Jase checked the lock on his front door. Nobody would be intruding this time. In a way, it was good he had made that mistake last year when things mattered less.
Nervousness rose within him as he made his way to the apartment bedroom. He rolled the black pill between his moist fingertips. How was he so sure this would work? The previous trip had been intense and insightful. It had been one of the major turning points of his spiritual journey, but Domrik had warned him not to become reliant on substances like blasphia. It wasn’t addictive, but nobody could predict the experience. In fact, predicting the experience often made the experience unpleasant. It was like using a parachute in a hurricane. He could be pulled in a desirable direction, or he could be pulled kilometers off his path.
He sat on his bed and picked up the crystal. The subtle haze of fear still remained. When he closed his eyes, he thought he caught brief glimpses of images and movement, but he could never identify what they were. They slipped away like wisps of smoke, never fully acquiring substance. The black pill in his hand would change that temporarily. He would become the fire that gave form to the smoke. He knew the clarity would likely be painful. He just wasn’t sure if he’d be able to accept it.
But Jase had promised Domrik, and there was nothing he liked less than breaking his own promises.
For Domrik, he thought, relaxing into that commitment. He popped the pill in his mouth and emptied the glass of water on his nightstand. Now he was legally able to be sentenced to a decade in prison. For harming nobody.
Blasphia had been outlawed since laws had existed in Eredore. It had to be smuggled in from Sylga or Trellendek where the plant was far more abundant. The authorities had always looked down upon the drug because users would either renounce or at least change their religions after experiencing its psychedelic effects. It had been used to forcefully drug priests throughout the millennia, causing many religions to go extinct.
He worried about Domrik occasionally. If someone found his secret stash, he’d be destroyed financially and socially. His martial arts business would be forced to close, and his spending account would work at only a handful of facilities. Some people considered the possession of the drug to be more of a crime than being a user. If only they knew how much it could be put to good use.
He settled himself with some deep breathing, then lay in the middle of his bed with the crystal secured under his hands on top of his chest. The drug would take nearly an hour to start working. He kept his attention on his breath and the ephemeral mental forms.
For the first ten minutes, nothing changed. The normal array of perceptions occupied his awareness. The breath. In. Pause. Out. Pause. The bed gently pushing against him. The background whir of the apartment air conditioning. The occasional mental form flickered over those sensations, veiling them momentarily.
Jase peeked at the time on his wristpad. It was late in the afternoon. His stomach gurgled. He was skipping dinner to avoid any potential complications with the drug.
Just as he started to look away, he did a double-take. What was that he saw the first time? No, it wasn't his imagination. The seconds were counting down instead of up. It was starting.
His skin started to crawl over the next few minutes. He was used to that sensation. It came hand-in-hand with intense breathwork. He broke out in a sweat. He felt like he was being baked in an oven. His body shivered, as though he had been shoved into a freezer. All the while, he kept his focus on his breath.
But something wasn't right with his breath. He could only inhale. There was no exhale. In. Pause. In. Pause. He opened his eyes briefly, and the ceiling churned like water about to boil. When his eyes closed, the mental forms were more prominent than before. The shapes weren't identifiable yet, but there were colors. Reds pulsed in and out, surrounded by a background of blues and greys.
The air conditioning noise grew continuously louder into the idling of a car engine. The bed started to undulate under Jase's body. The pull of gravity intensified.
His breath turned into a constant inhale into bottomless lungs. Or was it an exhale? Had he been exhaling the whole time?
His legs were suddenly bent, then they weren’t, then he had only one. His foot was warped and flat. His arms felt short and stiff. His face was stretched far out of proportion.
The sense of fear and tension expanded from the crystal and infused the space around him. He clung to the last thread of lucidity against the torrent of vivid sensations. Each one yanked at his attention, trying to draw him into a funnel of consciousness, but each time he resisted. He knew what his purpose was. He knew where he had to go.
He allowed the mental forms to swarm outward and take residence in his awareness. The other sensations faded away like a fleeting dream. This was his reality now. There was no bedroom. There was no crystal. He floated in an exotic space in a body not his own, not even human.
The forms around him came into focus. They had already been there for hours. Or had it been just seconds? Massive structures of stone and dirt drifted past him. Then he realized that he was drifting past them. He drifted through a foggy canyon of soft edges. The forms faded into darkness below him, but there was also hardly any light above him. His vision was extremely wide, giving him almost a complete circle of a view. His body was round and grey. His arms were flat and had no hands. He moved with natural grace, gliding forward on his belly rather than upright. He adjusted course with a gentle tilt of his left arm and a lazy wave of his tail. With those movements, Jase realized he existed more as a cloud of presence around the creature, rather than controlling the creature’s body. He was relieved he had maintained his lucidity.
His eyes searched for a Small to snack on. The Small were below his kind, the Waterlings. Their only purpose was to reproduce and get eaten. He knew they weren’t in season. That’s why he was hunting them. He refused to eat that disgusting moss. Prism would get over it. She always did. He wasn’t sure how he would handle Glare yet.
Maybe he would finally tell him what he thought about their “big plans for the future.”
Something moved in the distance, and Jase instinctively went Dark. Whether it was his prey or the reserve guards, he couldn’t afford to get caught. He was starving. If he was caught, they would change up the fractal locks for the reserve shields. Then they might reduce the size of his Heartstone stash. No. They wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t let them, not after to what they did to Aurora.
He focused on the space in front of him. To his relief, it was a Small venturing from its little cubby too early. And he was lucky: this one looked to be an adult Small.
He drifted closer to the doomed fish. It took willpower to spare it those few extra waves. Waves? Jase recognized those as time units roughly ten times longer than seconds. The closer he got, the less his Heartstone drained when he finally struck. Finally, when he was three of his own body-lengths away, he summoned the smallest amount of Light and focused it into a beam smaller than he could see with his own eyes. The target was the Small’s brain stem.
There was no visual sign, aside from the line of bubbles created from the vaporized water. The fish twitched once, then stopped its wandering, surrendering instead to the subtle current of the ocean floor. Jase lunged forward and snapped the fish in his wide jaws before anyone else could find him. He swallowed it whole, savoring the fresh taste of flesh recently alive.
It was over quick, and fear settled in again. He swam away from the trench and navigated the landscape of hills and moss rocks. He needed to get to an airspace quick. He could feel the need to replenish himself. If he couldn’t find one in time, he’d have to vaporize water to breathe. Not only would that give away his location, it would drain his Heartstone from the inefficiency.
He reached the perimeter of the reserve quickly, then matched the fractal with a mental flash to get himself through without triggering the alert. He had altered the Lightstone configuration slightly to not record his entries or exits. He skirted the hillside, returning himself to Light to avoid draining his Heartstone further. It would also be suspicious if he popped into existence within the eyesight of another. He was supposed to be on patrol anyway.
The Fringe was a dangerous region that needed constant surveillance. Not that surveillance did any good when all Waterlings intuitively knew how to go Dark from the time they were born. Patrolling was the job for those who supposedly cared more about the cause than themselves, as it was the norm for volunteers to go missing, but since every patrol had their own region to watch over, their disappearance would signify enemy activity in that area. Or betrayal. Either way, The Greats would have their lead, and another reason to bring out the Larges.
He found the signature red glow of an airspace just as his lungs began to strain. It was a box-like structure made of stone supported by two molded pillars. He swooped down and came up from the lower angle to meet the glistening bottom face. He burst the top of his head through it and let out a gasp of relief, exchanging his own warm, pent-up air for fresh, cool air of the airspace. The part of Jase’s mind that was still his own became confused. He had a hole on the top of his head? And why did he need air? Didn’t he have gills like all the other fish? He couldn’t feel any.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He rested in the room as he calmed back down. The room glowed with the red light of the Lightstones sustaining the air-purifying lichen growing on the inner walls. It had an inner shelf along the bottom rim that cradled one Lightstone on each side. This room was brighter than most of the others. It must have been restocked recently.
He submerged into the water and roamed around his watch region aimlessly until his shift was over. Actually, he left several waves early. The tide, the Waterling version of a day, was nearly over. The only sign was the subtle darkening above him, when the light from the Surface took a break to recharge.
On his swim back to Spore, his home village, he saw another form approaching him from the ahead.
The creature was shaped like a fish, but its body was lithe and strong. It was a thick, grey crescent, bending and straightening with its tail movements. This was another surprise to Jase. He thought all fish shook their tails side-to-side. Its mouth had an underbite and was curled into a subtle smile. It must have been happy to see him too. Jase’s own mind panicked at the sight of such a large creature, but the Waterling self remained calm. In fact, his mood lightened. It was Iridescence. He could tell by the pattern of wardings on her sides. They looked like engraved spirals made up of smaller glyphs.
The creature emitted a quiet clicking noise without opening its mouth. The speed and pitch of the clicks varied wildly, and Jase’s mind immediately registered meaning. “Lumen! Getting off early again, aren’t you?”
They both spread their fins to slow their travel. Their tails slowly drooped toward the ocean floor, while their heads still bend toward each other.
“Don’t act so surprised, Irid,” Jase clicked back. He slowed his clicks to convey a playful tone. “What are you going to do? Tell on me? I know your secrets too!”
“Oh, speaking of secrets,” she cooed, shifting closer to him. “I found another poison-fish in the Plains.”
Jase looked away. “Not again.”
Iridescence opened her mouth playfully. He saw all of her tiny, razor-sharp teeth. “It’s not that far! Come on, we’ll go Dark this time.”
“No,” Jase said sternly, his clicks lowering in pitch an entire octave. “They warded me last time. I can’t do that again!”
She whistled with laughter. “You’re scared. I knew it!”
“I’m not scared!” Jase insisted. “It hurts.”
She kept whistling as she swept past him. “You’re a Small!”
He twisted to keep facing her. “I’m not a Small!”
“You’re a Small, you’re a Small, you’re a Small,” she trilled as she went on her way.
“I’m not a Small…” he croaked to himself, turning away from her. He really didn’t want to risk getting a warning from someone else. He had engraved his own wards for his own protection, but when one Waterling warded another, it was usually for the purpose of making a certain action or thought more difficult or painful. Chewing on the poison-fish had been fun with Iridescence the last time, but when Glare caught him in his half-drugged state, he engraved a ward on Lumen that made him terrified of poison-fish. Yes, he was scared, and it did hurt. He really felt like a Small.
He continued onward, and soon he was within the bounds of Spore. There was no specific demarcation, he simply started passing buildings of stone carved into hillsides. It was quiet. Most of the village folk were probably in the beginnings of torpor.
As he neared his home cave, he caught faint clicks and chitterings of an argument, then he recognized the voices of Prism and Glare. What were they up to? They were usually good friends.
He rounded the corner to the cave entrance and spotted two more Waterlings bickering at the far end of the cave, illuminated by a single Lightstone lodged into the wall.
“I don’t understand,” Prism wailed. “We’ve known each other since we were calves. I trusted you!”
“Correct, you don’t understand,” Glare said defensively. “The Greats have lied to us. They were never going to replace our Lightstones.”
“They always have!” Prism squealed. “How could you not have faith?”
“The Swarm at least treats its own with the respect we deserve. None of this food rationing smog!”
Jase approached tentatively. “What are you talking about?”
They both turned at the sound of his voice, startled. Prism recovered first. “He wants to give the Large to the Swarm!”
Now that they were both facing him, he saw they has soft smiles as well. But this didn’t make any sense. They were clearly frustrated. Were all Waterling mouths stuck like this? Was it some kind of curse?
He wondered all this as he observed Lumen’s response. “But why? The Large is our best defense against them.”
“The Swarm is not our enemy,” Glare replied. “It is the Greats we should be defending against!”
“Don’t listen to him, Lumen,” Prism said, turning toward the cave exit. “I am going to report this to the pod leader.”
“No, you will not!” Glare shouted, firing a Light bolt that exploded on the cave floor in front of Prism.
She curled her body around and gaped at him. “What is wrong with you? Have you been warded?” She drifted toward him cautiously.
He looked away. “No, Prism, this is my own decision. They don’t know about it.”
“Regardless, Halo must be informed.” She turned back toward the exit.
“She must not!” Glare fired another shot in front of her. Jase drifted off to the side, unsure of what to do or say.
Prism opened her mouth threateningly. “I will tell her, Glare. You cannot stop me.”
“Yes, I can,” he said, his fins cracking with red energy. A great flash blinded Jase temporarily, and when his vision returned, he squealed in shock. Thousands of bubbles coalesced to the cave ceiling. Prism was curled against the cave wall, half her body scorched to blackness. Jase swam to her frantically. But there was nothing he could do.
“Lumen…” she clicked weakly. Her head twitched a few times, and when she opened her mouth, her Heartstone toppled out. It still had lots of Light left. Her eyes closed slowly as she croaked her last words. “Swim… fast…”
He gathered her Heartstone and held it against his chest with his fins. For several heartbeats, he was numb, then something in him snapped. He whirled on Glare. “You killed her! Why?”
Glare opened his mouth to show his aggression. “You stay here and stay quiet, or you will meet the same fate.”
Jase caught a glimpse of Glare’s side. There was a new ward. Prism was right! Glare was not himself. Jase blocked Glare’s exit. “She was our friend. Nobody does that to friends.”
Glare started clicking his response, but Jase could not contain the anger any longer. He pulled a generous amount of Light from his own Heartstone. It wouldn’t be efficient, but he didn’t care. He fired a solid red beam at Glare, who tried to dodge but was too slow. After the bubbles cleared, a significant portion of Glare’s side was darkened, but the wound wasn’t nearly as deep at Prism’s. The wards had activated automatically and saved his internal organs. His wards had been constructed better than Prism’s. But it wasn’t enough to save his eye.
“Big mistake, Lumen!” Glare screeched, flinging a Light bolt in retaliation.
Jase had already gone Dark while Glare was speaking, but he still couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. The bolt hissed above him, and a sharp pain flared on his mid-back.
“My back-fin!” he yelped, the adrenaline already rushing him out of the cave. He would have a big head-start on Glare, because Glare didn’t know he was going to the Large.
It was a short trip to the basin where the Large lay. Jase had to reorient himself once again to the incredible size of the creature. He’d thought Waterlings were big, but this one was five times the size. Its skin was black with a white underbelly and white above the eyes. They held it in place using simple wards that made it afraid to leave without a Waterling to command it. It had its own personal airspace that it rested under indefinitely. That was Jase’s first target.
The creature woke when Jase disturbed the currents, but Jase didn’t care. He gathered the four Lightstones from the airspace and carried them in his mouth along with Prism’s Heartstone. He returned to the Light in front of the Large to get its attention. “Large! You must escape. Other Waterlings will take you and do more bad things to you!”
He knew the Large didn’t really understand him, and that he wouldn’t understand its song-like replies either. He changed tactics. He went to the Large’s side and spun new wards around the existing wards, not hesitating to apply them quickly and mercifully. Each ward came with searing pain when applied. He couldn’t remove the fear of leaving the basin, but he did his best to increase the creature’s fear of staying in the basin.
After five wards, the Large suddenly bucked and thrashed to get out from under the airspace. Jase immediately took off in the other direction, knowing he’d done all he could do. He would never return to Spore, not willingly. As soon as he’d attacked Glare, the Greats would have executed him. Releasing the Large was likely futile, because they weren’t as skilled in using the Light, but there was a chance of freedom. So he did it.
Part of him wanted to warn Iridescence, but he didn’t know how she would respond. Would she swim away with him, or turn him in? He didn’t have time to decide. He was on his own.
He swam for several tides, stopping to rest only once. He had to breathe the old-fashion way: rising to the surface after going Dark. He wanted no chance of getting spotted by the Air Beings. He was always told that they were trouble, and he was already drowning in it.
Or could that be his escape? Waterlings always avoided contact with the Air Beings, for fear that the Air Beings would want to take their Lightstones. They would search everywhere for him. Everywhere but near the land of the Air Beings. That would be too risky.
He changed course and swam until his entire body ached. The missing top half of his back-fin hurt most of all. He didn’t stop to rest or to hunt. Waterlings on the hunt could travel large distances quickly, and since they could approach Dark, he couldn’t waste a single moment. He wouldn’t rest until he was well within dangerous territory.
He followed the ever-increasing slope of the ocean floor. He didn’t remember exactly where the Air Beings lived, so he had to follow the landmarks. Just when he thought he couldn’t swim any further, the ocean floor was merging with the Surface, and the waves began to toss him toward a dry, sandy area.
Just before he was finally tossed onto the shore, he impressed several of the Lightstones with memories of the past several tides. Would they be able to read them? Probably not. But he could perhaps warn them of what was lurking out in the deep-dark. There was nothing but war, greed, and fear.
He had one more thought before he tossed the Lightstones out of his mouth. Maybe the Air Beings would be different?
As soon as the Lightstones were airborne, Jase was tossed into a whirlwind of sensation. He lost all feeling of the Waterling’s body, but tried to retain awareness of the memory. He had so many questions. He wanted to see again, but fatigue pulled at him.
Soon, he forgot what he was trying to remember as his consciousness drifted off to stiller and stiller waters, where space collapsed and time dissolved. His dreams were loud and vivid, retaining elements of the Waterling’s memories but never fully reconstructing them.
He awoke the next morning with dried tear streaks.