Chapter 11 #2
The rapid descent is a terrifying blur of dizzying speed and crushing pressure. The world dissolves into motion around me, a frantic plunge into darkness.
I'm dimly aware of the ocean water changing color around me. It shifts from the blood-clouded gray of the chaotic battle above, to a deep bruising purple, and finally to a black so absolute it is a solid wall.
Kael doesn't slow down. He swims with a terrifying, single-minded efficiency.
His heavy tail beats a frantic, powerful rhythm against me.
He holds me so tight I can barely inflate my lungs, but I don't care.
The agonizing pain radiating from my shredded shoulder is a deafening roar drowning out everything else.
We're going too deep, a fading, logical part of my mind whispers. My fine gills can't take this crushing pressure.
But I soon realize we're not aiming for the bottom of the trench. We're aiming for the Shell.
The massive, ancient conch looms out of the darkness below us. It is a brilliant beacon of chaotic, electric blue light. The heavy kelp curtain at the main entrance is torn, flapping in the thermal current.
Kael dives for the glowing opening.
We hit the threshold. He swings us both inside the shell, using his own broad back to absorb the brutal impact as we crash onto the white sand floor.
The transition from the freezing ocean to the warm water of the shell is a shock. My chilled skin prickles. The heavy scent of sharp ozone and boiling sulfur hits my sensitive nose, chemical and alive.
Kael slams his heavy hand against the sandy floor.
I can't hear him hit the ground. I'm still deafened by the medical shock and the crushing pressure. But the intense vibration ripples through the sand.
A blinding, explosive flash of blue light erupts from the center of the room.
I squint against the glare, my vision swimming with dark spots. A terrifying monster is coiled inside a heavy cage of rusted copper pipes. It's a giant, crackling electric eel.
"Ah, you brought your Red Prince home!" the eel's deep voice booms. The sound vibrates through the water trapped inside the shell. "And you brought half the damned ocean with him!"
I look back at the main entrance.
The towering Great White is there.
The shark-mer followed our bleeding trail.
His bulk is too wide for the tall, narrow opening, but he thrashes against the shell's exterior.
His fists slam against the aperture. His bloody teeth snap at the torn kelp curtain, a deep voice vibrating through the water, demanding we abandon our hiding place.
The ancient structure shudders under the assault.
Fine calcium dust rains down from the curved ceiling.
Kael doesn't hesitate. He leaves me resting on the warm sand and swims fast to the copper cage.
He screams something silent and furious at the glowing eel.
The eel grins. A terrifying, jagged expression made of pure electricity.
"Hold onto your fins, shark!" the eel's voice crackles in my mind. "I am blowing the main manifold!"
The eel uncoils. He flares with a blue light so bright it turns my entire field of vision pure white.
CRACK.
A devastating shockwave of pure, unadulterated electricity explodes outward from the copper cage. It travels rapidly through the rusted metal veins fused to the shell, actively amplifying a thousand times over.
The mechanical engine roars to life. It is not a low hum anymore. It is a deafening scream of grinding metal and raw magic.
The large shell lurches.
The sudden, brutal acceleration throws me backward against a large pile of rotting fishing nets.
The ambient pressure inside the shell drops instantly as the structure rockets forward.
We are diving blindly down the steep continental slope.
We are rocketing away from the treacherous ridge, away from the hungry sharks, and permanently away from the false reef.
The Great White is left behind in a churning cloud of dark silt and boiling ozone.
We are falling. Tumbling blindly into the true abyss.
The dark world outside the shell is a terrifying blur of speed lines. Inside the shell, it's pure, terrifying chaos. Glass jars topple and shatter. Heavy pieces of scrap metal clatter across the shifting floor.
I slide helplessly down the curved calcium wall. My severely injured shoulder scrapes against the rough stone.
The pain flares bright, white-hot, and consuming. Then, it mercifully fades into a cold, creeping, absolute numbness.
I look weakly across the chaotic room at Kael.
He slumps heavily against the base of the copper cage, his broad chest heaving with each frantic gasp.
The wildness in his eyes burns through the dim blue light.
His dark hair, once so meticulously kept by my own hands, now spills in a chaotic halo of tangles around his face.
My crimson blood paints streaks across his pale skin, a violent contrast against the exhaustion etched into his features.
He spots my eyes through the pulsing glow.
He crawls toward me. The brutal acceleration pins us both to the floor, making swimming impossible.
He drags his heavy body through the white sand, each movement a desperate struggle against the crushing gravity, until he hovers directly above my face.
The sand clouds around us, tiny particles dancing in the erratic blue light.
His large hands tremble as they reach for me. His fingers trace the line of my jaw, then move to the shredded mesh vest hanging in tatters from my uninjured shoulder. They hover over the horrific wound on my left, the torn flesh still bleeding steadily into the warm water.
He pulls back, his own hand now painted crimson.
The sight of my blood on his skin shatters something in his expression.
His dark eyes widen with a terror so pure it eclipses even the electric glow surrounding us.
He stares at the blood on his fingers, then looks back at my fading eyes, a desperate, silent question passing between us.
He opens his mouth, the muscles in his scarred throat straining against the venom's paralysis. I watch, my heart aching, as the shape of my name forms on his lips.
Vaelis.
But no sound comes forth. Only the deafening roar of the overcharged engine and the grinding of the shell against the dark ocean floor answer his silent plea.
He collapses onto his broad chest, burying his face in the white sand beside my limp hand. His heavy fist strikes the floor once, twice—a devastating, silent tantrum of pure grief that vibrates through the sand and into my bones.
I desperately want to tell him that everything will be alright. I want to tell him I heard his heart anyway, that I proudly watched him hold his own against the swarm, that his silence speaks louder than any battle cry.
My good hand, numb but mobile, reaches out. My fingers brush against his dark hair, coarse against my skin, exactly as I remember.
"Kael," I whisper, my voice barely a fragile breath in the chaotic water. "How I've missed you."
His heavy head snaps up instantly. He looks deeply into my eyes. Heavy, silent tears are freely streaming from his eyes, cutting clean tracks through the silt on his face
I try to offer him a comforting smile, but the heavy darkness is rapidly creeping in at the edges of my vision. The wonderful warmth of the shell is fading away. The agonizing pain is fading.
Everything is becoming very quiet.
"I'm so tired," I murmur, my heavy eyelids fluttering shut.
Kael violently shakes his head. He grabs my face between his large, warm hands. No. Please stay.
But I can't. The heavy current is pulling me away again. It is not the ocean current this time. It's something infinitely deeper.
I close my eyes.
The very last sensation before the dark takes me is his warm forehead pressed firmly against mine. I feel the frantic, heavy, thudding rhythm of a heart desperately beating fast enough for the both of us.
The Reef surfaces in my mind.
The central plaza blazes with light so intense it hurts to see. Mira stands there, her polished iron spear held at a jaunty angle. Taren flanks her, his silver eyes fixed on the distant waves. The Vanguard Commander looms on the high dais, his iron helm catching the sun.
They all smile. Their beauty is a weapon.
"Look at him," Mira says, her voice a cheerful, cutting thing as she gestures with her spear toward my chest. "Look at that vibrant red. It draws the eye."
"He is perfect," the Commander agrees, his voice a paternal rumble. "He will make excellent bait for the monsters."
Their laughter rises in unison, a polite chorus that grates against my ears like breaking glass.
The ambient light shifts.
The warm, golden sun of the shallow waters bleeds into a bruised, heavy violet twilight. Their laughter dies, swallowed by the sudden cold.
The towering coral reef crumbles. It dissolves into gray silt, the vibrant colors washing out into monotonous decay. The smiling mers dissolve with it, their beautiful faces turning into cold mist that vanishes into the gloom.
A shadow emerges from the dissolving reef.
It is pale, its skin mapped in the violent language of scars. It has no voice, but the water bows around its immense presence, acknowledging a power that needs no sound.
It reaches out a heavy, scarred hand.
"Come with me," the shadow conveys. The thought forms in my mind, heavy with gravity and truth. "The bright light is a lie. The dark is the only honest thing that will keep you safe."
I take the hand.
It's warm.
The first sensation is not pain, but scent. Burning ozone and something else—something impossibly rich and savory that has no business existing in the crushing darkness. Slow-simmered fish broth and crushed algae paste, a phantom memory of a bustling reef kitchen.