Charlie’s Nightmares: The Inverted Pool

 Charles felt the warmth of the hot summer sun on his face. He turned his head from side to side to work the kink out of his neck and finally convinced himself to open his eyes. The brightness of the sun stung his eyes for a moment before they adjusted to the brightness. The shapes of the surrounding environment began to form as the blurry brightness softened. He was sitting on a large grey boulder and leaning up against another colossal rock. Grey and white rocks were all around him. There wasn’t a single piece of vegetation as far as he could see. The brightness of the sun and the lack of color was surreal. He looked up and was surprised at how pale the sky was. It was still blue, but really light blue. It wasn’t the vibrant blue he expected to see with the sun as bright as it was. It almost looked cloudy.

 He inhaled deeply and stifled a yawn as he stretched. He pushed himself to his feet and looked around. Still, all that he could see were white and grey rocks that seemed all the brighter in the high-noon sun.

“This is weird,” he commented to himself. “I wonder where I am and how I got here.”

He rubbed his forearm and grimaced slightly. The scratch on his arm still felt fresh even though it had been almost a month since he had sustained the injury. He didn’t understand why it didn’t want to heal. He pushed the wound from his mind, not wanting to recall the events surrounding its creation.

“Well,” he sighed. “This place doesn’t seem so bad compared to the last strange place I woke up in.”

Charles wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He turned in a full circle before deciding which direction to go. Directly ahead of the rock upon which he had been leaning was a strange formation sticking up on the horizon. He stared at it for a few moments trying to figure out what it was. Maybe it’s a building of some sort. But the image seemed to shift slightly, and the formation looked more like a large tree with a trunk that was concealed by its low hanging branches. Then the image shifted to look like an irregular rock formation. It seemed that every time Charles decided what the formation must be, it changed before his eyes. Some kind of weird optical illusion, I guess. Charles shrugged his shoulders in indifference and began the journey towards the formation.

The journey was difficult albeit well lit. The terrain before Charles was completely covered in rocks and boulders and not a single one of them smaller than the boy’s fist. It was more accurate to say the entire terrain was made up of rocks and boulders. Charles wasn’t sure there was anything like dirt underneath the rocks.

“If there is dirt under here, it’s strange that nothing managed to grow up through,” Charles answered his own unvoiced question. “I think I’m the only living thing around here.”

For now, the breeze whispered around him.

A chill ran down his spine as he looked from side to side in search of the source of the sinister voice. He saw nothing but couldn’t shake the thought that something was watching him from behind one of the boulders. He shrugged uneasily and continued his journey with a little more caution.

Sweat gathered on his forehead and rolled down his face as he walked. The droplets of perspiration hit the rocky path, accompanying the sound of Charlie’s footsteps with their own drips and drops. Charles rubbed his forearm across his face in an attempt to redirect some of the perspiration away from his eye. He gasped as the salty sweat stung the scratch on his arm.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed. “That stings.”

Perhaps it is time to put him out of his misery, the breeze whispered to an unseen third party.

But I am lonely, you know, a second voice hissed. And the company loves misery. Let him go for a while.

Charles froze in his tracks for a full minute and listened for more of the hushed conversation. All he heard was a clacking sound like that of two small rocks banging together. It clacked three times and went silent.

Charles shook his head thinking he must be imagining things and took off down the rocky path. The sun beat relentlessly down upon his shoulders and back. The heat that seemed so mild when he sat leaning against the boulder now seemed to intensify with every second. The teenager peered around every boulder looking for the invisible observers of his journey but to no avail. He didn’t know where he was going or how long he had been walking. Time seemed to obey different rules here in the land of rock and boulders.

“I guess I always took clocks for granted,” Charlie muttered. “I wish I had my watch on.”

Did he say he took clocks for granite? The question rode the hot breeze like a dried-out leaf that just lost its grip on the tree.

Do not be ridiculous, a raspy voice replied.  He is in no condition to pun.

“That’s it!” Charlies cried to the rocks around him. “Where are you? I can hear you, you know. Come out here where I can see you!”

And ruin all our fun? the voices hissed in unison. We think not.

Charles lunged towards a particularly large boulder thinking that the culprits were hide behind. They were not. Laughter erupted into the hot dry air as the boy’s shoulders drooped and his head shook in confusion. A particularly strong breeze tussled his shaggy brown hair. The boy’s head jerked to attention. This breeze was different. It was cool and crisp and smelled of water. It didn’t mock him with jeers and threats. It beckoned him to come and be refreshed. Charlie was eager to oblige. He was so hot and sticky from his trek across the unforgiving terrain. His tongue was dry from his heavy breathing and his shoulders burned under the unrelenting sun.

He jerked his head back and forth looking for the water that the cool breeze promised. He was so certain that it was there that he could practically taste it. The breeze tousled his hair as if it were the transparent hand of refreshment gently raking its fingers across the teenager’s scalp.

You are so tired and hot. I can make you feel better. I can refresh you. Follow me.

Charles did follow the breeze. He knew he could trust this breeze. The breeze led through the boulders, zigzagging here and there. Charles had no idea where they were going or where he had been. He lost sight of the reference structure without even realizing. He scrambled over rocks and ducked outcroppings and finally stumbled out onto the hard, smooth surface of a particularly large rock. The cool breeze evaporated in the hot sun as if to say You have arrived.

Charles walked across the rock until he reached the edge. He leaned forward and gazed at the glassy smooth surface of the most beautifully vibrant pool he had ever seen. This was the refreshment that the breeze had promised him. as I in answer to the teenager’s assumption, a quiet breeze rippled across the surface of the blue pool. Charles took that as an invitation. He took his shirt o and dropped it on the ground beneath him. He stepped out of his shoes and pushed his socks off his feet in turn with his big toes. He bent forward and rolled his pant legs up just below the knees. He walked to the edge off the rock, took a deep breath and jumped.

His heart beat in anticipation as he plunged feet first into the pool. The cool water enveloped his body. Charles sank as far as the momentum carried him and waited to float back to the surface. Instead of floating back to the surface, the teenager got the distinct feeling that he was actually sinking deeper into the pool. Charlie kicked his bare feet against his apparent descent in an attempt to propel himself back to the surface of the pool. He expected the water to get warmer as he got closer to the surface but instead, he felt the temperature of the water drop little by little as he kicked.

The teenagers mind clouded with confusion as his chest began to hurt. He opened his eyes in the water to get his bearings. He looked up expecting to see the light of the sun penetrating through the clear blue water but all he saw was darkness. He swirled his arms around in the water to reorient his body as he desperately searched for the surface of the pool. He turned his head frantically from one side to the other and caught a glimpse of the light in between his feet.

I’ve gotten myself turned around somehow, the boy thought. What I think is up is actually down.

He kicked and paddled in the water until he had turned himself around and started pushed forward until he realized that the light blue surface of the pool was once again beneath him. The aching in his lungs made it difficult for the young man to concentrate as he puzzled in is mind looking for a solution to his dire problem. He turned his body head for toe once again, but more slowly this time. This second attempt at reorientation didn’t afford the young man any better results. The surface of the pool was still unattainably at Charlie’s feet.

I guess I need to go down instead of up, Charlie surmised.  No! That can’t be right! Down is wrong! Up is right! Why would I go down when I jumped down into the pool? I tried up and up isn’t working! I'm dying for air. I have to try something different.

Charles shook his head against the argument in his mind and use his arms to propel himself downward towards the blue green surface of the pool. He kept his eyes open and watched between his feet to ensure that his body’s orientation (or was it the pool’s orientation) did not shift. He thought he could feel the water getting warmed as he pushed. He allowed himself to become cautiously optimistic as he continued the counter-intuitive exercise of swimming down to the surface of the pool.

Just as his bare feet were about to break the surface of the water, a movement to his far left caught his eye. He jerked his head around to see what had caught his attention and was unable to find the source of the movement. He looked back at his feet and found that he had drifted away from the surface of the pool again. He shook his head in frustration and pushed himself with renewed vigor back towards the surface of the pool. Once again, just as his feet were about to poke through the glassy surface, something distracted him. This time, something brushed across the small of his back. It wasn’t gentle either. It hurt. It hurt a lot.

Charles jerked around in the water in a movement that was half writhing in pain and half searching for the creature that had caused the pain. He clenched his teeth together fighting the urge to cry out.  He caught a glimpse of the creature just as it disappeared into the depths of the pool. It looked like an eel, but it was covered in shiny scales that glistened in the dime light. There was a fin that ran down the creature’s back that looked almost like the blade of a machete.

That thing must have cut my back! Charles thought as loudly as he could. I’ve gotta get outta here before it comes back!

He looked back at his feet and refocused on the surface of the pool. The blue green color was tinged red with the boy’s blood from the fresh wound on his back. With renewed vigor, Charles propelled himself toward the surface as quickly as he could. Suddenly, he felt the presence of the creature to his right. Without breaking pulling his gaze away from his intended destination, he balled his right hand into a fist and pushed his fist straight through the water as hard as he could. The youth’s knuckles connected with something hard, and the slithering tail of an eel retreated from the boy’s peripherals.

Charles unclenched his fist and pushed on towards the surface of the pool. He felt the presence of a blade eel behind him, so he spun around and caught the creature in the center of its scaly body. The creepy critter retreated, and the boy pressed on. Charlie’s lungs burned. His back stung. His arms ached. His knuckles were bruised. In short, Charles was exhausted.

If I don’t get out of here soon, I’m not going to make it.

Suddenly, Charles felt the presence of several blade eels. They were coming at him from all directions.

They’re gonna fillet me alive!

He knew he couldn’t take on more than one eel at a time. He pushed with all he had towards the surface of the pool. Finally, his bare feet broke the surface. As soon as his toes poked through, some kind of inverse gravity pulled his exhausted form from the pool. He made it just in time. As he was jerked from the water, he stared into the gnarly faces of no less than six blade eels.

Charles landed with a thud on the hardwood floor of his bedroom. He lay on the floor and gasped for air. His arms were limp at his side and seemed unwilling to move. He dragged the back of his hand across his furrowed brow. He looked at his bruised knuckles with recognition and confusion.

“I thought it was just a dream,” he sighed.

He lay sprawled out on the floor for a few minutes as he breathed heavily, flooding his aching lungs with oxygen. Finally, he rolled to his left and pushed himself onto his knees. He stopped short of standing to his feet. There on the floor, where he had been laying, was a six-inch streak of blood from the cut on his back. At the lower end of the streak, Charles saw a shiny metallic fragment that looked like the tip of a knife. He stared at it for a moment or two before the fragment evaporated in a wispy cloud of gray smoke leaving nothing but a void in the blood to give testament to its existence.

These are not your ordinary, everyday nightmares.