Safe zones.

The name ignited some memories, particularly from my JRPG addicted era. You’d play as a character in the game with some backstory and just before a boss or a really challenging situation, you’d get the option to rest and save your game: a safe spot. Was this the same for the ocean?

Is this a game?

Were we about to fight a boss?

Well, probably not. The people around me didn’t seem like NPCs and frankly, I didn’t really want to imagine this world to be a game.

“How do safe zones work?”

“I do not know myself,” Roksha said. “But my granny used to say, they were a blessing.”

“They certainly are,” I said.

“We need to leave,” the other guy said. “Soon we will be overrun.”

“By your pals?”

“They are not my pals.”

“Sure.”

That said, the big guy grabbed me and together we blitzed straight into the water. Again, my conscious effort to not breathe ensued and frankly… can I even do this?

Because the journey to Dkionbra was actually quite long and the next safe zone was at least a day away.

No food, no chance to rest, and certainly… sigh.

***

I noticed a few major things during my high-speed travel.

Number one, mermaids were super-fast. Like roughly a hundred miles an hour kind of fast.

Number two, the ocean didn’t have any one current flowing. It had a bunch which overlapped to some degree and unless you were an expert in reading the tides, you were somewhat fucked. I mean, you could see how the tide would flow above the water but down here, you couldn’t see anything. So how these two were navigating with tick sounds, was kind of interesting.

Does it work like sonar? But since when could sonar distinguish between currents?

And three… fucking hell the ocean was big. Like on all sides, just water and water. I did see fish, and I did see some activity, but they were utterly scarce compared to what I saw in the fish city. It was also so fucking cold! Like I was freezing!

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If I was a normal human, I’d have probably been squashed by the water pressure alone. The sea water would have shredded my kidneys and I would have died the moment we’d initially dived in. But I wasn’t one. I had the blessing of Rexen.

I really owed that lizard way more than I gave him credit for.

Some other fun things I’d noticed was that although we were only like half a kilometer below sea level, I could hardly see anything around me and the pressure was a bit too intense. The other two were fine but they were struggling at times too, particularly Roksha who looked kind of down. She looked roughly like the time we’d found her.

The nearest safe zone was still quite far, so we couldn’t just stop. I couldn’t really ask them or talk in general either. Since the water pressure was strong, swallowing water was too damn easy a mistake.

It took some time but we did eventually manage to make it to the safe zone.

“Can’t we just swim near the surface? That way, the pressure would be much less,” I said.

We were basically swimming near the very bottom of the ocean.

“We’ll be easy to spot. And the currents are unpredictable near the surface,” he said.

Well, it is a magical ocean….

“We rest for half an hour, and then we start again,” the fishman said.

“Without food?” I said. “Besides, you two have been swimming all day. I’m not sure about you, but she’s exhausted.”

The mermaid hadn’t said a word. She was spent.

“And she will be dead instead, if she stops here.”

I didn’t have a counter argument. I wasn’t sure if he was right but I had a feeling he wasn’t lying.

“It’s… alright, grabbed -sea weed,” Roksha said, showing me a bit of green sea weed and chomping on it with a smile.

I gave the fishman a glance and he shrugged. No food for him or me, I suppose.

I didn’t feel hungry but I did start to feel dizzy. All these low-pressure-high-pressure quick ventures were taking its toll on my poor body. Also, a bit of nose juice was leaking out: bright red.

“As long as we can make it past the next area, we should be home free,” the fishman said. “Just hang on.”

“Why are you talking like it would be a great feat if we managed to?”

“Because… it would be,” Roksha said; her speech had slowed a lot. “We will cross. The great Shrimp’s territory.”

“Can we not and just take the normal path?”

“There is no normal path for us. As you’ve said, we can’t go on like this forever, so unless we take this path, we’ll get captured and you two will die. I’ll lose my shot,” said the fishman.

I sighed, and pretty loudly too. It always had to get complicated and we always had to take the most dangerous of paths.

Is someone out there really set out to screw my life up or something?

We left sooner rather than later.

The few fish we saw till now, were no longer visible.

The quiet ocean became quieter. As though everything was hiding, everything staying away.

Didn’t look like a good sign but we had to deal with this. On a positive note, the water temperature rose slightly.

This giant Shrimp thing was supposedly sleeping for the last three years, and usually slept for at least a decade so we were going to be royally fucked if we woke it up. Our plan was simple, the creature was pretty deadly and soldiers weren’t stupid enough to risk their lives.

I could see it from like at least a mile away. We slowed down considerably and came to a crawl when passing it by, like trains crossing a bridge that was falling over.

It was red. Big, striped and… well, sleeping.

Phew.

Pitter~!

Huh?

Something flew buy. A harpoon. It wasn’t aimed for us. It was aimed at the red thing below. Who aimed it you say?

Who fucking cares?

Because the real problem was just waking up.

Seriously, does someone really want me dead that bad?