Death Trap

Scroll down to get to the beginning of this tale. This is series 3 in Equatorial Abyss. Gunther's journey continues:

She was laughing deliriously as she got back into her harness. She began to aim her cable buoy toward the wall of the whirlpool. She was insane. She was going to kill us both.

Her cable buoy exploded into the whirlpool and caught the spiralling wall of water. Suddenly we were both going backwards. We were being pulled into the whirlpool. Saliva dripped from Danielle's open mouth as she cackled delightedly.

"For my brothers," she yelled, "today we both die Gunther."

Danielled screamed as the cable caught her leg. Her leg was being severed in two. I crawled through the logs of both tumbleweeds and pulled out her emergency axe. I chopped and chopped at the cable but it was too late. Her leg amputated at the knee joint and got flung out with the cable. As I wrapped a tourniquet above her knee, she passed out.

The sky above was diminishing in size the further down the whirlpool we got sucked. Soaked in Danielle's blood, I slid back through the logs of our tumbleweeds.

The water around us was beginning to steam as I pulled a lever and released my cable buoy. The buoy exploded through the centrifugal wall of water and caught the jet current. Back we started to rise against the dizzying whirl of the water funnel. With a sudden jar we broke through the wall of water and we were submerged in the murky brown depths of the ocean. I held my breath as I saw the approaching blue sky above me. I gagged and vomitted salt water as we broke into the open air.

A rescure helicopter must have seen our plight for now a rescure personnel was being lowered atop our tumbleweeds.

"Are you okay?" he yelled.

"I'm fine," I answered, "check Danielle."

He checked Danielle and gave me a thumbs up. "Do you want to be lifted out?" he asked.

"No," I answered, "just unhook our tumbleweeds and take Danielle."

He did so and began to lift upwards with Danielled.

I hope she'll be okay, I thought, even though she just about got us both killed.

"South by Southwest," boomed a voice from a judge's helicopter silo, "you're not far from the rest of the pack. Just follow the trail of blue smoke on the horizon."

I disconnected the cable buoy and kicked my steerage cones out and got slammed back in my harness. Salt spray pounded on my face. I was on my way again...