Deep Down

Anna was doing math homework on the second floor when the earth opened up. She first noticed the pencils falling off her desk, and the trophies falling off her shelves. The house fell into the ground and left a hole where she once lived. Concrete and brick and splinters of wood crashed upon themselves in one swift motion.

Anna, still crouched in her room, saw no light peeking through the rubble. It was dark, and she was alone. Underneath the dust and shattered bricks, Anna crawled on her belly toward the soil. A sweet smell lured her in.

She crawled underneath large pillars of wood that once held up her home and her hands became dusty with fine remnants of drywall. She recognized a few torn open cardboard boxes that once belonged to her attic.

Anna brushed aside a labyrinth of tree roots, ones that had to below to the large sycamore in her front lawn. She kept going. Deeper and deeper into the soil, meeting old shoeboxes and giant worms. She tunneled until she hit rock. She touched the rock, which turned out to be limestone. “I can almost taste it.” She said to herself.

Anna used her dirty fingertips to pick away at the chalky white substance until she made an opening large enough to crawl through. She poked her head inside and the world around her was filled with green luminescence. Water trickled in a steady stream below, carrying large deposits of light.

Suddenly thirsty and overwhelmed with joy, she pulled the rest of her body through the hole fell twenty feet into the green water. She drank straight from the river, not even using her hands. Brown earth ran down the stream from her hair, her dirt caked legs, and the tattered clothes that clung to wet skin. She got to her feet and fell. She looked down and saw webbed, fleshy excuses for feet instead. Anna pulled herself up on hands and knees and crawled, following a stream of water.

A short distance later, maybe a quarter mile, Anna found the end of a large cave and a group of women. It reminded her of a cul-de-sac in the wealthy part of town, but instead of big houses and even taller walls, there is a pool of glowing green water and women perched on rocks. Getting closer, Anna can see that these women are old. Very old. Their skin is grey and bloated and their noses grow coarse hair on the outside. Their arms are considerably shorter than hers, and their legs come together in the middle.

The women are facing Anna.

They teach Anna how to find the softest rocks for sleeping and the biggest algae for eating. The water never rises and it never falls. Sometimes they go for a swim up the river, and sometimes they entertain the small fish that make their way down from the surface. One day, a woman she had grown particularly fond of pointed at a small river fish and said “You.” Anna smiled and shed the last of the clothing she still had on.

Slowly, Anna’s skin turned grey. Her belly grew bloated and her snout grew thick, prickly hair. The curly hair on top of her head fell out and her legs grew together at the knees.

Anna and her new friend grew together until one day they could swim all the way up to the surface, not even worrying about breathing air. The closer they came to the surface the darker the water became. The space between stone grew and the fish were more plentiful. When they saw sun beams up ahead, Anna and her friend floated to the surface. They stuck out their snouts and saw a family, all with two legs and full sets of clothing.