Deep Water

When the sun goes down, Julie notices the glow of the stars overhead and the light of the jellyfish visible beneath them and wonders how Mother Nature can be both beautiful and cruel. Shane starts to worry that he will die, and makes Julie promise she will not let him die alone. He says his dad never hugged him or put his arm around him, and Shane feels responsible for his father’s death, since he sometimes wished his dad was dead. Julie keeps talking to him and tells him not to fall asleep. She realizes that although she hated Shane yesterday, she cannot imagine losing him now.

Julie flashes back to hearing Mr. Jordan and Shane argue before the charter left. Julie’s dad had promised them a secret, untouched reef, and had charged $2,000 for the dive, way more than the standard $400. Mr. Jordan had offered $5,000 for the tank coordinates, but Gibson confidently refused his offer, and Julie felt proud of her dad. She had stepped in to ask Mr. Jordan to pay up front, but when she counted the bills, she got a sinking feeling that things felt too rushed.

Shane spots a red flashing light on the horizon, and they decide that it is not a boat or plane, nor is it moving. Julie tries to use her marker to determine their speed, but the water is too deep, and she loses the marker. Julie decides they will need to swim crosscurrent if they hope to intercept whatever the light is attached to. Shane’s legs are numb, so Julie tries to pull them for a while, but when she checks her compass, it seems they have not moved.

Julie helps Shane pull his legs toward his chest, and after working them for a bit, Shane is able to kick a little. After swimming for an hour, their position seems better, but Julie still is not sure if they will pass close to the light. They decide to conserve energy until they get closer. At about a mile away from the light, Julie realizes it is an oil rig. Meanwhile, Shane is quickly succumbing to hypothermia and starting to hallucinate. This time, he is unable to get his arms moving, and is so disoriented that he does not understand Julie’s pleas to swim. She cannot imagine living with herself if she was to leave him behind, so she struggles to pull them toward the rig. As she draws near it, it seems silent and uninhabited. Julie sees they will pass within a hundred yards, but it is just out of reach. Shane is not responding, although he is still breathing. She stops swimming and resigns herself to death.

The next moment, Julie feels a mooring line touch her side and grabs hold of it. She pulls herself and Shane along the rope until it ascends to a platform on the rig. She will have to swim across the current to make it to the base of the rig and will not be able to pull Shane. Julie doubles the line and ties Shane to it; she promises to come back for him, but he does not answer. When she makes it to the understructure of the rig, Julie pulls herself onto a ledge, but barnacles cut into her hands even though she used her skinsuit fabric as makeshift gloves. She dangles for a moment before finding a foothold and pulls herself onto the platform with her remaining strength.

She rests for a moment but thinks of Shane down below and starts up a ladder along the side of the rig, her hands sticky with blood from the barnacles. One hundred feet above the water, she reaches an access point to the dock where Shane’s mooring line is tied. The rope is too heavy for her to pull, so she looks around for another way to bring him in.

Julie uses a manual-crank winch to lift Shane from the water to the level of the platform on which she stands. She counts the clicks of the gears to know how far to lift him. Next, as he swings over the water past the railing, she ties a rope to the winch rope and pulls until he dangles at her eye level, then cuts the rope. All Julie wants to do is stay lying on the deck while her hands throb, but she knows she and Shane need warmth and water. When she spots two lifeboats, she decides to look there for survival equipment.

Julie’s injured hands make everything difficult, but she climbs inside a lifeboat and gathers emergency blankets, bottled waters, and a first aid kit. She allows herself two small sips of water before heading back to Shane. He starts drinking water, and Julie helps him remove his wet clothing down to his swim trunks and wraps him in blankets. Julie heads back toward the lifeboat and is finally able to think about herself. She drinks more water, and knows she needs warmth and to clean the cuts on her hands. She strips off her wetsuit and pours alcohol first on her sea-lice-bitten legs, then on her bloody hands; the pain is unbearable, and she almost passes out. When the worst of the pain is over, she wraps her hands with gauze, covers herself in a blanket, and cries before falling asleep.