Diving under the risen sea had been simpler at the beginning, when the water met the roofline of the coastal mansions. They could dock their boat there, and he could step onto the tops of the houses, dropping in through skylights. He brought up fistfuls of treasure–loops of necklaces, sharp knives, canned food, all ammunition for bartering wars at the new coastline, where their rugged tense settlement awaited.
He always dove at night, and she waited in the boat, keeping watch of his tethering line. The stars were brilliant, and constellations reflected on the inky black mirror of the ocean beneath her. They couldn’t dive in the day, the sun was scorching–most of the new world was nocturnal, everyone sleeping fitfully under their makeshift shelters from sunrise to sunset.
During breaches–the precious moments he would emerge again to refill his tank and deposit the items in the bottom of their boat–he told her about the houses. They were once playgrounds for the wealthy, dozens of rooms stocked with old world entertainment: waterlogged technology, cracked screens, disintegrating artwork. Storage spaces piled high with food now soaked through and rotted. The new coral had taken over, coating the walls, and sea creatures turned the houses into their homes. The fish darted away at his approach, while crustaceans raised their claws defensively. They let him pass by unharmed, sensing his desire for things of human usefulness, old metal and sealed goods–the clutter from the previous tenants, some of whom still remained as salt-coated skeletons.
She loved these minutes, the conversations held in the true privacy of their boat, their rugged skin bathed in cold moonlight. They sorted their treasures, hands brushing against each other, his wrinkled from the water, hers pulsing with warmth.
They found each other the way anyone did in the new world–by proximity. They were children together in a small group home at the settlement. There was little to talk about outside of survival, but they were kind to each other. A tiny, bright bit of tenderness in an increasingly brutal world. They partnered as soon as they could, and learned their trade, and fell into a comfortable understanding. A deep connection, the kind that only forms when two lives twist together like vines, with a shared root and no way to survive without the other. She kept the boat steady when he stepped out and in. They sorted their haul together, and bartered as a pair. Now, though, the water had continued to rise, and the homes were further below. She balanced the boat as he dove over the side and watched the tether slip fluidly under the surface. Every time he left, she was aware it could be the last time she saw him, and she gripped the side of the boat with tight fingers, mourning him as soon as she lost sight of his diving figure. She couldn’t imagine going back to the settlement alone. Never mind the idea of starting over with a new partner. There was no guarantee of kindness, of usefulness, and a bad partner was a death sentence.
Instead she stared into the mirrored water, counting the speckles of stars, taking note of the creatures swimming by–large sleek fins and cresting dark bodies, unnamed but there all the same.
On the last night, they watched the sunset over the water and pushed the boat out. The ocean and sky faded together, becoming the same pale lavender shade, and as they drifted out she could no longer tell where the water ended or the sky began. They pushed the oars in unison, listening to the light slap of them against the water.
They reached their destination, marked only by the faintest dark blocky shape below. He kissed her deeply, and a warm animal feeling stirred in her body, something that she knew was always thrumming under her surface, just distant.
He disappeared under the water, the tether sliding behind him. Stars were shining faintly above her. She watched his form disappear into the rectangular building below, and kept her eyes trained to it as the water grew darker and darker. Then, her reflection. Salt-scrubbed skin, raw and callused in alternating places. Hair broken off and frayed. All in sharp contrast with the ring on her finger, the huge diamond.
He found it on the tenth dive, at what they knew to be a former celebrity’s home. They had discovered early that only necklaces held value as jewelry–they could be useful in construction and clothing. The bracelets and rings they had brought to trade were nearly worthless, a handful of dried beans of each.
But he brought a ring up anyway, a wildly sparkling diamond larger than one of her fingernails, on a thick gold band. He put it on her hand as he floated in the water, pressed against the edge of the boat, a brilliant smile on his face. They had laughed at the outrageous gesture–a diamond at the end of the old world, when it should have had no meaning. It hurt when he put it on, the salt burning the cracks in her skin, but she couldn’t bear the thought of removing it either. The moonlight reflected off of it, making the stone dance silver-white. Her only friend back at the settlement had admired it when they traded after the tenth dive. She told her how lucky it was to have a partner interested in happiness, however fleeting.
The friend’s partner had died the week after, an unshakeable cough lodged in his lungs. Then her friend had gone too, simply disappeared somewhere on the new coast, where hot sand and venomous lizards reigned.
She watched the tether shiver against the boat and wondered what he was doing. Breaking a window, perhaps, or moving a piece of furniture. She had seen the old world in faded magazines, the marble countertops and geometric tables and chairs. Beds piled high with soft fabric, something she dreamed of often as she slept on their thin stack of mats and blankets. She wished she could have something like that for him, a soft cold place to land after diving and rowing and bartering, an antithesis to the salt and heat.
He was due for a breach, now, any moment. She touched the tether, feeling for a telltale thrum of activity. Nothing. She gave it a gentle tug, and her heart raced into her throat when it lifted effortlessly. Weightless. He wasn’t attached.
She pulled the tether harder, yanking it up through the water, gasping in night air. There, the end of it. Threads frayed and broken. Had it ripped open on a piece of glass? Had he cut it himself, to free a tangle?
Or worse. She pictured large crustaceans, hungry in the depths of the mansion where fish didn’t traverse. Sharks, with razor teeth, gliding silently in the dark.
Or nothing like that, nothing at all–he got stuck, cut himself free, would emerge at any moment. She pictured him swimming down a concrete hallway, passing by disintegrating paintings, pushing up through doorways and windows before drifting back up to her. She tossed the tether back in so he could find the end and use it to pull himself up. Any moment now.
But it wasn’t happening. The sea was dark, silent below her. She was suddenly aware of all the bodies in the water. The graveyard of the old world. The skeletons he had seen, tangled up on balcony railings or pressed up against ceilings. She wondered if any were in those pillow-topped beds, forever sleeping in what the living could no longer have.
Hours went by this way. She wrenched the ring around on her finger until her skin cracked and bled. The sun was rising, a faint orange swipe on the horizon, finally identifying the line between the sky and the sea. He was dead. Out of oxygen.
She looked back at the new coastline. The settlement was faint in the distance, an outcropping of buildings, faint lights. They were preparing to sleep. She would be coming back, alone, to an unconscious and fragile civilization, with a bloodied diamond on her finger. Coming back without him.
She turned back to the horizon. The sun, rising to scorch the landscape again. She slowly dipped her hand into the sea, wincing as the salt water hit the ragged openings on her finger. It hurt just for a moment, and then felt cool. Soft, even.
She slipped over the side of the boat and clung on with her fingertips, watching her diamond flash orange in the sunlight, more brilliant than she had ever seen it before. The water was still cold with night, gentle against her, the salt promising to lower her softly. Not a sinking, but a drifting. Down to him.
She let go and joined the tender sea.
Erin is a writer from Oregon and currently lives in California. She holds a B.A. from Oregon State University and works in academic publishing as a translations coordinator. Outside of reading and writing, Erin enjoys coastal hikes with her Rottweiler.