Chapter 9
Nine
Proteus
His plan was coming together. The squid would head off and figure out what was broken.
They were intelligent creatures. Even if they weren't proficient engineers, there weren't many puzzles that creatures like them couldn't figure out.
He trusted them. Much more than he would sending anyone else, and that said something about the sorry state of affairs.
Proteus had no one. He had no one to fall back on, nor did he have any creatures who were really helpful. If he could speak with the People of Water, then perhaps he would have others who could assist him. The only issue with that was that the seafolk didn't remember him properly.
There were only a few creatures left in this entire sea who could help him, and they were the ones who had created him.
Proteus didn't like visiting his parents. Namely, because he'd never thought of them like that. They were his creators. The beings who had breathed life into something they created, but they certainly did not care if he survived. He was their tool to use when they desired to do so, but even then they rarely remembered that he even existed. Perhaps that was the reason he’d been locked up for all those years and they hadn’t even tried to get him out.
They were very old. Everything to them was just a blip in time, unworthy of their attention. They had seen the future, they had seen the past, and they knew how fluid both were.
He remembered when he had first awoken how cold he had found them. Of course, it had taken him some time to realize that was what he had felt. He’d been raised to think their treatment of him was normal until he had seen proof that it wasn’t.
Proteus had snuck away to spy on the People of Water. He'd watched a mother and her child, flicking their tails as she taught the little girl how to swim. The joy on that mother's face had burned something inside of his chest.
Proteus had desperately wanted to feel that way.
He still remembered that sensation as he swam ever deeper into the sea.
The ache in his heart when he had wanted to feel what it would be like to have a parent who loved him so much.
Someone who was gentle as they taught him how to swim, how to laugh, how to live.
He'd come out from his hiding place as a child, wondering if the mother would be as kind to him as she was to her own. It had been the wrong thing to do.
He winced, his massive mouth splitting in a grimace as he remembered the horror on that woman's face.
She'd grabbed her daughter as if he were something to be afraid of.
She'd held onto her little girl and hissed at him, slapping through the water with a tail that had sent him careening away from their little family.
It was the first memory he had where he’d felt like a monster. He'd never really thought much about his looks, or where he had come from until that point. He barely even noticed that he was different from the other sea folk.
The wild swim away from that mother and her child was still burned into his memory. His gills still remembered the ache of how fast he'd been breathing, so quickly that he'd torn through the thin membranes and all he had been able to smell or taste was his own black blood.
The ancients waited for him now. He hovered above the cavern where they lived, although many who came here would not know it was a cavern.
It looked more like a giant crater in the sea floor, a trap for anything that might disturb them.
But Proteus had been made with better eyesight than any of the creatures who would visit his family.
He could see how the earth had been carved out of their den. He could see the faint tips of their tentacles that stretched out of the entrance. They were massive, gray beasts. Nothing about them was soft or kind or welcoming.
To others, they seemed to be giants of the sea. Terrifying and endless, they were an amalgamation of many sea creatures. Unfortunately, that made it hard for many to even guess what they looked like. Their minds simply could not fathom what they saw.
Giant, bulbous heads made up most of their bodies.
They did have tails, although they were hard to see because the ancients rarely moved.
Their mottled skin was gray, although varying shades for the three of them.
Their eyes were small, but they did not need them to see.
Of course, small to Proteus meant the eyes were the same size as the average undine.
The tentacles that came out of their forms were more than an octopus or squid, so they could reach any prey that fell close enough to their den.
The ground around it was littered with bones. Skeletal remains of whales and massive sharks, even megalodon skeletons from times long past. The bones here told a story of a hunger that could never be satisfied. He had inherited that hunger.
He floated before the entrance, anxiously awaiting them to notice him.
They had, he was certain. They would have smelled him from miles away if they weren't already all-knowing.
They would sense that he was coming to see them.
They would know that he would return to his family to know what they wished for him to do.
Proteus had always been theirs, after all. And he was ashamed to admit that he still was.
"Come inside," their voices boomed from the cavern. He knew part of the reason they'd chosen this place was because of the echo. But their voices were louder than those of any creature in the sea.
He'd gotten used to the sound of them. But now that it had been many years since he'd heard them speak, he flinched.
Perhaps that was why he was so afraid of loud noises.
Proteus corrected himself immediately. He wasn't afraid of loud noises. He merely reacted to them more strongly than other people. It was easier to believe that than the alternative.
Floating closer to the entrance, he remained still as one of the tentacles emerged from the murky darkness.
It was as long and thick as he was, but surprisingly gentle as it touched him.
The tentacle ran down from his torso to his tail.
The suckers worked against his skin, helping to move the long, mucus-covered appendage as it went.
The ancient tasted him. He stayed still until it confirmed that he was who it knew him to be.
"Son," it whispered. "You have returned to us."
They had no names. They had no sex. They were beings who could procreate on their own, and yet, they made him together. All three of them.
Their genetics were weak. So old, they couldn't create a being who was like them. One who would take their place. Instead, they had created something new. At least, that's what they had claimed all those years ago.
He wished their intent had been clearer. The knowledge that they had wanted a child, that he hadn't just been an experiment to see if they could alter the timeline, would have been helpful in those dark times. To at least know someone wanted him. Someone cared that he had been lost for so long.
The tentacle drifted away, back into the darkness of the cavern and the silt that made it almost impossible to see the rest of them.
"I was awakened," he said quietly.
It was the only thing he could say. Seeing them was harder than he had expected.
The murk shifted, the dust settled, and finally they moved.
The three creatures emerged out of the darkness, their bodies barely visible in the shadows as they pulled themselves free from the darkness and landed on the ground before him.
Massive, beastly monoliths. The ancients were nearly impossible for any mind to actually comprehend.
They were unending terror and inspired madness just from a glimpse.
"Our son," another said, this one's voice a little deeper than the other. "We have waited for this for centuries."
Tentacles lifted over his head, slamming down onto the ground so hard that the resulting sound was slow to come. He waited for the thunderclap to rock over him, and the wave that pushed him slightly away from them. He took it all, enduring even as the bones throughout his entire body lit up.
"You bid me to wait," he murmured, and the bitter pill of knowledge that they had known he would suffer and they did nothing to stop it made his stomach burn. "So I did. Now I am here, as you requested."
"You came back," the third whispered.
They had no gender, but he had always thought the third one had more feminine energy than the others. It was softer, more apt toward kindness and pity, but also not quite so rash. The other two were quick to threaten bloodshed. But the third always strove to find some way toward peace.
It moved a little closer to him, her tentacles not quite so loud as they braced her body while she peered down at him. “We missed you.”
"Very much."
"Terribly so."
The words resounded around him, and he wished he could believe them.
The ancients did not know how to miss things.
Perhaps they regretted that their greatest weapon had to be put on a shelf somewhere they could not use, that he would believe.
But he did not think they had it in themselves to know what missing someone felt like. Not for him. Not even for each other.
"My mission continues," he announced, his voice booming through the cavern with them. "I have discovered help already. There is a certain facility that will turn all the rest on. We can explore the world above again, and we can turn this planet back online, as the humans say."
A low rumbling echo came after his words. It was a pleased sound made by one of the males, who leaned even closer to look at him.
His massive eye was black as the deepest part of the sea. All he could see within it was his own reflection. Proteus was glowing so brightly that he was certain it hurt for the ancient to even look at him, something he was reminded of often when he was a child.
"This is good," the ancient said. "We grow weary."