A Loud Gasp for Air

"Miracles are wonderful until you realise they come with questions that nobody wants to answer—and consequences nobody saw coming."

We took turns supporting Joel's lifeless body as we journeyed across the barren land, a landscape that seemed to reflect the hopelessness of our situation. The weight of his unconscious form was a constant, unnerving reminder of the fragility of life in this new and unforgiving world. He was heavier than he looked—or perhaps carrying the dead simply felt heavier than carrying the living. Each step through the red dust sent small clouds swirling around our feet, coating our trousers, working into our shoes, making the journey feel longer than it should have been.

His head lolled against my shoulder during my turns carrying him, the stitched wound on his throat visible in my peripheral vision—a dark line of thread holding together flesh that should never have parted. Glenda's handiwork. Crude but effective, she had called it. From this angle, it looked like something from a nightmare, like a special effect from a horror film that had somehow become real. The thread was black against the pale skin, each stitch a small bridge over the gap where someone had tried to end his life.

I tried not to look at it directly. The memory of his hand grabbing my arm, of those eyes snapping open with impossible vitality, kept surfacing despite my efforts to suppress it. Every time the weight shifted and his arm brushed against mine, I flinched internally, half-expecting those cold fingers to clench around my wrist again. Half-expecting that dead grip to return, to hold me fast while something terrible spread from his flesh to mine.

My own arm throbbed beneath my sleeve, the wounds from his fingernails a constant reminder that whatever had happened at the lagoon had touched me too. The grey colouration had faded in the river water, but the cuts remained—three parallel lines that seemed to pulse with their own strange heat. I hadn't shown them to anyone yet. Hadn't found the words to explain what had happened, what it might mean. How do you tell people that a dead man grabbed you, that his touch left marks that turned your skin the colour of ash? How do you admit that you might be infected with something that has no name?

Jamie, driven by a sense of urgency that seemed to consume him, rushed into the lagoon ahead of us. His actions, frantic yet focused, set the pace for our grim procession. There was something almost feral in the way he moved—a father's desperation transcending everything else, pushing aside exhaustion and fear and the simple impossibility of what we were attempting. His son was in his arms, and nothing in the universe was going to stop him from trying to save him. I understood that desperation. If it were Mack or Rose lying limp and cold in my arms, I would have done the same. I would have waded into fire itself if I thought it might bring them back.

When we finally arrived at the water's edge, Kain and I carefully helped to lower Joel into the cool embrace of the lagoon. The water lapped at Joel's still form, and I felt an involuntary shudder run through me at the memory of what this same water had done to me—the inappropriate pleasure, the strange sensations that had nothing to do with temperature or cleanliness. The way it had felt almost alive, almost sentient, as if the lagoon itself were tasting me, testing me, deciding what to do with me.

"Make sure he is on his back," Glenda shouted, her voice cutting through the flurry of movement and the gentle lapping of the water against the shore.

Her medical instincts were taking over—positioning the patient, ensuring the airway remained clear, following protocols that had been drilled into her through years of training. Even when the patient was already dead, even when the treatment was submerging a corpse in an alien lagoon, she couldn't stop being a doctor.

Kain splashed into the lagoon, steadying Joel from opposite Jamie. The two of them worked in wordless coordination, adjusting Joel's position, supporting his weight between them. I watched for a moment, caught up in the urgency of their movements, before deciding to take a pragmatic approach. Not wanting to get completely wet for the second time today, I bent down to untie my shoes, thinking to join in without soaking myself further.

But it wasn't really about staying dry. Part of me—a larger part than I wanted to admit—recoiled from the idea of entering that water again. The lagoon had done something to me. Had allowed Joel to grab me, to wound me, to possibly infect me with God knows what. The thought of submerging myself in it again, of letting that water touch the cuts on my arm, sent a spike of fear through my chest that I couldn't quite rationalise away. What if it made things worse? What if the grey came back? What if the lagoon decided to do to me what it had done to Joel—whatever that was?

"No," Jamie interrupted sharply, his voice cutting through my intentions. "Kain and I have got him covered."

I paused, my hands frozen on my shoelaces. The relief that washed through me was immediate and shameful. Relief at being told I didn't have to enter the water. Relief at being given permission to stay on dry land, to keep my distance from whatever power the lagoon possessed.

"You sure?" I asked, scepticism laced with a hint of relief that I hoped he couldn't hear.

The prospect of wading back into the water wasn't particularly appealing, but leaving the heavy lifting to Jamie and Kain felt equally troublesome. I should be helping. I should be doing something other than standing on the shore like a useless spectator. That was what a leader would do—wade in regardless of fear, put the needs of the group above personal comfort. But I wasn't a leader. I was just a man with wounded arm and a growing suspicion that I was out of my depth in every possible way.

"Certain," Jamie called back, his assurance ringing clear across the water as they began to slowly wade deeper from the shore, their movements deliberate and focused.

The water rose around them—first to their knees, then their thighs, then their waists—and Joel's body floated between them, supported by their hands, cradled by the lagoon's strange embrace. His face was turned toward the sky, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. He looked peaceful. He looked dead. But then, he had looked dead when his eyes had snapped open and his hand had shot up to grab my arm, so appearances meant nothing in this place.

"Can you see?"

Glenda's voice, tinged with concern, broke through my hesitation. She shifted her weight back and forth, straining for a better view, rising onto her toes and then settling back down. Her professional instincts were clearly warring with the limitations of her position—a doctor who couldn't examine her patient, couldn't monitor his vital signs, couldn't do anything but watch from a distance and hope.

"No," I admitted, giving up on my half-hearted attempt to join them. I retied my shoelace, resigning myself to the role of a spectator, steadying myself on my feet. "It would be nice if they didn't keep their backs to us. I can't see much at all."

The frustration of being unable to witness what was happening, of being sidelined in this critical moment, gnawed at me, even as I understood the necessity of their positions. Jamie and Kain were focused on Joel, not on providing a view for the observers on shore. Their backs formed a wall between us and whatever was happening in that water. All I could see was the occasional splash, the shifting of weight, the way they adjusted their grips on Joel's body.

Then, breaking the tense silence, there was a loud gasp for air—a sound so fraught with life and desperation that it momentarily stunned us all.

The gasp was unlike anything I'd heard before. Not a gentle intake of breath, but a violent, wrenching sound—as if Joel's lungs were being forced to remember their purpose after too long without oxygen. It was the sound of resurrection, of something that shouldn't be possible becoming suddenly, undeniably real. It was the sound a drowning man makes when he breaks the surface. It was the sound of the dead returning to life.

My own breath caught in my chest. Beside me, I heard Glenda make a small sound—something between a gasp and a cry.

"What's happening?" Glenda shouted, her voice a mix of fear and hope. She took a step toward the water's edge, her body tensing as if preparing to dive in regardless of Jamie's earlier insistence. Her shoes were still on, her professional bag still slung over her shoulder, but she looked ready to abandon all of it and plunge into the lagoon.

Jamie turned to face us, his movements swift, a large smile spreading across his face that was as bright as it was unexpected. The transformation was startling—from desperate father to overjoyed one in the space of a heartbeat. His whole body seemed to change, shoulders lifting, spine straightening, years falling away from his features.

"He's breathing again," he yelled out, the joy in his voice echoing across the lagoon, bouncing off the water and reaching us with a clarity that was almost palpable.

Breathing again. As if breathing were something you could stop and start, as if death were a pause rather than an ending, as if a man with a slit throat could simply decide to resume living after floating face-down in a river for God knows how long.

Glenda exhaled loudly, her relief audible in the quiet that followed Jamie's announcement. The tension that had wound its way around my heart began to loosen, replaced by a burgeoning sense of wonder and disbelief. I felt my shoulders drop, felt muscles I hadn't realised I was clenching begin to relax.

Joel's breathing again?

The thought reverberated in my mind, a mixture of relief and a thousand questions. Joel—who had been dead. Joel—whose throat had been cut from ear to ear. Joel—who had grabbed my arm with the grip of a corpse and left marks that turned my skin grey. That Joel was now breathing. That Joel was somehow, impossibly, alive.

"How was this possible? What does this mean for Joel, for us?" The words escaped before I realised I was speaking aloud, my internal monologue bleeding into actual speech.

Glenda shrugged, her response tinged with uncertainty and awe. "I'm not sure, but it seems there is something about the lagoon that is keeping Joel alive," she replied, her voice reflecting the mystery that enveloped us.

I smiled, partly in relief, partly in wonder. I hadn't realised that I had spoken loud enough for her to hear. But then, my expression transformed as curiosity took hold, as the implications of what we were witnessing began to unfold in my mind.

"You mean he wasn't actually dead when we first found him in the river?"

The question hung between us, loaded with implications that neither of us were fully prepared to unpack. If Joel hadn't been dead—if his throat had been cut and he had somehow survived—then what had I witnessed at the lagoon's edge? What had grabbed me? What had opened its eyes and stared into mine with that terrible, empty vitality? And if Joel had been dead—truly dead, as dead as anyone could be with their throat sliced open—then what power did this lagoon possess to bring him back?

Glenda paused, her face contorting in thought as she mulled over the possibilities. I could see her medical training wrestling with what she had witnessed—the facts as she knew them versus the impossible reality unfolding before us. Her lips moved slightly, as if she were running through diagnoses, considering and discarding explanations one by one.

"I really don't know," she finally said, her admission highlighting the limits of our understanding.

Rubbing at my forehead, I felt the weight of our ignorance and the magnitude of the unknown pressing in. We were witnesses to something that should have been impossible, and we had no framework for understanding it. No medical textbook, no scientific principle, no prior experience that could help us make sense of a man with a slit throat breathing again after being submerged in an alien lagoon. We were children in a world we didn't understand, watching magic happen and calling it medicine because we had no other words for it.

"What's going on out there?"

Glenda's voice pierced the heavy air once more, her concern palpable as she began to remove her shoes and socks, prepared to dive into the lagoon herself. The doctor in her couldn't stand idle anymore—the need to examine, to understand, to apply her expertise overriding whatever patience she had managed to maintain. Her movements were quick, frustrated, the movements of someone who had been held back too long from doing her job.

"It's okay," Jamie called back, his voice a mix of determination and reassurance. "We've got it under control."

Control. As if any of us had control over anything in this place. As if control were something we could claim while standing on the shore of a lagoon that raised the dead.

"But I really should examine..."

Glenda's insistence was cut short as I reached out, grabbing her arm with a gentle firmness. The gesture surprised me as much as it seemed to surprise her—I wasn't usually one to physically restrain people. But something about the moment called for it, something about Jamie's tone and the way he held his son in the water. This wasn't a medical situation anymore. This was a father holding his resurrected son. This was a moment that belonged to them.

"Maybe we should just leave them be," I suggested, my words a plea for patience in the face of her scientific curiosity and professional concern.

Jamie had just watched his son come back from the dead. He deserved a moment—a few moments, at least—to process that miracle without a doctor hovering over them demanding to take vital signs. He deserved to hold his son and weep with joy and thank whatever gods or powers had given him this impossible gift.

Bewilderment washed over Glenda's features, her mind grappling with the conflicting desires to intervene and to observe. I could see the struggle playing out across her face—the professional who needed data warring with the human who understood the emotional weight of what was happening. Her jaw tightened. Her eyes darted between me and the figures in the lagoon. Her whole body seemed to vibrate with the need to act.

I concealed a slight chuckle, the situation's irony not lost on me.

This must be torture for her, I realised. On the verge of what must be the biggest health miracle of her lifetime, and she was being denied access to examine the fascinating specimen. It was like telling a starving man he couldn't eat the feast laid before him, like showing a musician a perfect instrument and forbidding them to play. Every instinct she possessed must have been screaming at her to wade into that water and start taking measurements.

"Just for a little while," I insisted softly, offering a compromise. "You can examine him when Jamie has calmed down," I added, hoping to soothe her frustration with the promise of future investigation.

Later, she could poke and prod and take whatever measurements she wanted. She could shine lights in Joel's eyes and check his pulse and listen to his breathing and do all the things doctors do when faced with patients who shouldn't exist. But right now, in this moment, Jamie needed to be a father, not a bystander to a medical examination.

"Fine," she acquiesced, her tone a mixture of resignation and impatience as she sank into the dust beside me. "But I'm not giving them too long."

Her legs folded beneath her, and she settled onto the ground with the air of someone serving a prison sentence. Her eyes never left the figures in the lagoon.

"Fair enough," I agreed, recognising the futility in pushing her further.

I should be grateful I had persuaded her this far. Glenda wasn't the type to be easily dissuaded from her professional duties, and the fact that she was sitting here at all was a testament to either my powers of persuasion or her own recognition that Jamie's emotional needs took precedence in this moment. Either way, I had bought them time. I had bought Jamie a few precious minutes with his son before the examinations began.

We sat in silence, the lagoon's gentle waves lapping at the shore providing a serene backdrop to our tumultuous thoughts. The water glittered in the light, beautiful and treacherous, hiding whatever secrets had allowed it to bring a man back from death. Out in the deeper water, Jamie and Kain still supported Joel, their voices too low to carry but their body language speaking of relief and wonder. Jamie's shoulders shook occasionally—laughter or tears, I couldn't tell from this distance. Perhaps both.

My attention, however, was split. While part of me remained concerned for Joel and curious about the mysterious properties of the lagoon, another part was captivated by the weight of my own secret.

I glanced down at my own arm, hidden beneath the fabric. The wounds were there, waiting to be revealed, waiting to be explained. The grey might have faded in the river water, but I had no confidence it would stay gone. I had no confidence that I wasn't carrying something inside me now—some piece of whatever had brought Joel back, some infection or transformation or curse that was working its way through my body even as I sat here watching miracles unfold.

Sooner or later, I would have to show Glenda what had happened. Sooner or later, I would have to admit that Joel's miracle might come with a price—and that I might already be paying it.

But not yet. Not while Jamie was holding his son in the water. Not while there was still wonder in the air, still joy to be savoured before the questions and the fear returned.

For now, I sat beside Glenda in the red dust, watching a father embrace his resurrected son, and tried not to think about the wounds hidden beneath my sleeve.