The Tunnel

Walking through the water was more difficult than before. That slurry thing at the bottom held your feet and, the rest of it felt heavy on your body like it grabbed onto you.

You have to put even more effort than before to move through it.

Shall I say swim? But it was not swimming either you had to use your hands to drag yourself through the slurry around you while stepping with your feet one foot at a time through that concrete-like thick mess at the bottom.

I walked through it...NO.

I semi walked. Swam? Through it.

The slurry water went up to my neck at places I had to stick my head out, Keeping it away from the water, So my gas mask does not get ruined.

Holding the flashlight above the waterline, I continued like that.

But the more I went ahead, the more this slurry water raised before soon the slurry water went over my head. It was impossible even to swim in it and, I lost my footing. It just tried to drag me under, drowning me.

I tried to continue through it, Struggling to get out of it as it tried to swallow me.

I kicked. With my feet, I tried to jump upwards, But to no avail. I was Sinking.

I Struggled to keep my head above the slurry water, But I failed.

The slurry water got in the mask immediately water got in between the visor and my face. I couldn't see through the glass anymore.

Struggling to breathe, letting go of the torch in my hand, I removed the mask struggling to find the release, as the torch slowly fell to the bottom.

Once I found the release tab behind my head, I pulled on it. The mask came to lose and fail of my face immediately, letting the mask go as it fell to the bottom of the water slowly.

Although this struggle was a matter of minutes, It felt like a long time as I tried not to breathe. I felt my chest tighten up before I had a burning sensation throughout my body.

In the faint light of my headlamp, Nothing could be seen afar, It was all dark. I could not see anything except the small chunks of slurry thing floating in that water in front of me. I tried to get away, Struggling to try to get to the top of the water, Pushing, Kicking through as I tried to breathe.

But to no avail, I had given up, that's when I felt it as I managed to move a bit further under the water my hand hit something hard there was something in front of me, blocking the tunnel.

[Special Skill Requirements met]

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Activating the skill [Hand Of Destruction]

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I punched it repeatedly through the water aimlessly on the first hit on it, nothing happened, Nor on the second or third either but on the fourth hit, it moved a little before suddenly the water went rushing. I was being swept away in the current of water.

Finally, my head was out of the water gasping for air, heavily breathing. I have been, Swept away carried by the slurry water.

What was blocking the water was the carcass of the centipede-like monster that the other centipede-like monster I killed before was eating inside the tunnel. The water rushing through the tunnel swept away the carcass too.

Yet again, Struggling to stay afloat not to go underwater again, I tried to keep my neck over the water line breathing in the air pocket, Struggling to swim up paddling the foot, with my arms spread wide, trying to keep me on the surface.

The sound of the rushing water overwhelmed me. The only source of light that was my headlamp fell off. It went underwater. I couldn't recover it.

I couldn't see anything, soon the rushing sound of water was overwhelmed by the sound of water falling.

Soon after that, the end of the tunnel appeared. Light at the end of the tunnel. In the dark a bright glowing light.

Water rushed through it, The sound of water falling got more and more overwhelming, before the carcass of the centipede-like monster that was floating a bit ahead of me, went through the tunnel and disappeared below, I tried to swim backward, Against the current but to no avail, It swept me with it.

The bright light drew closer and closer, As I got past it.

The tunnel disappeared above me, I was falling.

I have once drowned before, After slipping into a river. People who were there saw me fall in and jumped after me to save me. That's how I got rescued.

I still get cold feet around large bodies of water. I am not comfortable around them.

But since then, I have learned to swim. Yet once again, I almost drowned and

Now I was about to die due to water.