Piercing light surged across my closed eyelids, singeing my retinas and pulling me all the way back to consciousness. Wincing against the pain in my head, I kept my eyes closed and my breathing even. Playing dead did have its advantages…but it could end in death very quickly. Especially in the ocean.
When the water around me stilled and darkened, I opened my eyes. At first, I couldn’t understand what my eyes were trying to tell me. The pictures in my head didn’t make any sense whatsoever. And that didn’t even touch on the fact that the water around me was no longer blue.
Turning my head from side to side slowly, I fought back the scream of horror that demanded escape from my throat. Masu, what the gourami was that?
I jerked back from the thing swimming not even a fin’s length from my face. With a quick count, I noted eight tendrils that looked thicker than my tail. Each dangled in the water as if it were nothing more than a lifeless hunk of tissue.
The entire thing looked like an eyeball with huge nerves branching off of it. But it just hung in the water, bobbing without a tether. It was close to the size of a whale shark all curled up on itself. The surface of it looked rough, like barnacles on a ship’s bottom.
On its front, it had a massive opening. Could this be an actual eyeball monster? Was that a thing? The opening reminded me of eyelids covering the eye itself. Peering into it made me feel like I was pondering the depths of the Abyss.
The slitted gash just under it moved. Rows and rows of gnarled stumps played peek-a-boo with the flesh that surrounded it. A virulent orange flange of flesh fluttered within its open maw. Pressure shoved against my chest as a focused vibration darted around my head like a school of minnows in a shallow pond.
I shook my head as I prayed that the vibrations wouldn’t sink into my mind. That was the absolute last thing I needed. Some alien sound waves to slip into my brain. What if they killed me? What if they were going to harvest my body or something?
Horror after horror rushed through my mind like the dome of moving pictures on Walna’s wall. Each picture had me dying in new and terrifying ways. And not a single one of them was peaceful or easy.
The pressure of the alien’s vibrations narrowed until I felt like it was trying to burrow its way inside my skull. I wanted to lift a hand to my ear. See if there was any blood. Could brains leak out of the head? Was that a thing?
I didn’t smell anything in the water, but that wasn’t really reassuring at the moment. Maybe I was having another episode? That would be a welcome change. Yearning for the times when my brain went…weird.
The alien thing surged forward in the water, his eye thingy constricting down into a narrow vertical slit. The stumps erupted into sharp peaks as it opened its mouth…thing.
I jerked back. Or tried to. All I managed to do was send shooting pain through my tail. With a quick look down, I saw that my tail was restrained by some kind of clamp. Smooth against the scales of my tail, it felt like the sensuous slide of wet, finely ground sand was rubbing against me.
Lifting my chin, I faced the…thing head on. And I really needed a better word for it than thing. If this was how I was supposed to die, then I would do so without whimpering or crying. They couldn’t take my dignity from me. It was one of the few things I’d learned during the Incident all those revolutions ago.
“Do it,” I said through clenched teeth. “Just do it already, masu.” I jutted my chin up, glared at the beast down the length of my nose.
It stopped less than the thickness of a shell from my face. A slimy tendril leaked from its mouth as its orange tongue swept over the thin barriers of its lips. That hideous pressure increased in my mind until I felt a slight pop—like my ears adjusting with the pressure of the deeper water.
Why do you cower, female? a foreign voice asked in my mind. You struggle and struggle but have no idea of what against you fight. You tire yourself by your own misguided design.
I blinked at the calm words. Tried to reconcile the terrifying features and polite voice. In my world, polite and helpful were two very different things. I’d almost been torn apart by polite.
Steeling myself against the desire to let down my barriers, I bit my cheek until I tasted blood. But I made sure to give this entity nothing more of myself. Saying nothing, I just stared at it.
It floated in the water that buffeted against my body. Silent. Staring. Horrific.
As I felt my need for answers push against the restraint I’d imposed on myself, I purposely brought to mind what had happened to me all those revolutions ago. It wasn’t such a stretch to bring it back. It was always there. Lurking. Waiting for my weak moments.
Just as the pictures of my past began to form in my mind’s eye, the world around me shifted once more. Bright lights once again bathed my face, searing my eyes, and making my brain feel like it was on fire.
You cannot escape, little piscis. You have been well and truly caught. With you, we will achieve great things.
The words seemed to come from everywhere and they bounced around in my mind as if they were on a loop of some kind. They chased each other until I felt my stomach roil. I had to bite my cheek once more to steady myself in the here and now.
Just as suddenly as the brightness came, darkness devoured it. The deep void consumed the light in a single swallow. Much like the Deep to those who have passed to the next life. There one moment, gone the next.
Opening my eyes against the stygian pitch, I felt something tug low and hard in my belly. A sharp, piercing pain that reminded me of a utensil scraping along the bottom of a bowl. My bones ached and my organs spasmed in agony.
“Aaaaaa!” My voice betrayed me. It showed my weakness to these invaders.
Hoarse and choked laughter grated against my ears as the scraping sensation dug its way through my body. My very soul was scooped out like a hand shifting through the ocean floor.
My breath backed up in my lungs as a peculiar hollowness erupted inside me. That void engulfed everything from the inside out. My heart ached as my body shivered and shuddered at the loss of something vital.
As the void inside me expanded, the world around me shook as if a tsunami were gaining strength. Swept and smashed against the metaphorical rocks, I was anchorless in the riotous face of the water around me. With only my tail restrained, my upper body danced and whipped around in the small space.
Clenching my eyes shut, I fought to find that nameless spot inside of me that kept me tethered to this world. Kept me from throwing myself into the Abyss.
There. Just where it always was. But instead of the placid lake it usually shone as, it was as chaotic as the water around me. Small downspouts and hurricanes flicked over its surface. Vibrant blues and crystal greens lined in sparkling black smashed into each other. Reforming into new patterns and new colors until I couldn’t distinguish any of them from another.
With a low note through my chest, I called one of the tiny storms up from my lake. It surged through my veins and pushed against the underside of my skin. I held it there, let it boil and bubble until the pain of containing it was a particular brand of mindless, wordless agony.
Forcing my vocal cords to form the notes, I let the power uncurl from my throat. There were no words to accompany my song. Just my burning desire to be free. And the soul deep need to kill the being who mocked me.
Voices cascaded through my mind as I allowed all of my barriers to drop. Every molecule of hatred and anger at this life floated through the water like mists over the sea. But for each clear note that passed my lips, that place deep inside me calmed.
Opening my eyes, I saw the being was no longer alone. But had a host of other malformed orbed monsters floating in the water around us. Their eye openings had a slightly glazed appearance. Each one was similarly built to the first. Save for one. It’s eye was not a black, bottomless hole in its face.
No. It was a piercing red that reminded me of Captain Conlan’s hair. A small network of lines ran from what we would consider pupils to the outer edges of the sclera. Each line shimmered and pulsed in a constant wave from interior to exterior.
You dare to gaze upon me, piscis. The words were a perfect counterpoint to the melody that continued to roll from my throat.
I couldn’t afford to lose my song, so I answered it in my head. You dared to capture me and take that which does not belong to you. I had no idea where the words were coming from, nor the rigidly formal address, but I was going to go with it. What makes you so special that lowly mers are not allowed to see you?
A taunting chuckle rose through my mind. It reminded me of the smirk that rested on Admiral Moron’s face. An urge to swipe it off his face erupted through me in an instant.
With merely a thought, my song changed. No longer the vibrating intensity of a lost and lonely girl, but the battle cry of a warrior who knows of what she is capable.
Red Eye’s lids blinked as the vertical pupil pulsed at the edges. The shimmering lines reversed their movements so that all lines flowed back towards the middle. The red iris pulsated as the color slowly took on a muddier hue.
As I watched, the uppity creature in front of me began bobbing up and down in the water like a buoy at high tide. The slit of its pupil expanded until it was more round than vertical.
Cease singing or I will be forced to kill you. It will not be pleasant. Its tone was still polite, but I could hear the threat threaded through it.
I snorted and increased the intensity of my song. If this thing thought death was something to be feared, it had never lived through extreme public humiliation and ostracization. I even managed a smile as I heard what had to be at least a dozen voices shrieking through my brain. No coherent words, just cries of abject agony.
If they thought to win my mercy, they shouldn’t have kidnapped me. One by one, the voices fell away as the beings dropped to the floor opposite me. They shivered and shook until something happened that caused them to…deflate. Oozing tendrils of black and gray leached out into the surrounding water. The tendrils that had floated around each body more closely resembled umbilical cords than any living organism I’d ever seen. Soon, only one creature remained besides Red Eye.
Cease your song, witch. Red Eye’s mouth gash opened until it resembled a fully open doorway.
My song cut off as if someone had cut my throat. Pulling on my tail, desperate to get away, I watched in mounting horror as something rose from the depths of the being. More biped in appearance, it was incredibly small. No taller than a tail’s width.
In one hand, the smaller being carried what I could only assume was a weapon. None I had ever seen. But then again, I’d never seen a second alien come out of the first. Hades, I’d never seen an alien of any kind. And now I saw two in the space of a cycle?
Seren, if you can hear me, sing your first song, a curiously familiar voice said through my head.
Not one to search for a hook too closely, I began singing immediately. Prayed whoever had used my name was there to help me. Not toss me under the next rogue wave.
Good. Keep singing. Close your eyes. Whatever you do, do not open your eyes. Do you understand? For yes, pause your song. For no, continue singing.
I stilled my vocal cords around the song for the span of two heartbeats before I started it up again. Just as I shut my eyes, I saw the smaller alien lift his hand and point something at me.
Icy pressure surged through the water as I felt the familiar trickle of power from one of our weapons building in the small space. A high vibrating pitch screamed through my mind as it felt like my brain was being attacked directly.
The pressure was intense. My heart thundered as my eyes watered. Even my tail felt like it weighed as much as a blue whale. I couldn’t breathe. Could barely think.
My eyes popped open just a slit to see if I could identify what was going on. I knew the weapon that was being wielded, and it shouldn’t have this kind of effect. At least not on mers.
The smaller alien fired its weapon. The shot traced through the water and slammed into nothing beside me. But as soon as the weapon hit, both the small creature and the one that hosted it zipped through the water as if they were being pulled up on a fisherman’s line.
It was gone. Not a pop of pressure change, nor a single shift in the current to tell of their escape. What the hades was happening?
Through the fringe of my lashes, I saw the pale golden hair of Admiral Moron. Captain Conlan by his side. Between the two of them, they held a pressurized ice cannon. But something was wrong. It shouldn’t be having this kind of impact on me.
Pl-pl-pl-please stop-p-p-p. The words were rushing through my mind as I fought to hold onto my consciousness.
Both men jerked as they looked over at me. Moron glared while Conlan dropped his side of the cannon. The last icy projectile fired through the water. No longer arrowing towards the remaining alien.
No. Just my luck, it was directed straight at me.
Masu!
The song of obliteration rose through me without thought or warning. It blasted out from my body and crashed through the small space. The room around us splintered into a million different pieces. My tail was finally free.
But it did nothing to stop the icy weapon of death.
Just as it hit my belly, I dropped with a swift kick of my tail and a clench of my back muscles. I felt it sear a path of burning ice through my abdomen. It got stuck on the weapon harness I always wore as the ice rushed up the length of my body.
Falling with what felt like an orca-sized piece of ice attached to my body, I struggled to get out from under it. The icy burn attached to my flesh just as it was designed to do.
Unable to get away, I cradled it against me. Flicking my tail, I tried to flip in a circle to be the one on top. All that did was move us in a rapidly descending spiral that arrowed us directly to the ocean floor.
Imminent death.
Well, at least I was going to go out a ranked officer. Not quite so inglorious as it could have been. I closed my eyes as I waited for the moment of death. Thought of my mother. Her beautiful face that I would get to see again—much sooner than I would have imagined possible.
Between the blurred vision and the pressure on my chest, I eagerly awaited death. Clenching my teeth, I tried to hold back the vomit that burned at the back of my throat. I would die a hero’s death. Not a simpering coward who couldn’t hold her stomach.
Squeezing my eyes shut against the rapidly approaching death that awaited on the ocean floor, I sent one last thought to Poseidon. You’re a gourami masu, you mola mola, and I hope you die a thousand painful deaths.
Smashing into the ocean bed brought endless, all-consuming pain. Right before it blinked out of existence as my mind went black.