Lost Between the Tides

I woke up on something hard, damp, and lumpy with a sharp pain in my right elbow and my butt. As I tried to sit up, it became glaringly apparent that my head hurt too, like I'd somehow ended up on the wrong side of a baseball bat.

With a groan, I tried to pull myself into a sitting position, pressing my hands against the cold, gritty rock surface beneath me.

The sound of water echoed all around me, bouncing off the walls of... wherever I was.

What the hell…?

I looked around, trying to figure it out. Trying to make it make sense. But it was dark.

Beside me, a sliver of white light caught my eye. It was my phone, the flashlight on and its brightness trying to escape the confines of the rocky slab that it lay on.

As I picked it up, the light blinded me and nausea hit me like a punch to the gut. My head swam and spun and I nearly dropped my phone again in my desperation to make the light go away.

I pressed the flashlight against my leg to mute the glare, though the screen itself wasn't much better as it seared into my retinas.

With my eyes squinted in an attempt to let as little light in as possible, I turned off the flashlight and dimmed the screen, then tried to use that as a source of light to try and get a better idea of where the fuck I was without blinding myself again.

Of course, it didn’t work. It wasn’t bright enough.

Fuck.

A cave... I was in a cave. How the fuck did I get in a cave?!

My skull was pounding, seemingly only made worse by each and every movement I made. I reached for the back of my head, which was where the pain seemed to be radiating from, only for my fingertips to come away wet and sticky with blood.

Great. Just fucking great. I'm in a cave, all by myself, with no idea how I got here and to top it all off, I have a fucking head injury. Good job, Morgan. Pro move.

Then a terrifying thought suddenly struck me. Was I really all by myself? Sure, there was no one around as far as I could see, but that didn't necessarily mean I was alone... What if I had been abducted and hit over the head and my captor had left me here, but they could return at any moment?!

The panic kicked in, fast and furious and my heart began to hammer in my chest. The increased blood flow to my brain only made my head throb even more.

I took a deep breath, trying to gain some semblance of control over the situation. 

Rule one, don't panic. Dad's famous words. What else would Dad have told me to do?

My mind was a whirl of fuzzy, half-baked thoughts that led me absolutely nowhere.

Jesus, did I have some kind of brain injury?! Did I have amnesia?!

Think, Morgan! Think!

Okay… How did I get here? Even if I had been abducted, I had to remember something, right? Who was I with? What was the last thing I could remember?

I tried to send my thoughts back, but it felt like I was swimming through molasses, and nothing made any sense.

A pink dress…

There was a pink dress. I was wearing a pink dress... Why was I wearing a pink dress?

A snippet of a conversation. My brother... "You should go. Make the most of our time here," he had said. He was smiling and wearing a suit.

I should go where? Our time where? Where were we? Where was I?

Looking around the cavern again, I tried to see if I could spot any way in or out through the darkness. I climbed to my feet, my legs feeling wobbly beneath me. As I stood, I nearly lost my footing on a slippery patch of rock, catching myself on the wall just in time.

I looked down at the slimy green algae with narrowed eyes, feeling like I had solved at least part of the puzzle.

I’d slipped here, hadn’t I? I’d slipped right here and fallen and hit my head.

Okay, great. But I still didn't know why I was here…

The realization that it was more likely that I had done this to myself rather than having been abducted by some psychotic predator who had bludgeoned me with a bat was somewhat heartening. At least I didn't have to be on high alert that there was some creep lurking around the corner.

Well… I hoped not.

I turned around and there, behind me, I saw what appeared to be the faint remnants of daylight filtering through a smallish tunnel. The only problem was that the tunnel was filling up with water... fast.

Perfect. Just perfect. My escape route was a death trap. Great.

How did I even get in here? I would NEVER have gone through a tunnel that was filling up with water. I wasn't that stupid.

I felt my clothes... dry. But after bending forward to inspect my knees and nearly losing my balance thanks to my throbbing headache throwing my equilibrium off, I felt the remnants of sand on them.

Had I crawled through the tunnel BEFORE it had started filling with water?

Another memory came flooding back, but it was choppy and fuzzy. A group of people about my age... A boy... my heart fluttered as his face flashed through my mind. A cave. We were here to explore a cave.

Thank God... It was coming back to me. But I still couldn't quite understand how I got here on my own. It definitely wasn't like me to wander off by myself in a place that could be dangerous.

Alright, so I was here with people. I must have somehow gotten separated from them, but they would realize, right? They would come looking for me. Mark would come looking for me.

Mark... the boy whose face made my heart flutter.

But if the tunnel was filling with water, how would they get to me?

I looked at the rock wall I was using to support myself and lifted my phone screen to inspect it. There was a clear waterline on it, so it seemed pretty clear that the water wouldn't fill the cavern up entirely. I shouldn't drown. Maybe I could just wait it out? I could wait it out... It would be what? About twelve hours until the tide went out?

I could do twelve hours, right? It would suck, but I wasn't going to die. I could swim... maybe hold onto a rock? Or maybe I could see if there was a higher point I could get to that would keep me out of the water?

Looking around the cavern with my phone screen as a light source, I could make out that it was larger than I had thought. More vast than the limited brightness of my screen could make out.

The water was steadily rising and beginning to creep up to where I was standing now. Just up ahead, something sparkly caught my eye. Crystals.

This was some kind of crystal cavern. I'd crawled through the tunnel to see it, but it hadn’t been fucking waterlogged at that point.

I'd thought they would follow me... at least Mark.

Okay, so I had some options. I could wait here for rescue or for the tide to go out so that I could rescue myself, or I could venture further into the cave.

Wait. Definitely wait. If I waited, they would know where to come looking for me. I knew the way out for when the tide went out again. If I ventured further into the cave, I risked falling into holes or slipping on more algae or smashing my head on another rock.

No... I knew the risks here, and that seemed safer than venturing off into the unknown.

I also wasn't exactly dressed for deep cave exploration. I was wearing a bikini with shorts and a tank top and, what had seemed like the logical choice at the time, flip-flops. In hindsight, I could have kicked myself for not wearing hiking boots and at least a jacket or something. I could already feel the air in the cave cooling down as the tide rolled in.

But I did have a head injury. Was it serious? I couldn't really tell. My memories seemed to be coming back, albeit in drips and drabs, so that felt like a good sign.

Still, I was bleeding and I wasn't sure whether I'd done any serious damage. Did that mean that this was an emergency? Like, was time of the essence here if I wanted to keep my brain from hemorrhaging or something?

Ugh.

With a sigh, I made my decision.

I’d wait it out. Dad would tell me to wait.

I settled down, my back pressed against the cold cave wall as I looked out over the swirling water. Out of curiosity, I locked my screen to turn off the light and was assaulted by a darkness so thick it felt like I could touch it.

I quickly unlocked it again to get the light back, coming to the conclusion that this was not going to be pleasant once my phone died.

Wait, why hadn't I tried to call my dad yet?! That should have been the first thing I did!

I got dialing, but there was absolutely no signal and the call didn't even ring. Out of desperation, I tried to call my brothers too, but it was the same.

With a deep sigh, I leaned back against the wall again, feeling cold, miserable and annoyed.

The pink dress was still on my mind, hovering there like some ethereal thing that I kept trying to grab, but it kept slipping away. Then another image sprang to my mind. A woman in a white dress... I knew her face, but I couldn't place her for some reason. I couldn't give her a name.

Wait! It was a wedding! I was here for a wedding. We were in Bermuda.

I reached for more memories, but it was as if my brain simply shut down and refused to give me any more. Like it was too exhausted to make any further effort to assist me in finding the pieces and putting them together right now.

I'd been sitting there for maybe ten minutes, grumbling to myself about my aching head and how cold and uncomfortable the uneven floor was against my bruised butt, when I heard a clatter in the distance, like something falling.

My head snapped around, trying to find the source of the sound, but it was hard because the space echoed and the sounds seemed to come from all around me.

Straining my ears, I listened for any other noises, hoping it was the group I had come with. Maybe they knew another way in and were coming to rescue me.

I struggled to my feet, holding my head as the movement induced another wave of nausea, then I made my way further into the cave, being careful to watch my footing this time.

Wait, was that a voice?