PseudoPod 510: Falling Under, Through the Dark
Falling Under, Through the Dark
by Damien Angelica Walters
Kara’s sitting at her desk when she falls. There’s no time for panic; it happens too fast. One moment she’s working; the next, she’s in the water. Gravity and the force of the fall plunge her into the depths and everything blurs. She wants to yell but her body needs to conserve oxygen and won’t allow it. Natural buoyancy kicks in and she bobs to the surface, eyes still burning from the chlorine.
Now her heart starts to race and she breathes in huge gulps of air, her mind already fumbling for statistics. Facts. Every day an average of ten people die from drowning, and of those, two are children fourteen and younger.
About the Author
Damien Angelica Walters
Damien Angelica Walters’ work has appeared or is forthcoming in various anthologies and magazines, including The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2015, Year’s Best Weird Fiction: Volume One, Cassilda’s Song, The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu: New Lovecraftian Fiction, Nightmare Magazine, Black Static, and Apex Magazine. She was a finalist for a Bram Stoker Award for “The Floating Girls: A Documentary,” originally published in Jamais Vu. Sing Me Your Scars, a collection of short fiction, was released in 2015 from Apex Publications. The titular story “Sing Me Your Scars” was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction. Paper Tigers, a novel, was released in 2016 from Dark House Press.
About the Narrator
Rachael K. Jones
Rachael K. Jones grew up in various cities across Europe and North America, picked up (and mostly forgot) six languages, and acquired several degrees in the arts and sciences. Now she writes speculative fiction in Portland, Oregon. Rachael is a Eugie Award Winner and a Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy finalist. Her fiction has appeared in dozens of venues worldwide, including Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and all four weekly Escape Artists podcasts. Follow her on Bluesky @RachaelKJones.bsky.social, or find her at www.RachaelKJones.com.
