Ori's poolroom plight

The sound of clopping hooves echoes through the otherwise silent pool building as Ori walks along. Having a special agreement with the building's owner, he was permitted to enter at night, and was the only one around. It was perfect; no one to bother him during his practice. He wore and carried nothing, seeing no reason to clothe himself since no one would see him regardless.
Arriving at the pool itself, Ori smiled down at the perfectly still water. The 20 feet depth wasn't a big deal for most, but with the spirit only being a couple feet tall, it felt like quite a bit more for him. He'd always enjoyed being down there, training himself to hold his breath longer and longer by jogging laps on the bottom. Of course, his body didn't sink enough for that on its own, and while he used to bring a weight belt, he'd developed another technique that meant he wouldn't have to carry anything.
Standing on the edge of the pool overlooking the deep end, Ori focused and performed a few gestures, the natural glow of his body intensifying some... Then, a band of light blue energy appeared around his waist, and he dipped some as his weight significantly increased. "Heavy Light", he called this. It was a method of creating a weight belt, instead of needing to bring one with him.
Ori sat down on the edge, and after a minute of deep breathing, gasped one more breath and puffed his cheeks before pushing himself off, quickly sinking into the depths of the pool and landing on the tiled bottom. He was used to that impact, despite it nearly being as if there weren't water and he'd actually fallen. With a smile up at the surface, Ori started to jog along the bottom, doing laps. When he'd started training like this, he couldn't get his number of laps out of the single digits, but now he could manage dozens in one dive. His goal with all this training was to eventually get his lungs to the point he could run along the entire length of a river back home without surfacing, though he was still a ways off from that.
Once 53 laps were done after a bit less than 10 minutes, Ori dispelled his light belt and swam back up to catch his breath for a while. The water's surface had settled again while he was down there, which was always interesting to him. Soon, though, after some more deep breathing, he brought back the belt and sank back down, resuming the jogging and starting his lap count from 0. 1 lap... 2 laps-
Suddenly, on one of his steps, his hoof didn't land on anything! With a bubbly yelp, he immediately fell forward, and he put his arms out to catch himself, but they didn't touch the pool floor either. In the last moment, Ori could see his arms passing through the bottom of the pool... Then, his body fell through, and he was gone, the only sign he'd been around being the slowly settling water surface above.

However, that strange moment wasn't Ori's end; the next thing he knew, he was in a unfamiliar place, falling toward a second pool floor. He quickly righted himself, and grunted as he landed, this having been a longer submerged fall than he was used to. After that, he wasted no time in looking around, finding that he had indeed ended up in a completely different place.
It was a fully submerged hall of some kind. All around, the surfaces were covered with tiles like in the pool, and there wasn't any sort of hole he'd come in through. What little Ori knew about this for sure, though: This was no time for practice. Dispelling his weight belt again, he swims up to the ceiling, feeling around where he believed to have come in through... It was solid. It seemed he wouldn't be able to go back the way he came, especially after feeling around for a little longer.
With no other option, Ori looks back and forth at the ways he could go, neither seeming better than the other, and just picks one at random, starting to swim along in the hope of finding an exit, or at least air. He swam for about a minute, before finding... A dead end. Whining a little, he turned around, and realized the way he came was now different, being much shorter with a turn when he'd simply gone straight before. It seemed how he got here wasn't going to be the only strange thing about this place...
Ori followed that new path, having been holding his breath for a couple minutes now, and soon came across a new room. It was quite big, with several large columns, and even a statue of a dolphin, but... That statue felt off. The more Ori looked at it, the more his mind started going fuzzy, so he tried to ignore it, exploring the rest of the room. Still, he kept glancing at the statue, having more and more trouble keeping his eyes off it, until he was staring at it, stopping in place.
The statue didn't feel strange to the spirit any more, it felt welcoming. He couldn't help but swim up to it, looking it over. The detail was incredible, it looked as if it were simply a giant dolphin that had been petrified... Then, he noticed the statue's blowhole was open. Well, that could only have been because it wanted some of his air. As much as Ori needed that for himself, he felt it'd be okay to share some, and he started blowing bubbles into the dolphin's blowhole, watching them get pulled inside-
Snapping back to awareness and breaking out of the trance, Ori covered his mouth, realizing his mind had been under something's control. In fact, he realized there hadn't even been a statue in the first place! Instead, there was the strangest thing he'd ever seen: A moving collection of shapes, all exclusively black and white, each sometimes vanishing or reappearing. It was as if it existed in more than 3 dimensions!
Then, he heard a voice, and he knew it was coming from this entity. "Vg frrf hf sbe jung jr ner... Lbh vzcerff hf, sbervtare. Jr jvyy uryc vg." Ori didn't understand a word of it, if those even were words, and he tried to make that clear to... It, through some gestures.
"Vg ynpxf haqrefgnaqvat. Creuncf guvf, gura." Inside the entity, a little sequence plays out: A tiny version of Ori swimming in a pool, before being pulled through one of its walls into a place similar to wherever he currently is. After that, the image fades, replaced with a question mark. The real Ori nods in response, hoping the entity is asking how he got here.
"Abg gur svefg. Vg pna erghea, jvgu qvssvphygl. Jr pnaabg uryc, ohg guvf bar pna." Another sequence appears: The tiny Ori next to what seems sort of like a whale, but with a lure on it as if it were an anglerfish, and several extra sets of eyes. A speech bubble appears next to the tiny Ori, depicting an exit sign, though with garbled text. Then, the whale creature opens their mouth, and the tiny Ori swims inside before it closes, surprising the real one. The background of the sequence changes, and the whale creature opens their mouth again, the tiny Ori swimming back out.
"Gurve zrgubq znl or qvfpbapregvat gb n sbervtare, ohg gurl zrna ab unez. Abj, tb, naq znl lbhe yhatf svaq crnpr." An arrow appears in the entity, and Ori looks where it's pointing, seeing an opening in a wall that definitely hadn't before there before. Underwater for 4 minutes and feeling the urge to breathe, Ori doesn't waste any time in swimming to the opening, giving the entity a wave and smile as he left. He could only hope everything here would be as helpful as that...
Several more minutes passed before anything more interesting than a layout change happened. There was yet another long hall, which turned a darker blue about halfway through, and something pale blue was swimming toward him. As Ori approached, he realized... It was himself! A transparent barrier of some sort was keeping the two apart, the darker blue section on the other side, and Ori could tell his alternate self was in a bad way. Their mouth was wide open as they audibly slurped and choked on the water, with a raging erection and a somewhat bloated stomach, blue all over from oxygen deprivation.
Ori's double didn't stick around long, even though they seemed just as surprised as him, and they glanced at their belly before swimmg off down a hall to the left, leaving his view. The real Ori saw a hall to his right, so he turned to swim that way. The sight of himself drowning haunted him... That was how he was going to look if he didn't get out of here soon enough.
As he broke the 10 minute mark, Ori noticed his cheeks were starting to very slowly expand. This always happened when he held his breath for a long time, and as far as he knew, it didn't have a limit. The only way to get them much bigger than they were at right now, though, was to keep on holding it. He was getting an erection as well, the thought of potentially not finding air in time starting to arouse him. Ignoring that, though, Ori kept on swimming.
Finally, for better or worse, the spirit wasn't alone. Entering another large room, he could see a spider-like creature being chased by some kind of glowing purple orb with tendrils of energy extending from it. Knowing better than to get involved, Ori did his best to hide while watching whatever this was, waiting for it to be over.
Before long, the orb caught the spider creature with its tendrils. The creature fiercely struggled in its grip, before suddenly going limp, some kind of blue energy emitting from it and being absorbed into the orb... Ori's eyes went wide as he realized that had been the creature's soul! He couldn't risk fighting this thing, he had to get away without it noticing him... But, already, he could see it starting to float toward him!
Terrified, Ori swam as fast as he could, very much thankful for his incredible skill at swimming. The orb had quite some trouble keeping up, and with there happening to be quite a few more branching paths than normal, Ori soon lost it. He almost sighed in relief, but held in his air. He'd probably lost about a minute or so from his breath hold because of the fear from that chase... But still, with no other option, he resumed swimming through the endless halls.
15 minutes... He noticed by now, when his bubbles hit the ceiling, they'd disappear. That meant he wouldn't be able to tell if he'd already been somewhere... Maybe that had even already happened. Everything here looked the same, as if it were made to confuse him, but he hoped the whale creature he'd been shown earlier would be able to help if he found it in time.
Another couple minutes, and Ori's cheeks were about half the size of his head. The need to breathe was really starting to get uncomfortable, just beginning to burn... He'd gotten fully erect by now as well, his cock throbbing some, trying to get his attention. Trying to ignore it, Ori kept on going, and up ahead, at least, things looked different; the pattern of tiles changed to a lighter blue, each individual tile being smaller than before. As he swam into that section, the water suddenly stopped holding him up, and he grunted out some bubbles as he fell on his face. Of course something like that would be able to change here...
Climbing to his hooves, Ori wasted no time in starting to walk ahead. Before long, he arrived at a bit of a strange room; a collection of columns stood up from a pit, and the only other exit to the room was on the far side. He looked over the edge... There was nothing. The pit extended farther and farther down, eventually turning to darkness. With this place's track record, it may well have been infinite! Even if it wasn't, Ori wouldn't survive falling that far, and he could only imagine some kind of horror down there waiting to rip him to shreds...
He turned to go back, not wanting to risk it, but the route he'd entered through was gone. With a bubbly whimper, Ori looks at the columns again... He didn't have a choice, he had to at least try to cross. Bracing himself, he started jumping between columns. He at least had experience with platforming like this, but never in a situation where he'd die - or worse - if he messed up...
It went well for a while, though it was a bit strange for Ori to be holding his breath during the process. Each jump and landing made his cheeks and cock wobble up and down, which was a little hard to ignore, but he managed. On one jump though, he immediately realized he'd misjudged the distance, but it was too late! Barely holding back a scream as he started to fall, energy formed from one of his hands, becoming a sword he jammed into the column, stopping himself. He'd never used Spirit Edge for this before, and boy was he glad it had worked!
Slowly, he worked his way up the column, using Spirit Edge to give him handholds as if it were an ice axe. Once he got onto the column, he looked back... It was obvious he couldn't make that jump. The column he was on had moved when he tried. With a bubbly growl of frustration followed by a whine of breathlessness, Ori resumed crossing, and managed it without further issue.
20 full minutes, he'd been holding his breath. His cheeks were now as big as his head, and his blush was gaining a purple tint, prompting him to cover his mouth. He needed to find a way out, and soon... He continued walking through the hall, the tiles returning to normal and the spirit regaining his ability to swim. Continually letting out little whines, he wandered on in this airless place.
Before too much longer, another creature became visible in a huge room, and Ori immediately recognized it as the whale creature he'd been shown! He quickly swam up to it, dwarfed by it, an eye as big as himself looking at him while the others kept looking ahead. A single word forced into his head: "Destination." Ori focused on "Outside of this place" as much as he could, but the creature didn't react...
"Obl-oubltsiblde oblf thblis plblace!" He spoke out loud instead, and another word entered his mind: "Enter." The creature opened its mouth. Ori dreaded going in there, but... He could tell even from outside it that it was quite different from what he was expecting, looking like just a simple room with dark pinkish-red tiling and several benches, which unfortunately wasn't devoid of other entities. Still, them being there made him feel better about going in a creature's mouth, and after a moment, he swam in.
There was still no air to be found in here, but at least Ori could save oxygen by not swimming. The whale's mouth closed behind him - still looking artificial - and the spirit looked at the entities he was sharing the space with. Thankfully, there were only a couple: One was some kind of anthro fox woman, easily 10 feet tall and glowing blue like the energy that had been pulled from the spider creature earlier. A greatsword as big as her was next to her, with a blade seemingly made of a similar energy to Ori's Spirit Edge. He wondered if she was some kind of living soul, and even considered trying to ask her about things here, as she was the most normal being he'd seen here, but he wanted to save his air.
The other entity was simply a large metal cube, with gears visibly turning in and on it. Nothing about it made it seem like it was alive, but at this point it wouldn't surprise Ori if it was. Covering his crotch, he swam to the bench farthest from both and sat down. All he could really do now was wait... And try to defend himself if he was attacked.
With one hand still covering himself and the other plugging his nose, Ori did his best to relax. The minutes ticked by, more of his oxygen slowly draining over time, the only sounds being his whines and bubbles, and the subtle whirring of the cube's gears. With air dribbling from his lips, and his purple cheeks a foot and a half wide, he had to cover his mouth, leaving his fully erect cock exposed and visibly throbbing in the water. No one seemed to mind, though he couldn't tell if they were looking at him, the fox's eyes being a featureless dark blue and the cube not seeming to even have any.
After Ori had held his breath for 24 minutes in total, the whale creature's mouth opened again. He thought at first it might have been his stop, but then the cube started moving, clanging along the floor as it rolled onto each of its sides. Whether it was alive or a robot though, Ori still didn't know. Once the cube left, the whale's mouth closed again, and they presumably resumed swimming along.
Ori's cock was aching now, demanding his attention as he started getting close to an orgasm just from holding his breath so long. Still plugging his nose and covering his mouth, he tried to keep his cock down with his legs, but that just made it worse, pushing him over the edge. He curled inward and tried to resist, but he could only hold back from cumming for a few seconds before he started unloading into the water. It did feel good to finally enjoy the climax that had been wanting to get out for so long, and Ori gave a muffled moan into his hand, some bubbles leaking past his fingers. He looked up at the fox woman, embarrassed, but she didn't seem to care.
A couple more minutes, with Ori starting to squirm in place, the whale stopped again and reopened its mouth. This seemed to be the fox woman's stop, as she got up, picking up her greatsword - in one hand! - and walking outside. Then, like before, the whale's mouth closed, but this time Ori was alone. Why couldn't his orgasm have waited until now? But, with no one for him to worry about bothering, he stopped holding back his grunts and whines of desperation. This was past his breath holding record at this point, and his poor cheeks were bigger than he'd seen them before...
The 30 minute mark came, and Ori began shivering, desperately wanting to breathe as his blush turned blue and his cheeks crested over 2 feet in width. Thankfully, at least, he heard the whale speak into his mind again. "Arrived." It opened its mouth again, and Ori pushed off the bench and uncovered his nose to excitedly swim out into a more normal place... Only to find more pool tiles around, with several different ways he could go. Another couple words from the whale: "Closest. Follow." A light emitted from one of its many eyes, aimed at a particular opening. Ori immediately swam for that as the whale started to move on.
His swimming was frantic and uncoordinated, his dire need to breathe starting to make him lose his composure as bubbles streamed from his nose. The environment changed again, with darker colors, and as he crossed into it his bubbles changed; instead of a constant stream, each bubble would stay attached to his nostrils before reaching the size of his head, and then it would float away. It made no difference; his body was about ready to give up.
As he swam through another big room, having been holding his breath for just under 32 minutes, his body had finally had enough. Ori stopped swimming and trembled out of his control, his chest jolting back and forth as his lungs tried to force out his air. Soon enough, they succeeded. His mouth opened wide, his lungs and cheeks deflating as he exhaled, and an enormous bubble left him after growing to 5 times his own size!
Ori just barely held back from breathing, whimpering and frantically kicking about as he tried to swim after the bubble, but he was too dizzy to get any real speed. He continued holding himself shut, with empty lungs and a once again heavily throbbing cock, and swam toward the room's exit for a good 20 seconds... Before it finally happened. Ori arched back, and pool water surged down his throat in a desperate gasp!
Now thrashing around with his hands on his neck, he gurgled and gagged as he had no choice but to keep taking in water and coughing it back out. His cock throbbed harder and harder with his racing heartbeat, before erupting with more cum, in an even bigger orgasm than before. His flailing sent his cum all over, and he even unintentionally sucked some into his lungs, but it wasn't as if it was any more or less breathable.
Even with his drowning orgasm still continuing, Ori took off swimming for the exit, leaving a trail of cum behind him as he gargled and hiccupped. A particularly fierce hack forced the last of the worthless air from his flooded lungs in another sizable bubble, though he was far from caring. His face was fully blue now, and even the rest of his body was beginning to shift in color. Most of him started slowly turning blue, and his cock and tongue purple, as he burned through what oxygen remained in his blood. His discolored cock was still spurting cum, even almost a minute into his drowning, but it was slowing.
A minute and a half into Ori's drowning, his orgasm finally stopped, though his choking and hacking continued as he rounded a corner into a long hallway. He could see that about halfway down the hall, the tiles turned to the usual color, and something white was swimming toward him. Once he got close, he realized it was himself... He was on the other side of the hall he'd seen earlier, as the drowning version of himself!
His eyes went wide at the concerned face of his past self, before he remembered another detail about it, and glanced downward. Like he'd seen before, his belly had expanded, as he'd been swallowing a good portion of the water he'd been choking on without realizing. Trying to ignore that, he quickly swam down the hall to his right, leaving this especially strange section behind.
Thankfully, there were no branching paths to speak of, and the color of the tiles returned to normal for what it was worth. For minutes on end, Ori swam, gasped, and gulped, his body slowly turning more blue and belly slowly getting bigger... Eventually, the weight was too much for him to swim, and he sank to the floor to awkwardly run again. Unlike near the column room, water resistance was still a thing, and his foot and a half wide belly made it a little tough to keep his balance, but there wasn't anything else he could do.
Slowly, Ori calmed down, the lack of oxygen making him feel increasingly sleepy... But, something quite different was up ahead. Sand... The endless pool tiles were changing, starting to fade to solid textures, and sand was beginning to cover the floor. He was almost out! With the sight of that giving him a second wind, he picked up the pace some, before tripping and falling onto his belly. The force of the landing nearly made him spit up some of the water he'd drank, but he kept it all down, for better or worse, and got to his hooves again to keep going. Up ahead, the walls and ceiling turned to rock before giving way entirely.
As Ori passed that threshold, the water suddenly changed, and he smiled, knowing he was back to the real world... Before nearly falling to his knees, his blue body about ready to pass out. He stumbled along the seabed, thankfully finding a way to walk to the surface before long, slowly approaching air. He'd been drowning for 6 minutes now, and his mind was slowing down as he felt drowsy again. Ori instinctively held his breath again, puffing his cheeks and keeping his lungs full of water.
He reached the very edge of passing out, barely able to move any more, before he collapsed onto his belly again, exhaling the water he'd been holding. As he lay there drowned, it slowly occurred to him... Ori was above the water, laying on a beach! But, his mind was so far gone, he couldn't remember how to breathe. 10 seconds passed like this, his heartbeat slowing and vision fading, before he happened to remember how inhaling worked, and took a slow breath with a bit of a slurp, some water still in his throat. His dying body started waking up again, and soon he was hacking and gasping, desperate to get oxygen back in him.
Slowly, the blue of his body faded back to its normal white, and his lungs dried, recovering from his thorough flooding. Ori sat down once he could, and after a few minutes, the coughing stopped and his breathing began to settle, though his belly was still packed full of water, nearly 2 feet wide. Finally getting back up, he glanced back into the ocean, knowing that the exit of that pool-like place should've been visible. But, it wasn't there, only solid rock being visible... But, it must have all happened, he had a ton of water still in him.
Still deeply confused, Ori walked away from the ocean to figure out where he was and hopefully what had happened, soon finding he'd been sent to the opposite side of the world from the pool this had all started in! He never did learn anything more about the pool-tile place, nor did he ever return to it... But, in the end, he decided it was best to simply put it behind him. He, of course, picked a new pool to practice in; he couldn't relax in the old one any more, not after that.