I swim as hard as I can towards him, kicking and pulling, screaming with the effort. But it’s no use. He’s spinning away.

Stay with me, Vidhan. I won’t leave you. I’m right here.

He floats away. Becomes a shadow in the water.

No. Nononono. Please no.

But I can’t reach him. I can’t. I float in the water and watch him go.

I tread the water, alone. A pang of despair in my gut.

Then, behind Vidhan, a shape looms. A colossal thing emerging from blue darkness. A whale? It slides effortlessly through the deep and I realise it’s not some frightening beast—it’s a ship, a submarine, but unlike anything I’ve seen in the movies. Not grey and tubelike but an elegant, organic-looking thing, starkly beautiful and streamlined. Whale-shaped in design, with a crisscross pattern of white metal curves like the striations of a humpback and blue-tinted windows between.

A metal mouth opens, a portal door, at the front of the submarine. The monster-ship glides up to Vidhan and swallows him whole. Like that. He’s gone.

Then it turns in the water. And it comes at me.

I backpedal frantically, but there’s no escape. It’s close now, steaming in at me. The door opens—a dark mouth. I’m engulfed.

Gulped up like a fleck of krill.

43

I swirl into a confusing space, upside down, spinning. When I manage to swivel upright, I see the hydraulic door close. Now a series of clanking noises vibrates through the water and I see a surface above, sloshing. The water recedes rapidly into an enormous floor grate and I spin around violently until I’m dumped on the grate, driven flat by gravity. My body convulses and I roll onto my hands and knees and vomit streams of water from my lungs.

The next thing I’m aware of, I’m lying on my back, staring up at a metal ceiling. I can hear the loud whirring sound of an engine close by, and a fan somewhere below the grate, blasting up hot waves of air. I groan. Roll my head to the side.

And I see Vidhan. Not moving. Bleeding.

I crawl to his side and press my ear to his lips. Nothing.

He’s not breathing.

Moving fast, I tilt back his head, link my thumbs like I learnt in First Aid at school and pump hard on his chest with the heels of both palms. I count it out.

One…two…three…four…five…six…seven…

He spasms. Flaps his arms. Rolls to his side, coughs and throws up.

Finally, he chokes a long rattling breath and he slumps back, eyes staring.

I look at the blood leaking from the side of his body and his pale, waxy face.

“You’re OK,” I tell him, heart thumping. “You’re gonna be fine.”

He nods. Blinks at me.