Welcome to Tiny Worlds!
We’re shifting our focus to explore Mexico's eastern coast with twelve-year-old George Perez in the serialized novel: ISLA.
For longer fiction visit Stories, and for flash fiction go to Sketchbook.
A veil of darkness fell over them. Absolute and without shape.
Sputtering and thrashing, the boy vomited onto the wet ground. As he did, Nicte’s chest constricted with each heave. She couldn’t see him, only hear the echo—coughs, wet and thick, sparking back again and again, ricocheting off walls she couldn’t see.
She pulled at him, doubled him up, angling his hips in the air like a baby sleeping, his face—or so she hoped—down to let the water drain.
All she could think of was holding a doll upside down, hair dangling, trying to position it as if it were diving into water. But he was heavier than she was, and the searing pain in her hand wouldn’t let her grip hold for long.
Her feet and his body scuffed the ground, rolling against dirt and rocks, grinding. Those sounds, so minute anywhere else, were loud. She breathed hard, pulling—more sounds colliding, scattering. Again and again.
The boy said something she didn’t understand. The vibrations of his throaty rasps bounced around them, off everything. His breath wheezed in her chest. The tightness eased every so often, allowing her to pull in nearly a full chest of air, too.
“I can’t see,” George said, the words breaking with a liquid cough. His chest was heavy, constricted between breaths.
He had no reason to believe his eyes had simply stopped working. But they had. Whatever outlines he’d seen a few minutes ago—the watery, smeared shapes on the edge of the cenote—were gone. Power out. Black. Kaput. There wasn’t even enough light to see his hands as he pulled the water from his face like a squeegee.
Maybe this is what death looks like? Nothing. Just the blackness of your life wiped away. And wet.
Except for the ground beneath him, he didn’t know which way was up. But gravity still worked. And he could feel.
That was a sense, wasn’t it?
What about… He groaned, a long, mournful sigh. The moment it left his mouth it twisted, echoed, ricocheted back and collided with the other sounds swirling around him.
Yes, sound was there, too. But it was strange. Unsettling.
Someone had been tugging at him. He reached out and felt a leg—an ankle with no shoe on the foot.
He sniffed. A wet, mossy smell.
The taste of sour corn was still in his mouth. He could do without that. But it was something.
George took inventory: Sound. Taste. Touch. Smell.
Just no sight…
Then, in the dark he spotted something—a firefly-like glow, shifting, moving, turning. It didn’t stay still long enough for him to see it fully until it flew toward his face.
Nicte reached for the shape she knew was there. Even in the constant echoes she could sense the turn and shift of his body beside her. Her hands found his shoulders.
Good. He turned over on his own. Now, crawl.
Carefully, she slid one arm beneath his and pulled. The boy, though she had seen him earlier, was only a shape she pieced together in her mind. His hands reached up her arms and touched her shoulders.
It was a strange kind of intimacy—her hands on a stranger, him touching back—without being able to see one another.
She tried to pull him to his feet but he faltered. The boy clutched her hand, and the burn sent a ripple of pain through her arm.
It flared with her heartbeat. In the complete darkness it was the only light, however faint.
He held her hand close to his face. She could feel his warm breath on her fingers as he stared at it a long time—the arc of the comet etched there, glowing red.
She leaned down, if only to lessen the pain. There was barely enough light to glimpse the shape of his face, the smallest ember left in a fire.
His eyes lifted to hers, now only inches apart, sharing the light. Both of them looking at each other, then to the shapeless space around, searching for any detail, any other light.
He said something she couldn’t understand. But she didn’t need to; they shared the same question: Where are we?
Her eyes answered, wide: I don’t know.
She helped him stand. Water dripped from his clothes in steady beats, each sound thrown across the room and back.
He coughed. Her chest heaved in sync, tied to his.
The reverberation seemed endless, like waves colliding until they finally broke, the room answering in kind—echoes repeating for minutes before fading.
George stood, his head crouched low as if he expected the ceiling to meet the crown of his skull. In truth, he didn’t know—couldn’t tell the shape of the room they were in.
Were the walls ten feet away or a hundred?
The sounds reflected back at them, random and useless, offering no way to measure distance.
What we need is…
He closed his eyes. Concentrating, he flipped open his Rolodex of memories. The cards felt jumbled, like his thoughts. He rifled through them, searching for something that might not exist anymore…
A science experiment.
Fifth grade.
Sound.
Echoes.
Yes. That one.
He and his father in the parking lot at the university. Standing by a wall. Smacking a shoe on the ground. Close up—no delay. Too fast to hear. Farther back—yes, there. A pause before they heard the sound again. Stopwatch ticking, counting the space between sound and return.
George thought maybe—just maybe—it could work here. A short sound. Clean. Strong.
They’d hear distances.
Everything else wouldn’t matter.
Like being a bat. Murciélago. Making your own sonar.
He grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled her close, using the glow of her hand to see one another. George put one finger to his lips—shhhhh.
He hoped she understood.
She blinked and gave a slight nod.
Standing beside her waiting for both of them to be still. When the sound of their movement had died down George readied himself, spread his arms apart.
He gave a slight clap. The clap came back instantly, low, almost garbled from all directions like they were standing in sphere.
He tried again, this time a bit louder. Again, it came back immediately. It was a bit louder but only from beside them and not from in front.
What kind of room is this?
Maybe there was something about louder
He’d never considered that he wouldn’t be able to see both hands, wondering if he might miss. With a slight shrug he knew it wouldn’t matter much and clapped them together with a giant WHAP!
The sharp sound tore from his hands and sped into the room.
But nothing returned.
George and the girl stood, a veil of nothing in every direction, waiting.
Until—
Like a loudspeaker aimed at their ears, the sound rushed at them. Then again from another direction. Each time the sound was a replica of the original—some softer, some louder, some delayed from farther away. The sounds doubled, tripled, until a cacophony battered them from every side.
George pressed his hands to his ears against the din. The echoes pummeled him, folding over themselves until it felt like the whole room was shaking. His skull rattled. His chest hollowed. Every breath stolen by the noise. He crouched, braced, certain the sound itself would split him in two.
Beside him, the girl mirrored his posture, head bent, arms clamped tight. His chest suddenly felt tight as he sipped for air.
And then—another sound, threading through the chaos, rising higher, rawer, undeniable.
She was screaming.
The rush of sounds from the hand clap had reached a pitch that overwhelmed Nicte.
Nature didn’t do this.
Nature was predictable. It gave back what was put into it. Kindness or…
The rising noise made her body recoil, and the searing pain in her hand bloomed as something else surged inside her—the only other thing she had ever seen nature give: fury.
But this wasn’t nature. It was something else spitting the sounds back, twisting them, hurling them at her with intent.
The feeling built in her toes, weakening her knees. Each echo dragged the hope of escape farther away, draining her.
And that made her angry. She wanted to push back. To strike. To claw.
The vibration of anger that had started low rippled upward. She sucked in a breath, feeling the boy double over beside her.
When it peaked, she couldn’t hold it back. The force tore through her, unstoppable.
Nicte let out a full-throated scream, fierce and feral.
George flinched at the sound. His arms flew up to his head, guarding his… he didn’t know what—guarding everything. He felt the wind being pulled out of his body as she screamed, as if he were giving her breath, or she was taking his.
It was suffocating, forcing him into quick, shallow gulps, never a full breath. Like the wind had been knocked out of his chest. He crumbled to the ground, toppled by it, head throbbing, robbed of air.
Trying not to pass out, he lay there listening. Her scream echoed back through the space, reported like all the other sounds—but not all of it. Just parts. Changed. Different.
Some echoes were higher, some lower. They rang through the chamber together.
Mud and moss squishing beneath him, George started to think of harmonies.
Still gasping, his mind flicked to a blue sky and a wind that didn’t exist here. And to the shape of the world.
And a voice. No… voices.
He wondered why that would come to mind now. Why here?
Something inside him said: Because.
Nicte felt a hand on her leg. She flinched, then knelt to find the boy reaching for her burned hand again.
Gently, he pulled it to his face, the faint glow revealing him panting, unable to catch his breath.
But his eyes were fixed on hers. Steady.
He held his hand out flat, palm down, and pushed it away from his mouth. With great effort he whispered, “Sing.”
She blinked, trying to understand. Shaking her head, the words didn’t make sense.
He looked away for a moment, thinking, then pulled her hand close to his mouth. Between breaths he whispered a long, broken note: Aaaaaaaah.
Then stopped and pointed at her. “Tú cantas.”
In the dim light their eyes locked.
Nicte nodded as the idea took hold: a sound. A steady stream. A single note.
She pulled him to his feet. He gripped her elbow, a hand on her shoulder to steady himself.
In the dark she turned them, not knowing which way to try. There was nothing to see—every square step of the space was black.
Is this the right direction?
He seemed to understand her hesitation, giving her shoulder a slight squeeze that said, Go ahead.
She took a tentative breath, hearing him wheeze—the air pulled from him as she did.
She opened her mouth and the smallest sound came out. A squeak. The room barely returned it.
She stopped. The boy patted her back, reassuring.
She tried again. This time the sound stretched into a long vowel, slowly growing louder, stronger, even as the boy gasped for air.
The room began to react. Nicte straightened, listening. The boy was still struggling, pulling air quietly through his nose.
Her voice fractured. To the right it came back exactly as she had made it. To the left it rose higher. Behind them it returned flat, lifeless.
Grabbing her, the boy pushed her left. A direction chosen.
As he did, Nicte heard him whisper, “Otra vez.”
They moved tentatively as the echoes finally died out, careful not to scuff their feet on the ground.
She took a small breath and sang the note again.
It wasn’t the same sound, but close.
Again, the note returned—this time the higher echo was further ahead. The others rang false.
Again they stepped.
Each time Nicte’s voice grew louder, more assured.
Next to her, the boy gasped for air as they worked as one—one lung, one voice, one movement.
It was all George could do to keep his panting quiet. Each breath she took seemed to deplete him. Listening closely he readied himself just before she inhaled to sing again–only enough air in their lungs for one of them at a time.
Her voice was better anyway. Listening to it calmed him. But they had to step quickly, choosing the path and moving in its direction before the sound was gone.
At times it felt like they were turning in circles. Soon she got the hang of it and began pulling him along.
In the darkness he kept hold of her arm. Her skin was warm—far warmer than he was in his wet clothes. But the cold and damp of the space started to drift farther away as they wound through it. His mind raced, trying to imagine the shape of the room, picturing the walls they must be avoiding, but it seemed to change, mutating as they moved.
At one point he put out a hand where he thought a wall might be, only to find nothing.
More than the shape of the space, he found himself wondering what she really looked like. She was a bit taller than him, older, and he could feel the fine hairs along her arm.
Moments earlier, in the faint glow of her hand, he had caught a glimpse of her face—its outline softer than it had seemed from the boat. Her eyes were steady, expressive even in the dark. He pictured them closing for a breath before she sang again, just long enough to steady herself. Everything beyond the light, every gesture in the shadows, had to be imagined.
They seemed to be moving through the space at a good pace until at last they finally reached a wall. Together they pressed their hands to it. It was taller than Goerge could reach, smooth and had no edges that could be found.
She pulled them back another few steps and tried again.
Mostly silence.
The note slipped out thin, barely there. George held his breath, waiting for the room to answer. Nothing. Just the faintest flicker, gone before he could be sure he’d heard it.
He waited anyway. Hoping. Still nothing.
It felt like the place was holding back on purpose. Waiting for more.
But she had no more to give. He could hear it in the way her chest rattled, the scrape of her breathing. And when she drew air, it seemed to empty him. When he tried, it left her gasping.
They only had enough air for…
George had an idea. Cautiously, he put his hand on her belly. In return he pulled her hand to his.
Nicte flinched when the boy’s hand touched her stomach. But when he pulled her hand onto his wet shirt, she realized there was something she hadn’t considered.
He pressed against her stomach gently, as if to say, inhale.
When she drew in as much air as she dared, feeling his chest sink, she stopped. Then he pressed again, telling her to exhale.
She felt his stomach rise as hers descended. Slowly they fell into a rhythm. Inhale. Exhale.
Then a voice rose during his exhale—his voice, a calm, clear sound.
As he ran out of air, he pressed again. Her lungs were full, and she tried to match his tone.
Overlapping, again and again, they made their own continuous note, rising and falling only slightly with each breath.
Nicte began to understand: it wasn’t her alone the chamber was asking for. It wanted both of them—one voice feeding the other.
The sound reverberated around the space, doubling, tripling into layered harmonies.
All around them, their notes returned transformed, harmonies neither of them could have made alone.
It was the chamber itself, the shifting shape of the room, that bent and reflected the sound until it rang back as one clear tone, the voices merged into one.
And all around them, the light of the space began to change.
He thought he was seeing things as the gauze over his eyes began to fade. He blinked, his eyes watering as the light grew brighter.
George had stopped making any noise, but the room kept replicating it, rising to a fever pitch, harmonies mingling and ringing louder. His mind flashed to the massive spacecraft at the end of Close Encounters—the rapid pitches of tones. And how it finished the five-note phrase with a sustained sound.
Then, slowly, the echoes faded into silence. All that remained was a trickle of water, softly falling down an unseen wall.
The girl dropped to her knees, her hair spilling into her face. She heaved, lungs filling with air. George winced, bracing for the feeling in his chest—the air being pulled away.
It never came.
He drew in a full breath, his chest expanding like it was the first he had ever taken. For a long moment he stood with his eyes closed, drinking in the air in huge gulps. It tasted old, heavy with minerals. Wonderful.
When he opened his eyes, he saw they were standing on a stone precipice. Around them, pools of water glowed—the only light. But that glow, like the air itself, felt magical.
As his sight adjusted, he realized: they were in a massive cave.
All at once the story came back. George heard his father’s voice: “…we could see water… and a glowing river, flowing beneath the walkway. The edges of it shimmered with tiny flashes of light beneath the surface.”
From somewhere beyond the pools came a hollow, throaty moan.
It carried through the chamber, deep and resonant, like the earth remembering its own voice.
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Music
Because - The Beatles
An excellent job of creating a supernatural environment, J. I couldn't stop reading.
"Overlapping, again and again, they made their own continuous note, rising and falling only slightly with each breath." I love this entire concept, J. I've never heard or thought of anything like this sharing of breath. Chilling!