Natalia’s eyes opened and she stared up, blinking a few times. Where in the world was she? The sky was so beautiful and blue, like a--

OH GOD WHERE WAS SHE?

Natalia shrieked and tried flailing her arms but, unfortunately, her initial realization was turning out to be correct. She was DEFINITELY falling. There was nothing under her and the wind was blowing past her wildly. She struggled to turn to see the ground, unfortunately sending herself into a wild spin.

It didn’t make things any better, however, when she realized that she was above the clouds and beyond them all she could see was an endless sea of blue. No, not just an endless sea of blue. THE endless sea of blue. The ocean was under her. In her wild spins she couldn’t see anything even remotely like land. “Oh god oh god please help me, someone, ANYONE!” she screamed.

Not that she thought it could do any good. How did she even get up here? Had she fallen out of a plane?

Wait, no, Death. She’d been attacked and then she was in that dark void place and now she was here. “Oh god, please, I wanna wake up! I wanna wake up! I don’t want this dream anymore!” Natalia screamed.

Unfortunately, despite her flailing and screaming, her calls went unanswered and instead she continued to fall, passing through the clouds. Something appeared in front of her eyes suddenly but, before she could even try to identify it, it was gone. “HELP!” Natalia screamed. “Death, this isn’t fair! You said you wanted me to help! I can’t help if this kills me!”

She was quickly getting closer to the water and could now make it out clearly. The blue water below wasn’t nearly as calm as she had initially thought. Instead, great waves that were many times her height were moving across the ocean. She supposed it wouldn’t matter, she’d be dead in a moment. She closed her eyes and held her breath, hoping the death would be quick and as painless as possible.

Natalia hit the water and, rather than being splattered to pieces across the surface tension, she found herself dropping beneath the surface while water shot up her nose. She laid there for a moment, burning pain shooting through her limbs and nostrils. Nothing felt broken, though she couldn’t imagine how she had survived. She quickly began to swim back up towards the surface, breaking through and trying to take another deep breath of air.

Natalia barely managed to open her mouth before a sudden wave struck her, sending her spinning through the water and back under. She shook her head and tried to right herself, but panic was beginning to set in when she wildly tried to swim to the surface. She was going to drown.

She didn’t even break the surface on her next attempt, another wave sending her deeper under the water.

She realized she was going to drown.

Natalia couldn’t believe it. Did Death really send her here just to die? What was even the point? Why would Death even send her out into the middle of the ocean just to drown her? Was she some kind of sadist?

Natalia suddenly felt something grab her around the waist and a new horror filled her. She struggled, desperately, to escape and claw her way back to the surface. But, unfortunately, her struggles seemed to be in vain. She was dragged down into the darkness.

Natalia reached down and tried clawing at whatever the thing was that had her, but her finger nails couldn’t find any purchase in its slimy, scaled limb, only managing to tear off a few scales.

Then, suddenly, Natalia fell into something and suddenly she wasn’t in water, she was in air and falling.

This fall, at least, was far shorter at only a few feet and whatever had grabbed her also seemed to cushion her fall when she landed on it, causing it to let out a grunt of pain and, possibly, annoyance.

The limb around her waist let go and she scrambled off the thing before rolling onto her stomach and coughing up as much water as she could while trying to simultaneously take deep breaths.

“I think it bit me,” a voice said. “Look at my arm. I lost at least three scales to that.”

“I told you I should have gotten it,” a second voice said.

“Stop your bickering,” a third voice said. “If we had left it to die she’d have torn us to pieces.”

“It has a name!” Natalia said before rolling onto her back and panting. She ached all over, but she was at least alive. “And, err, it is thankful for you saving it from drowning. She. She is thankful. Assuming you intended to save it. Her. Me. Hi,” she said, mentally kicking herself for what she was certain was the most awkward greeting she had ever given. She hoped Death was proud of making such a decision.

“Can it understand us?” the first voice asked.

“No, of course not. It’s human,” the third voice said.

“I can understand you,” Natalia said. “So could I-- my eyes!” she screamed before covering her face with her hands. A light had come on directly over her head. She rolled back over onto her stomach. “Ow. Right. Let’s try this again,” she said before blinking blearily and slowly raising her head again, though her vision was clouded by sparkling lights now. The more she looked around, however, the more confused she became.

Her rescuers were some kind of weird fish people. Humanoid at least, but covered in fins and dark blue scales. Their clothing was rather tight, almost like green wet suits. However, the second most concerning thing about what she was seeing was their teeth which were long and thin, like needles.

The most concerning thing wasn’t them so much as they appeared to be inside some strange skeleton. One of the fishmen were holding a small blue orb overhead that illuminated the area, showing an open mouth behind her with a long row of sharp teeth. The skeleton seemed to be surrounded by a strange green field that kept the water out at least, but the way the bones seemed to still be moving filled her with unease. Worst of all the light only illuminated the front of the mouth, the back of the mouth hidden in the darkness.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Natalia tried not to think too hard about what was out there in the darkness and instead focused on the three of them.

“It’s looking right at us,” the one holding the light said.

“Well, you have the light,” the one on its right said.

“It can’t really understand us, can it?” the one on the left asked. “Humans don’t—”

“I can understand you just fine,” Natalia said before she gingerly got to her feet. She was soaked, battered, bruised and pretty disoriented, but alive. Small, fleeting victory it may be. “I’m Natalia. I take it you didn’t rescue me to murder me, then?”

“No,” the one holding the light said. “How do you understand us?”

“I don’t know,” Natalia said. “My hearing works, I guess. You understand me well enough. Shouldn’t you be curious how I can speak it, too?” She couldn’t help but notice the three of them looked to each other with confused looks after she said that. Or possibly normal looks. She wasn’t sure what kind of looks those were on fishmen, so she couldn’t be certain. Their eyes had gotten bigger at least, she hoped that meant surprise.

“Do you think we’re talking in the same language you are?” the one holding the light asked.

Natalia nodded. “Obviously? Aren’t we?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Natalia said before quickly looking around once more while she tried to come up with a proper response to that. She stopped when she saw something out of the corner of her right eye. She whipped her head around, but it seemed to be moving with her head, disappearing before she could get a good look at it. She wondered if she’d hit her head harder than she thought, was she seeing things now?

“Are you okay?” the one holding the light asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. Mostly. Kind of. No, not at all to be honest,” Natalia said before giving a soft sigh. “Sorry, I’m probably not making much sense.”

“Do we take it to Pierpont?” the second one asked. “It’s a human, so it’s one of theirs, isn’t it?”

“Her! Not it!” Natalia said, struggling to keep from yelling. “And can you please not talk about me as if I’m not here? I can hear you. Who is Pierpont?” All three of them turned to stare at her once more and she had a feeling something she said had, finally, managed to get their attention.

“You really can understand us,” the one in the center said. “How?”

“I don’t know, magic?” Natalia said. “You can understand me, right? So why couldn’t I understand you?”

“Of course we can understand you. You’re speaking the common tongue of the Red Empress.”

“Who’s that?” Natalie asked.

All three of them went still this time before leaning in close and whispering amongst themselves, their voices rapid and slightly excited, but too low for her to understand. Natalia couldn’t help but start to feel a little uneasy now. The looks they were giving her were, she couldn’t be sure, but felt somewhat hostile. Or maybe it was just their teeth. Finally, the second creature walked towards her. “Natalia?”

“Yes?”

“You’re not one of the Red Empress’ subjects?”

“I don’t even know who that is,” Natalia said once more.

“I see,” the fishman said before gripping her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“For wh--” Natalia didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence before she was shoved back. She hit the strange bubble surrounding the bone creature and passed through it into the water beyond.

Natalia tried to scream when she was sent into the water, but all that happened was water filled her mouth. She quickly began to panic, flailing her hands wildly and trying to regain some sense of what direction was up or down. Outside of the vessel it was too dark for her to see anything and she couldn’t even see the light inside the fish anymore.

Then, as quickly as she had been tossed out, a strange feeling washed over her and she fell into the bone creature once more, landing with a shriek on the ground a few feet from where she had been pushed. She started coughing and sputtering, trying to get the water out of herself.

“What the hell was that for?” Natalia screamed before trying to wipe some of the water out of her eyes. “I can’t breath underwater! Are you trying to kill me?”

“Yes,” the fishman said, its eyes locked on her.

Natalia froze and felt the panic inside grow at that revelation. “Oh. Well. Please don’t. Oh no,” she said before looking towards the three of them. At least now she knew that those looks they were giving was certainly hostile. The one holding the light lightly tapped it a few times and once more they were enveloped in darkness.

She was going to die. Again. She got to her feet and tried to remember the little bit of the layout of the room they were in. Maybe if she--

Her thoughts were shattered when she felt something grab her. “STOP!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

The vessel stopped suddenly, going entirely still and sending both her and whoever grabbed her to the ground from the sudden shift. Everything was quiet for a long moment, the one holding her not moving. Surprised as Natalia was by this, though, she had a chance and she knew she had to take it. She rammed her knee as hard as she could where she hoped the creature’s stomach was and was rewarded with a pained gurgling sound and the hands letting her go. She quickly got to her feet and ran in the direction that she hoped was deeper into the vessel.

Natalia didn’t know where the darkness led but, at the very least, she knew it was better than waiting there to be killed. She turned to look back, for all the good it did in the darkness, and saw something out of the corner of her vision again. She reached out and tried to grab it.

To her surprise she was able to not only grab it, when she touched it she was able to feel a light tingle in her hand and pull it back, fully into her view.

A menu. For what felt like the thousandth time today, she wondered if this really was some strange dream brought on by too many drinks or even bad snacks. One option on the menu was flashing, ‘spells’. She tapped it and three options popped up.

Natalia then slammed face first into a wall and bounced back off it, landing on her back and clutching her face. She hissed in pain, forgetting about the menu for a moment and wishing she’d had at least SOME kind of light.

Within a few moments Natalia realized she had worse problems when she felt a sudden weight land on her chest and cold hands start to wrap around her throat. She reached up, trying desperately to pull them off. Unfortunately, whatever they were was much stronger than her.

Natalia gasped for air, trying to shove her unseen attacker off. The only thing she could see now was the menu. Desperately she reached out and pressed one of the options.

Current spells:

Undead control

Raise dead

Current trait:

Attract ‘friends’: Undead are drawn to Natalia from up to a mile away and, if unintelligent, will not attack her unless directed by another force. Undead will, in most cases, see her as a fellow undead. Undead near Natalia become slowly stronger.