#this is the drabble that started as a fascination with deep water diving lol

[coldresolve]

The Airlock

Read on AO3 // This isn't moneymakers-related at all but I kinda got inspired by that last ask to repost this again, cause its one of the few drabbles I made I feel really great about lol. Trigger warnings for barotrauma, hearing loss, self sacrifice, um. a tooth exploding? you know how it is

The hermetic seal zips shut behind the protagonist, followed by high-pitched grinding as Door A is locked in place. They face Door B, roll their shoulders, and try to settle in their determination. This is the thread by which the mission is held. There’s no more time to argue about alternatives, no time for guidelines and regulations. This is do or die; they’ll either carry the weight or get crushed beneath it.

It doesn’t take them long to take inventory of the airlock. It’s a small, cylindrical hallway of sorts, with reinforced steel doors on either end, just tall enough to stand upright in at the center. Illuminated by a row of cold LEDs in the ceiling, the only hint that this is a place for humans to occupy for extended periods of time is the padded bench along one side. Through grates in the floor, the protagonist can glimpse at the pipework and valves that control the chamber’s internal pressure.

The intercom clicks through their earpiece. “All set on our end,” Teammate says. “You sure you want to do this?”

The protagonist swallows down the cold dread that threatens to blossom if they ponder that question too long. “I’m the only one who can,” they say firmly.

They don’t follow it up with the cause that’s still unspoken, although every member of their team knows it. The protagonist spared their friends the ugly discomfort of having to say it out loud by volunteering as soon as the situation became clear. Because they're the only person on this mission with no vital role to play behind the scenes. Because they're the expendable one.

“You’re currently at one bar,” Teammate says hesitantly. “And we have about, um… fifteen, twenty minutes to… to get you to six.”

The protagonist nods a little to themself. “Better get started, then.”

“Right…”

There’s scuffling over the intercom, followed by low muttering between the protagonist's friends. Then the valves beneath the grates in the floor open, hissing out air.

The protagonist takes a few meandering steps through the small chamber, absentmindedly counting the seconds until the noise fades out and becomes mute altogether. Thirty-six. The change is noticeable, but only just. Their ears pop with a buildup of external pressure, as they might do during the descent of a flight, but when they swallow, the feeling instantly goes away. Aside from that – really, there’s not much to speak of.

“How much was that?”

“Twenty kPA,” Teammate responds. “How are your ears?”

“Uh. Good, I think.”

“Alright. We’ll wait another minute, give you some time to acclimatize.”

The protagonist grimaces, dumps down on the bench, runs a hand through their hair. “Please don’t draw this out,” they say quietly. “We don’t have time, it’s gonna suck either way. Just keep going until I tell you I need a break.”

There’s a pause. “You sure…?”

“Yes.”

When the valves start to hiss again, the protagonist leans back against the curved wall, one boot tapping nervously on the floor. They close their eyes, breathe as evenly as they can, intermittently swallowing to equalize the pressure in their ears. Added to the popping is a vague tingling sensation on the inside of their head, just behind their nose and eyes, like an oncoming migraine. It’s strange and unpleasant, but not painful yet – just a vague sense of tissue shifting to accommodate the steadily changing environment.

As more and more air seethes into the airlock, the protagonist realizes they can’t swallow often enough to keep the pressure in their ears from building. So they try another method, one they’ve seen divers and frequent fliers use - pinching their nose and holding their breath, trying to push air through it. It’s a lot more effective than swallowing, but… still not quite enough. They pull their earpiece out and lean forward, both hands pressed to their face, as the rising pressure slowly starts to turn into a dull pain.

How much can an eardrum withstand? It’s just a thin sheet of skin, wouldn’t even hold up to a prodding cotton swab. The protagonist groans, rubbing at the flesh by the hinge of their jaw, at the bridge of their nose, until the airflow subsides again, trickles out.

“You okay?”

There’s talking behind Teammate’s voice, hushed voices discussing numbers and risks the protagonist doesn’t really want to consider. They take a few deep breaths to collect themself, still rubbing at the pressure behind their nose.

“’M fine,” they say, but they doubt Teammate misses the slight unevenness in their voice. They clear their throat. “What’s, uh… what’s the pressure?”

“Two bars.”

At that, the protagonist shuts their eyes. Against their own instinct, they manage to squeeze out a “Keep going.”

Whistling valves.

The migraine is the first to pick up this time. It’s the feeling of blood in the veins throughout their head expanding too much, pinching the surrounding nerves at every beat of their pulse. It shoots down their neck, through their throat, out into their shoulders, down along their spine.

Then their joints start to ache. Hips, knees, wrists and hands. Deep between their bones, cartilage has been compressed to a noticable extent, now. Movement disturbs the tender ligaments, makes the protagonist's breath hitch at every slight twitch of their fingers. When they lean back against the wall, the airlock seems to spin. Vertigo. A beginning aura, a vague sense that the room has been distorted.

They start to become mindful of the dawning lightheadedness, mainly because it seems to sooth their pain a little. At first, they attribute it to a rush of endorphines - that accounts for the dizzyness, for the vague sense of euphoria that’s brewing in the back of their mind, in stark contrast to their situation. But when they catch themself suddenly smiling, they recognize it for what it is, and their stomach sinks.

This isn’t adrenaline. It’s nitrogen. The protagonist is getting drunk on air.

They sit up, and wince at the pain that shoots through them at the sudden movement. “Hey, Teammate,” they say. “Team-… I think - I need a break.”

“What’s wrong?”

The protagonist chews on the words, confused for a moment, before they finally grasp their meaning. “Think I’m getting n… narcotic.“ Banging their head back against metal doesn’t hurt, just jolts them a little, sends in another wave of dizziness. “I feel… kinda silly.”

“I know. Deep breaths, yeah? You’re at three point four.”

“You’re not gonna… replace the nitrogen…?”

“It’s a painkiller.”

The protagonist nods almost automatically, then snorts. “It’ll kill my fine… fine motor skills, too. At six.” They flex their fingers. Already, the movement feels somewhat foreign.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Teammate says. “Just relax. You’re gonna be fine.”

“Yeah,” the protagonist mutters, rubbing at their cheek. “Keep it coming. I’ve yet to… explode, ha…”

Their laughter dies before it can start for good.

The air around them feels heavy, now. Everything weighs them down, even the breath in their lungs is exhausting to draw in and exhale. Tension is like a vice around their head and chest, their heart seems to work on overdrive to accommodate their aching body. There’s a faint ring of white light circling the center of their vision, like a spirit dancing to the rhythm of their pulse. It’s still there when they squeeze their eyes shut, rubbing at their temples to try and alleviate the pressure. The relentless pain in their ears cuts through their skull, shooting down their neck in a quick rhythm, out along their jaw. It’s getting harder and harder to shoulder, even through the murky filter of narcosis.

Nothing they do eases the pain. They shift and squirm in their seat, holding their breath, only to release it in short bursts, heaving. With stiff, awkward movements, they rub at their jaw, at their temples, at their hands, at their chest, desperately searching for some way to give themself relief. They try equalizing, to no avail. The pressure just builds and builds.

Something trickles down their mouth and chin, spilling into their hand, down their sleeve, into their lap. Vision swimming, the protagonist wipes their upper lip with the back of their hand. In the short time it takes them to look at the blood, it starts trickling from their nose again, staining the fabric of their uniform with dots and stripes of red.

They groan. It’s involuntary, just slips out.

Instantly, Teammate’s worried voice is there. “Protagonist?”

Wiping sweat from their eyes, the protagonist tries to steady themself. “Don’t stop it,” they whisper to teammate, voice strained. “I c-can take it. I can take it.”

I can’t do this. Please stop. This is torture.

They bite the words down, grasping the edge of the bench with white knuckles, face contorted in a wince, nose bleeding steadily. At least, there are no cameras in the airlock. At least, their friends don’t have to see them like this.

In their right ear, with a sudden pop, the pain soars, and when the protagonist whimpers, they can only hear it with their left ear. They cover the side of their head with both arms, doubling over as the raw pulses slowly decline.

“Hey? Talk to me.”

Cold sweat trickles down their temples, plastering their hair to their skin. They wipe at it with the back of a trembling hand, pull out the earpiece once again. When they try to equalize their left ear, the pain in their right immediately becomes unbearable. They cry out, grasping the side of their head, stumbling from the bench to their knees to completely fold over themself, fingers gripping the grate in the floor hard enough for the metal to bite into their fingers.

“S… stop,” they finally wheeze. “Just give me a minute, Teammate, just-”

Their left ear gives out.

A hoarse scream. It tears through their throat, and yet it sounds muffled, almost completely drowned out by a high ringing that pierces through them, two different tones from either side. They rock back and forth on their knees, jaw clenched tight despite the agony in their teeth, desperately trying to push back against the pain. It’s like they’re standing in the shallows, trying to shield the shore from a rush of oncoming waves: futile, pointless. It doesn’t subside - instead it changes, from a razor sharp blast of white light to a more blunted, continuous throbbing.

Their heart beats against their ribs, quick thumps hard enough to rattle them. With shaking fingers, the protagonist fumbles for the earpiece still dangling from a cord in their collar. They lift it to their ear – but all they hear is that constant, high ringing. There has to be something behind it, they know Teammate must’ve heard them, but no matter how much they will it, nothing breaks through.

The protagonist tries to steady their breathing enough to control their own voice, mouthing out the words as clearly as they can, hoping to god it’s comprehensible. “I can’t – fuck! – I can’t hear you. I can’t hear anything…”

They try to peek through the holes in the grate, but their vision swims, blurred from tears, and they can’t make out the valves. Are they closed? What’s the pressure? How much more do they have to take?

They sit back with their shoulders to the edge of the bench, tilting their head to look at the ceiling. “Y-you can open the valves,” they croak. “I f-fucked up equal… equalizing.” Wiping at their nose draws red streaks along their sleeve. “Just… get this over with.”

Amid piercing tinnitus and cold-hot waves of pain and nausea, the protagonist sits huddled on the floor, shaking, crying, gasping.

Waiting for more.

It doesn’t take long.

First, the sense that their grasp on consciousness is failing, a spinning, sinking retraction of their mind. Then, a toothache takes center, clawing its way through their wavering thoughts like a knife tearing through canvas. They’re almost too exhausted to react to it, almost too drunk on air to care anymore. But they feel it building, steadily, as their nose bleeds anew.

Then their tooth cracks. They feel it fragment, shifting the soft flesh of their gums, but they’re too dazed to realize what has happened until agony flashes through the side of their jaw. Their mouth fills with the sweet metallic taste of blood, they can feel their own voice vibrating in their throat. Curling in on themself, the protagonist lets out another scream.

They scream until the world shrinks in on itself, until darkness consumes it.

Blissful nothingness.

Maybe it lasts an hour, maybe just a second. They don’t know, but it’s a relief from the torture, and it gets pried from their grasp far too soon. They’re reluctant to wake up. Reluctant to have to fight for breath again. Reluctant to be reintroduced to the screeching noise that orbits in their skull.

Slowly blinking open their eyes, it takes them a moment to realize they’re lying on the floor, staring at the airlock’s curved metal wall, cheek pressed painfully against the grate. Tentatively, they flex their stiff fingers, move an arm up to touch the wet skin under their nose. It’s still bleeding, fingers dripping red when they retract their hand to look. They wipe it off on the grate.

Teammate speaks over the intercom, their voice almost completely drowned out by the ringing. The protagonist can’t make out the words, but they can make out the urgency. Carefully shifting their limp weight, they tilt their head back to look for Door B, auras dancing across their field of view. The door is open, heavy steel retracted to reveal the dimly lit room on the other side. They lie there, quietly observing it for a moment, trying unsuccessfully to steady their breathing.

Get crushed, they think. Or carry the weight.

With great difficulty, they roll over on their stomach and push against the floor with shaking arms, their heart struggling to keep up with the strain it puts on their body. One after the other, they prop their feet up beneath them and stagger to stand upright, dizzy and unstable. They take a wobbling step, half hunched over themself, fingers clawing at the walls for anchor. Another step, teary eyes fixed on their destination. But their balance fails on the third step. The sloped wall tilts up to hit their shoulder, and they slide to their hands and knees, cursing at the agony in their joints, the deep aches in their head and chest.

Carry the fucking weight.

It’s spite, at this point, and spite makes resilient. They sneer at the valves and haul themself to their feet, hands gripping the low ceiling to make up for their loss of balance. Forcing their body to reject the agony and exhaustion, one uncertain step at a time, they make their way to Door B, grasping its frame for support. Finally, they cross the rubber lining of the threshold, and stumble out of the airlock.