Chapter 133.

Chapter 133. Rosa’s Birthday (6/10)

If nobody else showed up, we’d have this entire place all to ourselves for the next four hours if we stayed until it closed at 10:00 PM.

“The view is so nice,” Alicia muttered to herself unconsciously when she turned my way and saw the view of the lit-up city over my left shoulder. There were glass windows for the four walls of the room so one could get a full panoramic view of the city down below. 

There also appeared to be four hot tubs, one at each corner of the roof near the glass windows. It looked like there was even a sauna room if you went down another set of stairs nearby. Aside from the few pillars in the vicinity to maintain structural integrity, the entire space was flat. Obviously, it was to maximize the view from outside.

Though Rosa hadn’t said anything, it was obvious she held a similar opinion to Alicia with the way she was staring over my right shoulder.

“Personally, I like the view of the sky and the pool better.” When I said that, the two of them turned around and examined it. It seemed they’d first taken notice of the outside view and hadn’t even noticed the dome or pool yet. I probably would have been the same if my gaze hadn’t locked onto them as soon as I climbed the stairs.

While the two became enraptured with the view I had been only moments ago I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes. 

Mixed in with the scent of chlorine was something else. An aroma, one that calmed you down and soothed your soul. It reminded me of the sea at night. Yes, a pool beside the saline sea at night, that's what I saw inside my head when my eyes were shut.

It was silent too. The only thing that could be heard were occasional droplets of water that splattered on the ground. The sound would echo out and reverberate through this enclosed sealed-off space.

Splash! Splash!

My eyes opened when I heard two splashes.

The two girls had jumped in disrupting the surface of the pool sending ripples out in all directions. The two sources of ripples in the formerly serene water overlapped together and added both constructively and destructively.

“Come on and get inside. The view is nice and all, but stop standing around with your eyes closed and enjoy the pool already,” Rosa chided.

“You’re right. We’ve only got so long before it closes. Might as well enjoy it.”

While I had my eyes shut, the two of them had already put their stuff down on two pool chairs off to one side.

I put my towel down beside their stuff and climbed into the shallow water. I left the two of them alone to their own devices and did my own thing. I took a deep breath and started floating on my back while watching the moon and stars in the sky.

While I admired the view, over time, my body drifted over to the deep end of the pool on its own. By that point, I heard the two girls start playing near the center of the pool closer to the shallow side. I peaked over and noticed they’d taken out a beach ball. They were volleying it back and forth between each other looking like they were having fun. 

I slowly exhaled out the air from my lungs until the average density of my body was below that of the water. When I reached that point both my head and body submerged beneath the surface water. The sound of them playing was drowned out as the water plugged my ears. The further I sank into the deep end with my listless body, the less I heard. It was dark down here, but I could still see the distorted stars and moon in the sky above the water. The only difference now was the way they rippled and moved. They were indistinct and sometimes even disappeared, but they always reappeared shortly after their momentary disappearance.

I sank deeper and deeper until eventually, my back and head hit the pool’s floor. I laid there unmoving like I was sleeping on a bed at the bottom of the pool.

In this place, there was only me. I could probably fall asleep here, but I’d die. I couldn’t stay here long enough to fall asleep though. At most I could stay a minute without any air. Sadly, I had to resurface.

I used to do this all the time when I was younger. Just sink to the bottom of the pool and stay there motionlessly. For some reason, I enjoyed simple little things like this when I was a child.

Why expend so much energy swimming in a swimming pool when you could just sink in it like a rock and enter a world of your own.

Nobody would see you there. Nobody would bother you since they didn’t know where you were. If I had a super long snorkel that reached the surface, I could just stay here forever. I’d ascend when I breathed in, but I’d sink back down when I exhaled out.

It was peaceful down here where the problems of the outside world could reach me inside this human-sized fish tank.

When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer I resurfaced by kicking off the bottom of the pool. Like a flash of lightning, I closed in on the surface and took in a deep breath of air.

When I caught my breath I just sank back down to the bottom. Amidst the brief periods of silence underwater, all sorts of ideas ran through my mind. Story ideas and events more specifically. Characters for those stories as well. How they’d interact, what they would do. Their relationships. Their dreams, aspirations, and goals. Their personal backstories. Their parents. How they were raised.

Speech patterns. Small nuances, quirks.

The things they saw growing up. Smells they liked. Tastes they enjoyed. What they were good at. What they were bad at. Strengths, weaknesses, flaws. Sceneries, backgrounds, conflicts. Enemies and allies. World events.

The composition of their world. The backstory behind how their world came into existence. The types of people and races that lived there. The politics. The struggle for survival and resources. 

While I was in this state, enjoying the feeling of repeatedly sinking to the bottom of the pool, I could see everything within that world fully. The entire world as it moved forward inside the confines of my head.

This was a moment of inspiration authors would sometimes fall into. I naturally took full advantage and drowned myself in it while I had the chance.

I don’t know how long had passed while in this strange state, but it felt like an eternity to me. It felt like years had flown by inside my head in a flash when in reality it might have only amounted to some tens of minutes or hours.

I extended my hand out beneath the water directly in front of my eyes and examined it. My fingers were pretty wrinkled. By how wrinkled they were, I figured it’d been at least an hour by now.

While I examined them a hand suddenly reached out and grabbed mine. I was startled and nearly sucked in water but just barely managed to avoid that. I tilted my head back and discovered it was Alicia who’d grabbed me by the hand.

She pointed up and kicked off the bottom of the pool dragging me along back to the surface.

“Haaaaaaah!” I sucked in a deep breath of air then immediately complained, “You scared the crap out of me. I thought something straight out of a horror movie was about to happen there.”

“Hahaha! Really? That’s what I was aiming for, but in the end, you kept a straight face. What a letdown.”

“I could have drowned, you know.”

“Then I would have just given you CPR.”

“Haaaah.” I let out a sigh and looked around the pool but didn’t see Rosa so I asked, “Where’d Rosa go?”

“She entered one of the hot tubs to relax.”

“Oh. I see. How long has it been already?”

“It’s only been an hour. We still have three hours.”

“Only an hour, huh. I thought it would have been longer than that.”

“By the way, what have you been doing this whole time? You keep disappearing for a minute at a time. Aren’t you bored staying on your own like this all the time? Why don’t you play with us?”

“I’m not bored, you know. I’ve been enjoying the scenery this entire time.”

“Scenery? What scenery can you enjoy under the pool?”

I pointed up.

She looked up but didn’t look convinced. “I mean the sky is pretty, but can you even see it down there?”

“You can, you know. Didn’t you see it when ascending to the surface just now?”

“No… I wasn’t paying attention to that... I was looking at you the entire time.”

“I see. How about trying it with me? Float on the surface of the water.” I positioned my arms under her and raised her body up.

“I-I can do it myself.” She stuttered out.

“Oh, okay.” I started floating on the surface of the water with my body facing the opposite direction as hers. Our heads were side by side.

“While you’re floating like that, exhale out air until your body begins to sink to the bottom of the pool. Keep looking straight up while you do.”

“Okay.”