The Weight of Water

Framing a dying friendship against a breathless race for survival, “The Weight of Water” is a work of fiction in the tradition of classic adventure stories by Jack London and Graham Greene. At its heart are Colin and Amy, longtime friends whose relationship has slowly begun to disintegrate: Colin is preparing to get married; Amy, restless and avidly outdoorsy, is terrified she’s about to lose her best friend. In a last-ditch effort to jumpstart their relationship, Amy organizes a caving trip to the remote side of Vancouver Island, to a recently discovered and unexplored karst. But everything changes when a flash flood rips through the cave and the two friends find themselves trapped more than a kilometer underground. Now, the pair must confront who they are to each other and find a way to escape the cave—with the floodwaters rising around them all the time.

Will Preston was born in Virginia and has since lived in Oregon, England, and the Netherlands. In addition to fiction, he has written extensively on film, travel, music, and history, and was most recently published in Glassworks Magazine. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia.