Author's note.
I decided to retry something I tried before. Tell the story, but instead of making images about what happens after the story, I decided to make images to support the story.
Also, I decided to try a series again. This time, though, I'm not gonna focus solely on it until it's over—expect other works not related to it before it is over. I already know how I want it to start and end, I just need to figure out the middle now.
Inspirations: Bluey's "Army", "Daddy Dropoff" and "Cricket".
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It had been a long day. Lucas was having a long cold bath. He never liked hot baths, they made him feel like his skin was slowly burning after some time, so he always took cold ones. He was talking to no one, something he did quite often.
Lucas: (In his native language) Write a text about how you learned to be good at something with at least 2000 words, are you kidding me?! And the bitch still wonders why people hate her class! Yeah, and to make things worse: Due tomorrow! And if you don't turn it in, you get a note home. And if you get a note home, your parents berate you as if you were the worst person in the universe. Well, my mom in this case.
Lucas: The teacher thinks we have nothing better to do, seriously. (turns off the shower) I mean, you can give these long assignments if you want, but at least give us time! And teachers still wonder why we hate school!
He then remembered something his friend Symbian said often about school: "I hate this place".
Lucas dried himself up, put the towel around his waist and walked to his room. It was pretty disorganized, but it wasn't his fault. Every time he organized it, it would go back its previous state after a single day! How was that even possible?!
He closed the door, got dressed and opened it again. He could never keep his door closed, except when getting dressed. None of his siblings could either, meaning that the doors were almost useless. He hated it, because it seemed like the more his mother saw him, the more she'd bother him.
He sat at his desk, got his notebook and pen out, looked up and thought about what to write. He thought about a chat he had with his friends recently. Maybe he should write about that.
He started writing.
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Hi, I'm Lucas! I wanna tell you a story. It's about how I learned to swim so well! A lot of people don't believe me when I tell them how deep I can dive and hold long I can hold my breath, so I thought I'd start from the start. Also, forgive me if I write something wrong, my Mozinian isn't very good yet. Also, I will try convert meters to feet, because I have a math test coming up that will have a lot of conversions.
There are some parts that I don't really remember, because I was just so young, so some of this is just what my family told me.
It all started when I was just a toddler. Both my uncle and grandma have pools. My uncle's pool is pretty deep, but still shallow enough for a adult to stand. My grandma's, however, was really deep. Well, at least it looked really deep. Because nowadays, 3 meters (about 10 feet) is pretty shallow for my standards. Both their pools had a shallow area, though, so I could still play in them.
The problem is that... it was too shallow! I couldn't go into the deeper parts without my mom or dad or any adult, because my mom and dad wouldn't allow it and that caused a lot of tantruns. I don't really blame them, they were just trying to protect me. I mean, I had just learned how to walk!
But I really, really wanted to swim in the deep part. So one day, we were at my uncle's and my mom had to leave me alone for just a few seconds so she could fix my brother's swim suit. But it was just enough time for me to to jump straight into the deep water. Then my mom turned back and all she saw was a pale-yellow blur bellow the water. She quickly saved me. I coughed a lot and then started crying. My dad says that even after I stopped, I was still stressed out for the rest of the day and definetely didn't go near the water.
My dad told me that I was afraid of water after that day and it took me 6 months before I stepped in a pool again. It took some time, but I eventually got comfortable in the water again. But this time, my dad decided to teach me how to swim. He says that I learned very quickly! And when I was 3 years old, I could already swim all the way down to the bottom of my uncle's pool and come back. Dad says that it actually scared him how quickly I learned.
He'd often disguise practice with some kind of play. Example: swimming from one side of the pool to him, grab a coin, etc. My favorite was when he threw a coin in the water and I had to get it back, because I had to swim underwater—sometimes he'd even throw more than one coin and I'd always bring them all back. Of course, dad was always watching me.
Eventually, however, I started getting interested in the bottom of the other pool. You know, my grandma's pool. I could never reach it and I wanted to see how it was to be down there. So, dad decided to take me there! I held onto his neck and down we went! I don't remember how it felt, but my mom says that I wanted to do it all the time after this. She also said that one time, I let go of him when we reached the bottom, but it didn't last long, because he picked me up right after. She says I was mad at him for picking me up.
My dad says that I was just curious to see what was like down there. But looking back, I think it was something else. I'm honestly not sure why I keep trying to swim deeper and deeper nowhadays, but it's definetely not just to see what it's like down there.
Diving with dad was cool and all, but it still wasn't enough for me. I wanted to reach the bottom on my own. I wanted to touch it, to feel it, all on my own. And I did try many times, but I'd always get scared and come back. I felt bad for it. And it didn't help knonwing that Benji could dive way deeper than that at school...
Benji and my dad noticed it and started showing me some stuff related to freediving. Dad thaught me some basic equalization and Benji a better way of kicking. Every time we went to grandma's, I'd try, but it was still no use. That went on for years.
One day, when I was 5 years old, we were at grandma's house again. I don't know what we were doing, but judging by the smell, I think we were having a barbeque.
"I'm going to reach that bottom!" I vaguely remember saying.
Well... let's just say that I spent half of the entire day trying and trying and trying, but every time I was just about to reach it, I had to come back for air. It was the only thing stopping me from touching the bottom. At that point I was starting to get used to the urge to breath, but I still liked breathing air, you know?
I decided to just give up. I wasn't going to reach the bottom, anyway. I spent the rest of the day playing with Claire, eating some meat, drinking some soda, etc. Then, when the sun was starting to set, Benji asked me if I wanted to try one more time. I said no, he insisted, I still said no. I think the conversation went something like this:
"You're not holding your breath enough."
"I am!"
"Ok, hold your breath now, but only let go if you really, really and I mean really need to breath."
And sure enough! I actually held my breath for way longer than I could! Yes, I was sitting still, but now I knew exactly what my limit was! I had to try...
"I'm still not sure..."
"How about this." He started waving at me. "If you need help, just do this and I'll bring you back up as quickly as I can."
"Ok..."
"By the way, another tip: while you're down there, do not ever breath. No matter what happens, do. Not. Breath."
"But everyone knows this, Benji!"
"Yes. But there comes a moment in which you have to breath at all costs. That's what I'm talking about. No matter what happens, keep your nose shut inside and do your thing."
Then, we dove. The first half wasn't too bad—I had done it many times—but after that I started to struggle a bit. I decided I didn't care. I wanted to reach the bottom. I had to do it.
The more I swam, the closer it got, but I also craved for air more. I thought I wouldn't make it again. I thought of going back, I was starting to get desperate. But then...
The blue tile floor was right in front of me! All I needed was a few more kicks and I would touch it! So I kept kicking.
And kicking...
And kicking...
And kicking...
And then, there it was! My hand, touching the bottom! I had done, I had finally done it! After years of trying, I was finally feeling the blue tiles on my hand.
I felt like I was on top of the world...
It didn't last long though, because I felt something in my belly. It was moving on its own! And my nose was trying to force the water in! I looked at Benji, who was right beside me, and he gave me a thumbs up. At the time, I thought he was praising me, but looking back, he was probably telling me that everything was fine. Either way, I had to go back now!
I looked towards the surface. It looked so far away! I had Benji with me, and I knew he would help me if I waved at him. But I didn't want the water to beat me again. I wanted to show that I could do it on my own.
I used the ground to propel myself back to the surface. It helped, but it didn't even take me halfway, so now I only had my legs and arms to keep propeling. At the time, this felt strange for me, but it was actually easier to ascend. Still, I was strugling a lot and was on the verge of panicking—my belly was making stronger contractions and my nose was beging me to let the water in. But I tried to ignore it all.
And I kept kicking and kicking. The surface got closer and closer. It was so close now, but I couldn't take it anymore! I was about to breath water, then...
I felt cold in my face, and there was air around. I took a huge breath almost instantly and desperately looked for a ledge. Then something pulled me. It was my dad, he was beside the pool.
"You gotta be careful, kid!"
"Dad, I did it!"
"What happened?!" That was my mom.
"Dad!" It was Benjamin. "He did it, he touched the bottom!" He said while getting out of the water.
I was on my dad's lap and coughing, not because I inhaled water—I didn't—but because of the effort to not inhale it.
Dad then placed me on a chair.
"Lucas, did you actually touch the bottom?!"
"Yes, there's blue squares down there!" I said tiredly, but excitedly.
My dad looked at me with a very surprised face. Then he screamed, grabbed me and hugged me really tight, as if I was a stuffed toy. He was overjoyed.
"THAT'S MY BOY!!"
Whenever I remember this, I feel so happy. I just feels... great! Especialy because my dad was so proud of me. Benji told me once that dad did something similar when he (Benji) achieved an amazing feat. But with me he seems to have celebrated more. I guess it's because I'm a feline.
Either way, the next time we went to grandma's house, I tried it again and it was hard, but not as much. And it kept getting easier every time we went there, until I reached a point that I could just go up and down with no issues! Also, Claire was starting to want to dive deeper—despite her liking a race more than a freedive—and Benji was climbing through the ranks in the swim team.
That's when dad started to rent boats so we could go to the sea. We usually didn't go to ridiculously deep places, because mom wouldn't let him, so we often had to go to a not-so-deep part. At least the place we used to go in Solara had no aquatic predators, so we could dive as much as we want! And since this was the sea, we didn't have the pool walls to worry about!
Benji still tried to reason—he could and wanted to go deeper—but dad said mom was right. We couldn't go very deep because of me and Claire and even if we could, he wouldn't be able to follow us after a certain depth.
Dad used to dive when he was younger, but he never took it seriously.
As the years passed, however, we wanted to dive deeper and mom started to relax a little about the depths. But, like I said, dad couldn't follow us too deep. So he bought some equipment to help him: a wetsuit, to reduce drag and make help him swim faster in case of an emergency; depth gauges for all of us; and my favorite: an oxigenizer! The oxigenizer is a small device that has a tube that you put in your mouth. This tube is connected to a small machine inside a case. I can't explain how this little machine works very well, so I'll just copy something I got from ChatSeek. I asked it to explain to a general audience.
"Great question! I will use simpler terms so a general audience can understand! 😁
Let's break down how an oxigenizer works.
1. How the water reaches the machine 💦
An oxigenizer needs water to do its job. On its sides, there are small holes that allow the water to get inside the case and thus reach the machine.
2. What the machine actually does 🤖
The chemical composition of water is H2O, meaning that it has hydrogen and oxygen! 🧪
What the machine does is it separates the hydrogen from the oxygen.
After that, the machine then sends the separated oxygen to another small chamber inside it. The oxygen molecule waits for another oxygen molecule and the machine makes them come together, creating O2, which is what furries breath! Cool, isn't it? 😄
3. After the O2 formation 💨
After O2 is formed, it stays inside that chamber until the user breaths it! Then it gets emptied and the whole process starts again! 🤠
4. The oxigenizer does not allow other oxygen allotropes to be formed
The machine has a safety mechanism that does not allow O3 to be formed. If there's already O2 in the chamber and an oxygen molecule enters it, the safety mechanism stops it from joining the O2 allotrope, meaning that it can only join another oxygen molecule to form O2! Cool, isn't it? 😶🌫
I hope I could help your audience understand how an oxigenizer works! 🥰
Would you like me to explain something with more details? How about a visual representation of how an oxigenizer works? 🎨"
Please ignore all the cringe. ChatSeek's latest update made it like this.
Anyway, that's how an oxigenizer works! It basically gives you infinite breath! The only problem with it is that it's really expensive and can be hard to maintain. But, if you maintain it correctly, it lasts a lifetime!
Mom eventually relaxed a little, despite not liking us diving so deep. So dad started taking us to the deeper sea. And that's when I truly started to go really deep. Unfortunately, diving in the sea can be... not so cool. The water is murkier, gets cold much faster, there's currents, etc. These are actually some of the things that stopped me from diving deeper, especially the cold. On the other hand, pools can be boring. There are no rocks, no fishes, no reef, just lights and walls.
How do I know this? Well, it turns that near my house here in Mozina, there's actually a freediving water park! They have many pools with varying depths with the deepest being 100 meters (that's 328ft)! Unfortunately, I still couldn't dive the full 100 meters, but I did manage 20 (about 82ft)! I think I can go to 40 (131ft) or more if I really push it, 50 (164ft) if I do everything perfectly, but I never tried. I'm too scared and my dad won't let me go much deeper than my previous personal record. Maybe someday...
My friends say I should join the swim team, Benji too, but I'm afraid of letting every one down. I don't think my mom likes me diving. She never says anything when I break my personal records. Honestly, I don't think she likes me at all, but that's a topic for another day.
And that's how I learned how to swim so well! I'm still not sure if these marks are impressive, but my friends say they are.
*********
"Yeah, that's good. She asked for something we became good at and 2000 words, not a John Brummland masterpiece." Lucas thought.
He closed his notebook, brushed his teeth and went to sleep.
