Attached is the document we discussed. Sloane and I developed this piece of writing in one of our sessions as part of her ongoing cognitive-behavioral therapy for PTSD. In our exposure-therapy practice, we need to reliably provoke Sloane’s panic so that she can become habituated to the emotions it brings forth. As such, the following exposure is as detailed as Sloane could manage in order to most effectively simulate a re-experiencing of the event, which we refer to as “the Dive.”
I must remind you to keep this confidential, as providing this to you is a violation of HIPAA. However, given how dire the situation is, I agree that an exception must be made.
Thank you, and have a pleasant week.
Sincerely,
Dr. Maurene Thomas
I’m on the ARIS ship. It’s a cold morning. I see the glare of the sun on the water. As I pull the string attached to the zipper of my wetsuit, the fabric tugs in from both sides toward my spine. The mouthpiece tastes like chemicals. My nose feels blocked as I try to breathe only through my mouth.
All around me are ARIS officers, at first identical in their black scuba gear, but if I look closely I see the swell of Maggie’s hips, or Marie’s long, muscular legs, or the bristle of Dan’s mustache. Their eyes are shielded by the goggles, which is a relief, since they’ve been looking at me skeptically since I met them.
And they have good reasons. I’m only fifteen. I got my dive certification in a hurry once Bert briefed me on the mission. I’ve only practiced a few times.
But I’m Chosen, and that means they have to follow my lead. So even though I’m shivering in the cold and squinting into the sun and so scared I want to throw up right into the ocean, I sit on the edge of the boat and slide into the water.
There’s a rush of cold. I try to stay still. To breathe deep into the regulator. To exhale fully before inhaling, so I don’t hyperventilate. All over me is something tingling and burning. It’s not the sting of salt water on the skin around my eyes; it’s more like feeling coming back to a limb that’s gone to sleep. On the way here I asked the ARIS officers if they felt it too. They didn’t. They don’t. Just me. Is she making it up? I feel them wondering, and I’m wondering too.
The others are in the water now. Someone tosses me the line that will keep me attached to the boat, and I hook it to my belt, tug at it to make sure it’s secure. All the ARIS officers wait for me to move. They look like aliens in their mirrored masks, polarized so they can see better underwater. The Dive is too deep for a beginner like me, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it. I have to go.
I think of that Millay poem as I kick my flippers. Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave. I have a flashlight in one hand, held against my side. I swim away from the boat, checking over my shoulder now and then to make sure the others are following me.
What’s ahead of me is just cloudy blue. Bubbles and particles of sand. The occasional piece of seaweed flopping past. A darker shape develops slowly in front of me, and I know what it is.
I wasn’t expecting the boat to blend so well into the bottom of the ocean. It’s coated in a fine layer of sand, the same muted blue as the ocean floor. It could have been a stretch of dead coral if not for the sharp bends of the radar aerials and the main mast, with its attached ladder, the rungs still white when I shine my flashlight on them.
I know this ship, the Sakhalin. I researched it right after the briefing, months ago. A Soviet spy ship, Primor’ye class, built sometime between 1969 and 1971. The Primor’ye-class ships had been converted from large fishing boats, outfitted to gather electronic intelligence and transmit it back to shore. They were not usually made for combat, but the Sakhalin was special. When I swim closer, I shift the beam of light back to the distinct bulges of weapons systems, one of them now wrapped in seaweed.
The tingling is in my chest now, right behind my sternum. Like heartburn. When I swim closer to the ship, it drops to my belly, right to the middle