Trifextra: Week Fifty-Three

Welcome back, Trifectans!  Happy February.  How are you all holding up with those New Year's Resolutions?  Many of you have contacted us or each other to talk about your successes with writing and even publishing.  If you have something new and exciting going on, feel free to share it with us in the comments.  Let us know how we can help you get the word out about your work!

Sandra takes home the gold this week with A Beckoning, a piece so clear and vivid we could could smell the ocean air.  And feel the terror.

Mark waved from across the boat and Eliza could just see his smiling eyes behind the thick glass of the goggles. They timed their fingers together; three, two, one, SPLASH. The newlyweds were in the water. They touched their masks together, a symbolic gesture to their usual nose shake and dived, slowly, deep into the darkness. 

Their torches showed only mud and murk at first but eventually the cave mouth came into view and Eliza’s heart raced. She was about to discover a corner of Earth never yet explored by any other human. The anticipation brought tears to her eyes but when she made to wipe them off her fingers hit the glass cover. Eliza giggled. 

Mark entered first. He attached the rope to a boulder at the opening, looked back at his wife and mimed, Okay? Eliza nodded vigorously. 

The rope, bright yellow, stretched behind them through chambers and narrow corridors of blues, greens and aquamarines. They swam through spiky stalactites and pointed stalagmites crisscrossing their path like vicious teeth. 

At one point Mark mimed, Wait. 

Eliza floated motionlessly while Mark strapped the cord on his belt more tightly. As she waited, a metallic glint inside a narrow opening behind her husband caught Eliza’s light. Mark was still fixated on his rope and certain that he’d follow her light soon, Eliza dove in. 

After a short search the little beam brought into being a brass diver’s suit; the kind they used in another century. Trembling yet drawn, Eliza touched the massive head. It fell off raising a cloud of mud and revealed a collar bone still attached to the shoulders. Eliza gasped, inhaling a mouthful of oxygen and pirouetted towards the opening. But through the murk the opening was no longer visible. She tossed and turned, frantically padding the confined rocks in search of a gap. The more she moved the murkier the cave became. Her screams were silent and Mark never saw her light.

Girl With A New Life 2.0 takes the silver with More Perfect, a well shaped piece about family, expectations and the pressures we settle ourselves into.  Jody from Human Triumphant wins the bronze this week with her lovingly etched piece about the various functions of the human heart, On The Cusp.

Congrats, winners.  Be sure to check them all out if you haven't already.

For the weekend prompt we're asking for exactly 33 words of dialogue.

Good luck and have a great weekend!