Below the darkline, still deep within the ocean chasm but near the city of the land-legged, the merboy swam with purpose. He was no longer in search of a friend. This time, he wanted to explore. He made his way along the chasm wall, enjoying the sight of the biolum’s as their pulsing lights glittered off the rock. He flitted powerfully upward, drawn to the brightest light above.

He was breaking the first rule. No merfolk were permitted to break the line from darkness into light. To do so would be to flit too close to the surface, and that was verboten. The dangers were too great, enemies too mighty. Since before the time of recorded history the merfolk had lived deep, so much deeper than the others. Below the seabed itself. Quite literally under the sea.

And yet his eyes were as strong as any. They had their own version of light and darkness deep down. So he wasn’t particularly bothered as he approached the great light. And he knew he was breaking the rules, but now that he’d encountered those lovely creatures from the city of the legged-ones, those girls with such ingenious technology at their disposal, he had to see more. Had to see the city for himself.

As he broke through to the light, the boy’s vision blurred, the brightness too sharp for his deepwater eyes. He shut them tight and treaded water, acclimatizing.

Once his eyes adjusted to the dazzling brilliance, the merboy pressed on. He swam upward and forward, skimming the upper layers, where the brightness softened to a more tolerable glow. This high up, the water was delightfully warm. Almost hot. Like the volcanic vents he was so familiar with, used for relaxation and bathing. Like a warm kelp blanket wrapped around him. And the sealife! It was everywhere. Swimming, flitting, casting about for food. He saw a million tiny fish, and even a few larger ones that set his chest to pounding with excitement.

But he wasn’t here to see fish. He wanted to get a look at the city itself, that wonderful place the girls Calistya and Khrystal had come from. The city that they seemed so proud of, in their hearts, despite the notion that the very place they called home had rejected them in such punishing fashion. He couldn’t understand that, but it made him all the more curious.

He knew where the city lay from the description Khrystal had made, so he flipped around and cast off with a powerful flip of the tail. He sped through the currents and soon had the city in his sights, but there he stopped, hesitating. Without a disguise, the city’s sentries would see him as an intruder—an unmistakable alien. He made his way to one of the shelves outside the city, and found some suitable kelp and sandy mud-stuff.

He made himself a belt from the kelp and arranged it around his waist. From Calistya’s description of the full-gill enhanced ones, they had attachments around the waist and on the gills, but otherwise didn’t look much different from pure ones. He took some of the mud and worked it around his gills, careful not to get any inside. He looked quite the filthy little waif, which wasn’t ideal, but he might just pass for a full-gill enhanced denizen of the city.

Swimming for the city gates, he drank in the enormous scale of the place, and how many of these ingenious legged-ones were in and about. His tribe was a mere fraction of these masses, and his was one of the largest. Swimming up to the sentries, he cast his eyes downward and hoped they would allow him passage. He wasn’t at all sure what he might do if he couldn’t get through. Swim for it, most likely. There wouldn’t be much more he could do if they identified him as alien. This was precisely why it was forbidden to come here, but curiosity had gotten the better of the boy.

* * *

The trio had gotten off to a late start. Without the headmaster’s help it’d been difficult to obtain the necessary equipment. But finally Terri, Albi and Marla were on their way, out of the city and off to the chasm.

It was quick going compared to the day before, since they knew where they were going now. And there was no sense of apprehension like there had been before, as far as breaking through to the darkness. Now that they were accustomed to it, it hardly seemed something to be afraid of, and with what little light was available, they made their way downward without difficulty.

When they reached the bottom rock-shelf once again, they immediately went back to the place they’d been chipping at, and got back to work. Within an hour or so they’d made significant progress, almost enough for the smallest of them to slip through. That was Ms. Terri, and she tried several times before they decided to get back to the chipping. They’d all have to get through at any rate, and that meant Albi as well, who was by far the largest of the three. They continued their work.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

When they finally got through the rock, such that a fully grown merman could slip through with a little effort, they put aside their tools and, one by one, slipped through to the underside. Once they’d all made it, they swam the short distance to the sea floor proper and began to have a look around.

It was disappointingly barren down there. Nothing to see. Not even much in the way of biolum’s. And no cave-mouths or entrances or whatever else they’d assumed they might find if only they could reach the ocean floor.

“The police did say they sent robots down here to have a look, no?” the sentinel asked.

“Yes, they did Marla,” Terri answered, “but we were hoping…well, it was Headmaster Oliver really, who thought maybe the machines might’ve missed something. Some little hidden entryway or, oh I don’t know.”

“The headmaster said that?” Marla asked.

“Yes,” Albi and Terri said together.

“The one the aquasentinels are questioning right now?”

As much as they’d been on his side a hundred percent the night before, now that they’d come all this way only to come up empty. It seemed, almost anyway, as if he’d been perhaps leading them on a wild goose chase. The notion of an opening through the ocean floor did seem rather far-fetched, come to think of it. Though Oliver had claimed it was Khrystal who’d said so in the first place.

They continued poking around for a while longer, but now that they’d see this plain space for themselves, it seemed rather ridiculous that they might find a couple of technos down here. And with noplace left to search, the trio gave up on their mission and headed back to safety.

When they broke through the darkline and found themselves surrounded, they had no idea what they’d done wrong. All they knew was that there were more guards here than there’d been at the entire school the past few days.

* * *

Now all four were being questioned, and not only by guard’s Alison and Lam. There were whole groups coming in and out, all demanding to know what on earth happened. There was little they could do to get those girls back, and they were now convinced that they were somewhere in the city, being help captive. And that this gang of teachers was somehow plotting to kidnap them out by the chasm, using it as a hideout perhaps, then coming back in to take them one by one. And all of them lead by this insidious ringleader, Headmaster Oliver.

His insistence that he couldn’t have done it, because he’d been here at city guard headquarters the whole time, didn’t make any difference to them. They had their man, and his gang, and they were going to find those girls.

“Mind telling us again where you all were then?” Sentinel Alison asked.

“We’d just been coming back from here, in fact,” Marla said. “Are you suggesting we'd actually leave here, go and commit a crime, and then come skimming back in here?”

“We’re not suggesting anything,” Lam said calmly, “we’re just talking. We have questions, you have answers. Simple as that.”

“But you are accusing us,” stated the headmaster. “I’ve spent half the night fending off your accusations. And frankly, since I have an airtight alibi, I believe I’m within my rights to ask to be let go.”

The sheer audacity of her statement took the sentinels by surprise, but Terri herself was feeling none of that power. Her chest was tight with a mix of fear and doubt, the weight of the accusations pressing in. For a fleeting moment, she felt utterly alone—until Oliver’s gentle smile reminded her she wasn’t. He wasn’t going anywhere without her.

“I think this has all gone too far,” Oliver stated in a clear voice. “I believe I’ll be needing to speak with a lawyer.”

“There’s no need for that,” Alison said quickly, trying to rein the proceedings back in. “We don’t have to drag lawyers into this, it’s a simple—”

“Yes, we do,” Albi cut in, his voice steady. “It’s clear we need legal representation. This is no longer some simple misunderstanding.”

Terri and Marla nodded their agreement, and with that, the inquest was over. No further questioning was permitted under the law, though their next step wasn’t immediately made clear.

As they turned to leave, a sudden vibration rippled through the water. Terri froze mid-step, wide eyes scanning the ground.

“Did you hear that?” she whispered.

The low, rhythmic sound rose from the depths, steady and unrelenting, like the heartbeat of something ancient. It pulsed through the channel waters and thumped against the walls, growing louder with every passing second. The trio exchanged nervous glances as Albi murmured, “It’s coming from beneath us.”

Above them, the aquasentinels sprang into action, their calm demeanor replaced by urgent movements as they signaled their superiors.

“Report this immediately,” one sentinel barked, her voice tight with alarm. “Full perimeter sweep!”

Marla’s gaze flicked between the sentinels and her colleagues. With all this chaos, maybe our request for counsel will get lost in the shuffle, she thought. And maybe, for now, that’s not the worst outcome. But as the strange pulsing sound continued, she couldn’t shake the chilling certainty—whatever was stirring deep beneath The Shallows, it felt primal and raw—and vastly more dire than some perfunctory inquiry.

* * *

From a shadowed alcove near the city gates, the merboy watched the sentries spring into action. Their sudden urgency piqued his curiosity, but he resisted the urge to follow. He had a mission of his own—one that didn’t involve getting caught. Flitting deeper into the currents, he disappeared, leaving the echoes of alarms and the rhythmic pulse of his home come to life behind him. The enmeshment of the two societies had begun again, as it always had, but that was a concern for others. He wanted to see more.