just breathe like others do, in and out of my nose and mouth. The water flows in and out of my lungs like air and it doesn’t feel any different. Honestly all I know is I can do this and other people can’t so I shouldn’t say anything.
When I walk in to the dressing room there are a few other guys there getting ready for a swim. “Hey Frank,” a man called Paul says. The others I don’t know but are huddled together in the corner. They keep looking over at me and whispering as I dress which makes me really uncomfortable. I can’t really hear what they’re saying but I got he’s short enough and he was called Frank. Panic and paranoia swept over me.
Dressed at an abnormal speed I run down the dark hallway and into the small car park. No one was behind me and I begin to think it’s all in my head. Whatever, I get into the car.
The drive back to my apartment is short and slow. It’s all inner city roads and red lights. My apartment is dark and cold and small. I sit by the tiny kitchen window and smoke, staring at the traffic bellow. I want a drink but I have work tomorrow.
I go to bed quietly. I don’t know what else to say about my life except that it looks to be normal other than the odd amount of time I spend in the pool.

Work the next day is average. I use the ancient fax machine in the back office for half the day and then eat at my desk next to Lizzy who writes her name as Lzzy when she’s not at work. My side of the office is known as “the punk side” because of mw, Lzzy and a man called Jack Barakat who just acts really unprofessional all the time.
Jack flicks a note onto my desk. Have you seen Alex recently? Alex was my old flatmate and Jack’s boyfriend. I haven’t spoken to him in, like, months.
“Nope, why?” I ask, I don’t feel like searching for paper without something important on it.
“I haven’t spoken to him in days…” He looks worried, “I mean he won’t answer my calls or texts… He won’t answer the door..”
Lzzy snorts with laughter on my other side, “Jack, you sound like a teenage girl.”
Jacks face stiffens and he turns away murmuring, “twelve days is a fucking long time.”

I went straight to the pool after work, brushing off offers to go out for drinks. I feel stressed as fuck after a week of work and I think that drinking heavily with co-workers would not help at all. Besides, an hour underwater always clears my head.
I’m the only one in the pool at half six on a Friday night. I lie meters beneath the surface staring straight up at the dodgy lights above as they get warped through the water. I only get out when my skin feels horrible and old. In the dressing room is the group of men from yesterday.
“Frank Iero?” one at the front says. When I nod two in the background exchange money. “You’re coming with us now.”
“No I’m not, who even are you?” I protest, an odd feeling washing over me.
“We are here to take you now,” one says and that’s the last thing I can recall.

I am surrounded by water when I finally regain consciousness. The room outside the giant… tank, is dark and large, only dimly lit by diodes and numbers on machines. I swim towards the tank and press on it. Lights come on all over the room. After less than a minute a tall man about five years older than me walks in.
He stands right in front of me smiling. I feel exposed, probably because I’m half naked in a tank. The man presses a panel on the glass and the tank begins to empty.
When all the water is gone the guy presses another panel and a pane of glass slides away.
“Hey Frank. My name is The Captain. I don’t want to hurt you or anything but if you come with me now, answer some questions and co-operate I’ll let you know why you’re here.”

The Captain gave me a black pair of pants and a black t-shirt. He apologised for making me wear a uniform but it’s okay because I wear this kind of clothes anyway. He leads me down a long, dark, brick hallway and into a room with one wall of glass panels and the other three of computer screens and diodes and binary code. A bunch of people all in white with clipboards are scattered about, some looking through the glass and scribbling, others looking at the screens and scribbling. The Captain gestures me towards the glass. Looking down all you can see is a metal table with a man lying on it in the centre of a large room. He has shaggy black hair and wires are connecting him to some machine under this room.
“This is Gerard Way, he has powers too,” The Captain says tapping the glass with a pen. “Gerard can steal your memories. Very interesting, actually. Not only do you no longer have those memories but they become his, he can look back on your childhood as fondly as you. More in fact because you can’t anymore. He is one of the most powerful people here therefore but also one of the most disturbed.” He turns away from the glass and gestures me across the hallway.
The next room is the mirror image of the last. Same amount of people just standing about writing things. I walk over to the glass and the Captain stands next to me. “This here is Jaime” The Captain says. A man stands in the middle of a blazing inferno, playing. He is lifting flames into the air and putting them out. He seems to have had wires attached to him but they’re all singed off. “He can control fire. We’re not really sure how or why but as of yet he can’t seem to create fire just move it and put it out. The government tried to use him as a human military weapon when we took him. See we don’t want these people to be under the governments control in case they become equally as corrupt. Powers like Jaime’s are as dangerous to himself as to those around him. Here we plan to rescue Jaime by taking his powers away. Same with Gerard, their powers are putting them at risk.”
The Captain turns away and I follow him away into the hall. We start walking past other doors where I’m sure there are other people with powers like me, being taken away.
“We are here, Frank, to save you. The government was aware of you and your powers. They were planning to exterminate you. We don’t want that to happen so I’m just going to remove your powers and send you back to your normal life,” The Captain stops walking and faces me. He’s grinning like he’s saying something good. He’s telling me he’s going to take away the only thing that makes me special.
“And what if I refuse,” I say testily staring up at the Captain.
His face drops, “That would not be advisable. Do you want to die? This is a matter as serious as that… no vanities.”
I glare up at him. I’m just about to argue when a woman comes running up the corridor. “He’s resisting!” she shouts and the Captain is already turning down that direction.
“Who?” he demands as he meets her, taking the clipboard.
“Andy. He’s fried the lab and is threatening to blow all our circuits,” she says but the last few words are spoken to his shadow.
“Take Mr. Iero to his room,” he says before slamming the door at the far end of the hall.
The woman is short, only a few inches taller than me, and very thin. Without saying a word to me she walks back in the direction of my water tank. We pass that room and walk through a pair of heavy wooden double doors. From there we take a maze of halls and stairs until we push through a set of double doors and into stark sunlight. There’s a gravel path that splits three ways. One goes down to, as far as I can see, a beach. Straight ahead is a brick building, similar to the one I just left. On the other side the path flows up into a huge stand of trees.
The woman shoves me forward because I’d stopped to stare up at the trees. We walk up several flights of stairs and down a single hall. Much less complicated than its equivalent I just came out of. “This is your room Mister Iero,” The woman says unlocking the door, “it’s been fitted out already just for you.”
I step in and she slams the door behind me. I hear it lock and she runs away back down the hall. My room looks like a cross between an asylum and a college dorm. There’s a small barred window looking out over the sea. There are two beds, one made and one that looks like someone just got out of it. There’s clothes all over the grey concrete floor on one side, all of which are black. There is a bedside locker by each bed and drawers between them. The walls are brick and there is a naked bulb.
I sit down on the made bed and stare out through the bars. What I would give to be swimming now and not sitting in an asylum like building. The whole place reminds me of the movie shutter island.
After what feels like a fucking long time the do`or opens. A figure dressed in black with brown hair slumps over to his bed and lies down.
“Alex?” I say.
The figure on the bed sits up and looks over at me through his bangs, “Frank Iero, is that you?”
“Yea man. What… How… Jack is worried about you,” is all I manage to say.
Alex looks out the window and his eyes glisten, “Yea I know. I can see him at my front door now.”
I glance over and Alex looks so… heart broken. “They took me here because apparently my power is a danger to myself, I can see far away not like go on fire or something.”
“I can breathe underwater,” I say because it feels like the time to say it.
Alex looks over at me, “that’s pretty awesome dude! I never thought of you as a swimmer.”
“Me neither to be honest. Hey, uh, how do these things work?” I ask nervously. I want to know specifically if it’ll hurt because Alex looks rather in pain.
“First they’ll do scans and shit y’know. See what part of you is different so they can target it. Then they’ll get you to reverse it so that it grows out of you and into the machine. That’s what they said anyway,” Alex rubs his face.
“Does it work?”
“I used to be able to see right into a galaxy next to ours…”
“And now?”
“I can’t really focus on the moon.”

Notes

Okay so first chapter, i'll be posting the rest as they're written and this one may be edited in the near future. :)