Chapter 13 #2
"The Abyssal Draught," the witch whispers, holding the vessel between us. "I distilled this poison from the black bile of a rotting Leviathan. It thickens the thin blood of a Vael. It hardens the soft skin. It slows the frantic heart until the muscle beats but once a minute."
She holds the black bottle out to me, the glass cool and heavy in the water.
"It will let you survive the crushing pressure without acclimation," she says, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hiss. "It will let you hunt in the dark without the silence breaking your mind. It will make you strong. You will be stronger than any betta in the history of the Reef."
"Give me the bottle."
My hand reaches for the glass, fingers closing around the cool, smooth surface.
Oona snatches it back, her movements surprisingly swift. "The price, little guard. The price is heavy."
"Name your price."
"The draught borrows strength from your own future," Oona explains, her blind face turned toward me.
"It takes your time. When the dark magic fades from your veins, you must pay the borrowed years back.
The debt collects all at once. You will return to this cave.
I will bleed you. The aged, magic-soaked sludge in your veins makes a rare base for my brews. Your ruined blood is my price."
I stare at the black bottle, the weight of her words pressing down on me like the water above.
If I drink this poison, I am shortening my natural life. I am surrendering decades of my future. When I return to the Witch, I will be old. I will be broken. I will be withered and weak.
Vaelis surfaces in my mind. His bright golden eyes, wide with terror. Trapped in the dark. He is bleeding. He is waiting for his best friend to fulfill her oath. I promised to protect him. I told him I would save him.
I am the only one coming for him.
"Give me the bottle," I demand, my voice cold as the abyss itself.
Oona hands the glass to me, her long fingers brushing against mine. "Drink the liquid quickly. It tastes like drowning."
I break the wax seal with my thumbnail, throwing it into my satchel. I lift the bottle to my lips and drink the poison, the liquid coating my throat with an oily, metallic taste that promises oblivion.
The poison does taste of drowning. Cold as the abyssal trench, it burns a path down my throat and turns my stomach to solid ice.
My grip spasms. The black bottle slips from my fingers, shattering against the stone floor of the cave. I gasp, a ragged, useless sound.
My heart hammers against my ribs—a frantic, desperate rhythm. One. Two. Three.
Then it stops.
A terrible, agonizing pressure crushes my chest. The frantic beat returns, but it is slow. A ponderous, heavy crawl.
Thud.
I wait, frozen in the suffocating silence of the cave.
Thud.
The oppressive dark of the cave brightens. My soft skin tightens, hardens into something resembling leather cured in the sun. The blue veins on my hands stand out, stark and black, pumping sludge instead of blood. A heavy, invincible weight settles deep into my bones.
"Go," Oona whispers from the deep shadows of her cave. "Leave before you forget which way is up."
I turn from her domain. I swim from the dark cave.
I return to the hidden skiff.
I climb inside the cockpit, my movements stiff and alien in my new body. I seal the heavy hatch. The controls are small and fragile in my hardened hands.
I turn the skiff around.
I face the deep drop-off.
I ignite the floodlights. The twin beams cut through the gloom like twin spears of artificial light, piercing the unknown darkness.
"I'm coming, Vaelis," I whisper into the empty cabin, the words a cold promise in the crushing silence.
My own voice, when it comes, sounds wrong. It sounds like the rocky ocean floor grinding together.
My hand, now calloused, finds the heavy lever. I shove it forward.
The skiff drops like a heavy stone. The ballast tanks flood with a rushing hiss. The depth gauge on the main console spins out of control. Two hundred fathoms. Three hundred fathoms. Five hundred.
I should be terrified.
The immense pressure outside the iron-glass hull is enough to turn solid bone to fine powder. The darkness is total. It's a crushing, suffocating weight pressing against the reinforced viewport. The glass groans under the strain. Any normal betta-mer would scream in panic.
But I am not normal. I am not the same Mira.
The Abyssal Draught courses through my altered veins. It burns my core like liquid nitrogen. It freezes my fear. It slows my racing singular heart to a heavy, rhythmic thud. It sounds like a hammer striking an iron anvil.
Thud.
I wait in the cold silence.
Thud.
My reflection in the dark glass stares back.
The eyes are different. The pupils are blown wide.
They swallow the colored iris, turning the entire field of vision into a monochrome landscape of high-contrast gray.
Microscopic silt particles dance in the freezing water outside.
Shifting thermal currents twist in the floodlights.
I am a hunter. I am a weapon.
I level the skiff out at the edge of the Midnight Zone.
I scan the barren ocean floor.
I don't need to guess the monster's path. The beast left a chaotic trail a blind heavy-lifter could follow in the dark.
A deep, jagged furrow cuts into the sediment. It winds down the steep continental slope like an ugly scar. It is the distinct track of something heavy being dragged against the current.
"I see your path," I whisper.
My voice sounds alien inside the small cockpit.
I push the throttle forward. The hydro-engine whines in protest. The pressure fights the mechanics, but the skiff shoots forward. I follow the deep track.
Down.
Always down.
I cross the invisible threshold into the true Abyss.
The water outside the reinforced viewport crystallizes into lacework patterns of ice.
The iron hull groans, the sound a tormented wail that travels up my arms and into my bones.
A new warning flashes across the main console, its red light painting the dark cockpit in crimson pulses.
Warning. Structural Integrity Compromised.
The mechanical voice chirps, useless against the crushing dark.
I ignore it. My attention remains fixed on the descent gauge.
The Abyssal Draught has remade me. The poison now knits my cells together against the pressure that threatens to pulverize this vessel.
My skin, once soft as a Vaeil's should be, has hardened.
I could abandon this iron coffin now, swim into the freezing black, and tear the shark apart with my bare hands.
The violent thought intoxicates me. A small, quiet part of my soul screams in protest. The old Mira, the girl who preferred warm currents and polishing ceremonial spears, shrieks in terror at what I've become.
She knows this unnatural strength comes at a terrible cost. She knows I'm borrowing years I can never repay.
I silence the weak girl. Vaelis needs my strength. He's waiting in the dark for a hero to cut his heavy chains.
Then I see it.
Far below, the deep track terminates against a flat shelf of rock near a cluster of smoking black vents.
A massive object is wedged there like a tumor upon the ocean floor.
It is the Shell from the battlefield, a chaotic spiral of human garbage and rusted debris.
A sickly, erratic blue light pulses from within.
"Found the lair," I whisper, my voice a rough grinding of stones.
I kill the noisy engine.
I swim closer to the target, my movements precise and calculated in the crushing dark.
The skiff's silent running mode engages with a soft click, the noisy engine fading to a low hum.
My hardened hands glide over the weapons panel, fingers tracing the familiar contours of the control systems. The heavy harpoon cannon is loaded and ready.
I line up the kill shot, my eyes narrowed in concentration.
The targeting reticle hovers over the main opening of the shell, a dark mouth where a torn kelp curtain flutters in the current.
If I fire the explosive into that opening, I will kill the shark.
I might injure Vaelis in the resulting blast, but I doubt they have him caged at the entrance.
A minor injury is a small price for freedom.
A physical injury heals. A devoured soul cannot be fixed. I have no choice but to take my odds.
My hardened finger settles on the trigger, the cold metal pressing against my transformed skin.
The skiff shudders violently beneath me, a sudden, jarring movement.
It's the iron hull giving way under the immense pressure of the abyss.
CRACK.
A spiderweb fracture appears on the main viewport, spreading like lightning across the reinforced glass.
It sits right in front of my face, a terrifying reminder of the fragility of even this advanced technology.
A warning flashes across the console: Warning.
External Pressure Exceeding Maximum Limits.
"No," I snarl at the flashing console, my voice a deep, guttural growl. "Hold together. Just hold for one minute."
I squeeze the heavy trigger with all my might, my enhanced muscles straining against the mechanism. Nothing happens. The firing mechanism is jammed, warped by the crushing pressure that has distorted the iron barrel of the cannon.
"Useless piece of trash!" I scream, my voice echoing in the small cabin. I slam my fist against the control panel, the impact a fatal mistake.
My hand possesses the supernatural strength of the draught, and I shatter the control panel into pieces. Hot sparks fly across the small cabin, the interior lights dying in a cascade of darkness.
The skiff tilts precariously, caught in a thermal updraft from the black vents below.
The fracture on the main window spreads with an audible groan, the glass screeching in protest against the relentless pressure. I have seconds before implosion, but my own survival is irrelevant. The vital mission remains.