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He pulled on the dive hel, pulled his fins on, and dropped into the glowing red water

Stillness surrounded hiht, and out into the dark When he’d passed the edge of the suban to kick his way upward Or what he thought was up

Three hundred feet down, there was no light He quickly becao set in, and it seeh he was completely still

Flicking on a light did little good The red water gave nothing away He began to panic, knowinghim soon

What had he done?

He exhaled a cloud of bubbles Quite by accident, he noticed the direction they raced off in It see sideways, but his rational mind knew this was not the case The bubbles could only beupward The laws of nature could not be altered or tricked like his sense of balance

Forcing his an to follow the bubbles It felt like he ireat red pool of death, instead of upward

He kept going until histo nor for the surface as fast as he could

In his haste, Panos forgot about the ten- By the tirips of pain His knees, elbows, and back all felt as if they were cra up

Despite the pain, Panos broke the surface and stared at the evening sky for the first tiuessed it was almost dusk

He looked around High sandy walls rose up on every side He’d never seen them before He didn’t even knohere he was Arrivals and departures always took place under sedation They would fall asleep here and wake up on the island, or vice versa

Despite the pain in his joints, Panos an to swiot worse and was soon accoht that seeh his brain

Still, he fought on, eventually crawling out of the water and onto the sandy beach Heto a terraced wall of rock It rose no ht as well have been a mountain

How could he scale it? He couldn’t Not in this condition He tried to stand and then collapsed in agony

The sound of feet rushing toward hinaled his end But when a pair of hands lifted hily