Chapter 23

A lot of people describe feeling weightless in the water. Like if they stopped swimming and remained still, they could just float forever. Not me. Now that I’m submerged in the dark ocean, I don’t feel weightless whatsoever. Instead, it feels like I’m buried alive and if I’m not careful, the water will crush me.

Opening my eyes stings as the salt and random stuff floating around me touches my eyes, but I don’t close them. As I search my surroundings, my goal is to find any hint of light to figure out where up is.

Again, I attempt to swim or at least paddle in any direction, however, I remain rooted in place. Either I’m a terrible swimmer or something is tethering me to this exact spot.

My lungs squeeze reminding me that we need air to live. I’m worried, but no panicked. I have a few more minutes before I drown, but if I sink any further, there will be no way for me to get back to the surface.

Once more, I give it everything I got to swim somewhere. Up, down, sideways. Doesn’t matter. As I fight against the water, my body is rocked to the side, but it isn’t because of my attempts to swim.

Something massive is swimming around me. I don’t see it, but I can sense it encircles me.

Not wanting to keep me waiting for too long, a dark mass approaches me from below. From what I can see, this creature is massive.

The fins that are producing a faint blue glow flutter up and down. Those fins are the size of our boat, but they have nothing on the rest of the body that’s slivering around me.

Several feet from me, the creature stops moving. I can’t tell if it’s waiting to strike or just watching to see if I’m alive or dead. As far as I can tell, there’s no large mouth or teeth at least. Maybe it doesn’t eat meat.

Blue glowing light illuminates the space around me revealing not only the full size of this creature, but also, that what I’ve been staring at was not the head. Six glowing eyes face me and now, now I see the mouth.

The long body of the creature coils around me and then snaps close. Milli-seconds, that’s how long I have to react. The aim was to crush me in it’s coils and I had no doubt that it could. As soon as my hand made contact with its body, I used it as a launching pad.

For the next blow though, I’m not so lucky. There’s nothing for me to push off from as its tail slams into my side sending me flying through the water. It must have learned from the first attack.

My momentum is stopped only when my back and my head slam into something so hard, I can feel my brain moving in my head. The fight to stay conscious is challenging, but it’s either that or die now.

My hand presses against what I slammed into and I have a moment of hope. It’s the boat! If I can get back on board then I might survive.

The sight of the creature swimming towards me does not swell the hope in my chest. All I have to do is climb up the side then—

I hear the engine before I’m forced to watch as the boat speeds away. Away from the creature, and away from me. If I wasn’t underwater, the Divinity of Chaos could see that these tears from me are due to his meddling. He can’t let me have anything, huh?

Back to it being just me and the creature, it encircles me causing me to rock back and forth from the movement. This time though, it forms a cocoon sealing off all exits. There’s nothing I can do as the blue light produced from the creature disappears sending me into true darkness.

My chest heaves up and down even though I’m not breathing. My eyes that have been open all this time close since the absence of light is messing with my senses.

As I face my impending death, I know that I’m down to my last option. If I do it, I’ll die for sure. But if I don’t—

‘If you’ll die either way, why not at least make it bleed?’ The voice sounds completely unfazed as it hisses out its question.

This isn’t the first time I wondered if it’s concerned if I die. Based on our time together, probably not. But at least it said something useful.

As the body of the creature presses in on me to deliver the killing blow, my hands press against it. I imagine a wall encircling me. The wall created from my mind is impenetrable and unyielding, preventing my immediate death. The body of the creature squeezes tight before it resorts to slamming into the wall I’ve formed.

I don’t sway, or falter in my concentration. All I do is hold my position and wait until the creature gets impatient. Until it allows a crack to appear in my cocoon to see what’s happening inside. To verify why I’m not dead yet.

As soon as one of those glowing eyes are visible, the image in my mind changes. My wall melts down into shimmering red light that I to form a spear. Clutching it tight enough to dig into my skin, I aim, throw, and hope that if nothing else, I can take this damn thing with me to the graveyard of the ocean floor.