Chapter 12: Haruka, 1971 — Umi Is Born

The tank was designed for eight hours.

She had been inside for eleven.

She knew this the way she knew the water temperature had changed three times since the compound entered her bloodstream — not by measurement, not by clock, but by a quality of knowing that had nothing to do with instruments, that arrived through the palms and the soles and the particular silence behind her sternum where the acoustic frequency had settled like sediment. She had stopped keeping formal count at some point. She was not certain when. Her notebook was outside. Her pen was outside. There was nothing to write on in the tank except water and she had already written everything the water would hold.