While at my grandparents' house, I played some Sonic games to pass the time. I experimented with taking apart game cartridges and seeing if it was possible to force certain games to work on other consoles. I had in my mind the interactions between Animal Crossing and the Game Link Cable, as well as between Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Advance. Lying on the couch before the glass plant case, I continued. I spent the beginning of the week going to my classes as diligently as I could. I had to walk a while away to the high school, some three miles through a path across the bridge, between winding paths in the park, over lots for fast food restaurants. The school suffocated me in its claustrophobic architecture. Ceilings too low, hallways too narrow, classrooms too packed. As much as I might be able to put off the feelings of distraught, it never took longer than three days for me to lose my composure. Maybe in that vacuum of those first few days, it seemed picturesque. While walking home that Wednesday, I met my dog along the road home. Following her, I couldn't help but continue thinking about Sonic. My mind ran through menus, through stages, through interactions. Some of them erotic. I fixated on it. We made our way home before long. Entering through the garage and into the alcove of the washer room, I noticed a metal piece with a tail protruding from the wall to my left. Dad must have installed this earlier. It dug into the ground and created a small wedge. It seemed its purpose was to hold the door open. Still, it confused me. The gymnasium holding the indoor swimming pool was shaped like a large cube cut in half by height. It stretched some hundred meters in each direction. The walls were lined as they always were on the upper borders with windows. You couldn't see anything other than the sky, and it's as though they were only meant to cast light into the room. In the center of the room was a large round hole, wide enough to hold maybe half a dozen people lying down side to side. Inside the hole was a metal hydraulic press, stretching upwards and attaching into the ceiling. There was a small dome protruding through the roof with more windows surrounding the upper portion of the hydraulic press. Upon the hydraulic press were piles of wet towels, seeping with water across the press and down over the edges into a slender line of grates. Throughout the rest of the room were four pools, each one narrow and stretching from one side of the room to the next, all even in length. Surrounding the edge of each a lightly marked red line. Over the center of each pool was a skinny bridge which seemed too easy to fall from, especially with how it curved up and down so as not to bang the heads of swimmers or prevent them from using the full length of their respective pool. Between one end of the bridge and the wall was a slight protrusion in the ground. Water flowed onto here from the pool, and behind the protrusion was a series of waterfalls casting even more water. The waterfalls made up an ellipses in shape, cut in half and pasted into the ground. We were gathered here to play a game of water baseball. The rules of the game were relatively simple and not too different from regular baseball. Everyone is divided into two teams, and all but the batter and pitcher will remain in the water. At the batter will be thrown a ball of which they must slap with their hand into the water. Then they are to run around the pool in a figure eight across the edges, starting first by running straight, then turning left. If they fall, they lose. If they are tagged by the ball, they lose. Both teams will be struggling for the ball in the pool with one another while this takes place. Given the length of each bat in the seeming difficulty of not falling into the water while toeing such a difficult line surrounding the pool, it seemed an even match as far as games go, but then I haven't played before. We began the game. I spent some time floating around, trying to relearn again how to swim as it had been a while. Despite the size of the pool it was still crowded and I felt as though I was constantly being pushed by waves, teammates, or opponents. I didn't pay too close of attention to the game, but none of the runners ever made it very far, always finding a way to slip up. I had stayed in the right outfield during the start of the game, so there wasn't as much action - which I preferred! I made my way across the back of the pool on the inner side of the room and underneath the bridge. Somehow I felt a bit nervous in how this object were to remain standing. I can only trust the architects and engineers I suppose. I swam towards the left outfield before running into a crowd of boys. As for why I voluntarily swam to a more bustling area, well, I wanted to see underneath the bridge and what was on the other side. A simple curiosity which slowly found itself covered with regret in my mind. It had become more difficult to swim. I did everything I could to hold onto the edges of the pool, but then I would be blocking the runner's feet. I wanted to get out of the pool. There was no lifeguard as far as I could tell, save for the teacher who didn't seem to be paying any amount of attention to the game, to pre-concerned with their cell phone. I had no friends or acquaintances in the class to rely on and let others know if I had come to start drowning and gather help. I had only the faith in my fellow human. The game progressed and I found a place in the corner of the pool once again. There was a ladder here upon which I could rest my aching limbs and muscles not having been pushed more than a few times the last three years. It seemed as though one of the batters had made it quite far, already at the final stretch. I don't actually remember what team I was on, but I cheered anyway. The boy, tall, skinny, with pasty skin and a gait hardly to be described as athletic, threw himself on his belly and slid across the floor and over home. His body continued across the tiles using the water from the waterfall to decrease the friction, and before long banged head first into the wall towards the entrance. I broke out laughing, trying at first to cover my mouth and hide it but before long finding myself unable to. Everything about it was just too hilarious! It did seem as though I was the only one laughing however. One boy came up to and started yelling at me. Another pushed me from the side. At some point I was shoved under the water, it entering my nose causing me to begin choking. I continued to be submerged while the sound of a piano began softly to be played. Before long, I lost consciousness.