[4/30] Fear

It's 5:36pm, there's still time for one more dive

It's 5:36pm. The sun is will set soon, but there's still enough light for the dive. I really don't want to do this again tomorrow. So, I move to the diving platform and I put on the suit. I check my watch, gas, lights, everything I need for the dive. These new-age dive suits feel more like thick jackets now. I remember when they used to be clunkier.

I enter the water and everything feels as it should. It's cold around me but the warmth from the surface hasn't left me yet. I check everything once more, then I begin the descent.

My destination today is a ship wreck. Apparently, it holds clues to our past or something. Something worth exploring and seeing.

About halfway down, I hear a roar. It's faint though. I stop to look around. It's somewhere here but I don't see it. So, I press on.

Then it comes again. Louder this time. Not closer, just louder. But I still don't see it. So, I press on. Cautiously.

Should I go higher ? should I go deeper ? Where is it ? All I see is blue.

Then it comes again, like clockwork, the roar. I stop and check all my metrics again, hoping for an excuse not to go deeper.

But I couldn't find one. Okay, I'll just move slowly, hoping whatever it is, doesn't notice me. So I moved at one-tenth of the speed I was before.

Then I hear the roar again.

I can't do this. Enough. Fuck this.

I turn around and swam back as fast as my legs would allow me.

Back on the platform. Still in my dive suit.

Shit. That sucked.

My breath trying to chase the fear away. But fear was winning and the world was getting darker.

"Why'd you turn back?", I heard a voice next to me.

Right.

I’m not in the water.

I’m on the couch, in my living room, holding a PlayStation controller. My girlfriend next to me wondering why I randomly turned back on the mission.

It’s coming back to me now. I don’t have to contend with the creatures of the deep. My in-game character does.

But I got scared. So scared that I ran away. And yet, if I don't do that dive again, I won't progress.

That's true in life too, isn't it?

When fear finds us, everything sucks, we can't think. We can't breathe. We can't do anything.

But the only way is forward, through the fear. Because the alternative is worse. The alternative is being stuck in the same place for eternity.