Calistya went to the chasm with a mission. She had no reason to think the boy would return or linger, but this time, she was ready to follow. Wherever he was from, she wanted to see it for herself.

She nodded to the sentries with feigned nonchalance, but her heart gave a thud as she noticed Marla’s absence. It always felt easier with her there. Guilty feelings sliced through her middle like a scalpel, a self-recrimination for betraying Marla’s kindness, but it was quickly dissolved by her determination.

But this time, even Marla wouldn’t have endorsed Calistya’s plan. This time, she was going to outright defy them all. No partner, no swim-plan, no estimated time of return. Marla had overlooked a thing or two out of casual kindness, sure, but even she would have taken note of this blatant disregard for every rule.

Calistya made her way to the usual spot, looked around for the city guards, pretended she was waiting for someone until they lost interest, and dove through the sentinel-only channel when they weren’t looking.

Huh, she thought, almost laughing at the ease of it. Guess it’s more of an honor system thing. She again felt the tug of conflicting emotions: half relief, half disappointment. They didn’t really care, which dashed her image of the friendly protectors making sure she was safe. But, she could swim alone, safety be damned, and it was her life anyway.

Growing accustomed to the plunge, she found it invigorating this time. The water temperature was colder, and though her equipment compensated for actual extremes, the fluctuation did pierce through. She shivered violently, then laughed it off. It was hard to tell if it was the temperature or the excitement anyway, really.

She swam boldly through that curtain that enshrined The Deep, then slowed, squinting into the dimness. It was as pretty as ever, and she was beginning to really feel at home. She almost felt as if the creatures lit up the walls just for her.

She waited at the mouth of the chasm for a long time. There wasn’t much to do, so she hummed into the void, making up a tune. She wondered if the sound would carry, maybe get his attention. It was hard to tell, but perhaps the boy could detect her presence from the way she agitated the water, or—

There was a slight ripple that made her hold her breath, then another.

But no. There was no boy. Not this time.

Okay then. Do some exploring? More slowly than before, methodically checking for lurking danger, she plunged lower, deeper into the chasm.

The bioluminescence dimmed, their scattered glows shrinking into pin-light against the void. Without their light, it should have been nothing but blackness, but there remained an eerie glow, somehow coming from further down? It didn’t seem possible, but the fact was, she could still see. The space grew tighter, and Calistya’s heart thumped as the walls seemed to close in.

Nevermind, she said, voice-calming her nervous system. She pressed on.

One thing was for certain. There were no submersibles down here. No machinery. Not possible, nothing would even fit. There was barely enough for a smallish techno like herself. No adult could possibly get through, so the boy must have done it alone.

When she finally reached the chasm floor, the walls came together into a ‘V’ shape. She had only room enough for her arms now, palms-down on the sandy bottom. But first she checked for bottom dwellers. Down here, poisonous creatures were more common. So she had to be sure. Once more she had to talk herself calm, as her heart began to thump hard enough to push against the inner fabric of her suit.

The sand was fine as dust, and felt nice slipping through her fingers. That calmed her as well, but she hadn’t come all this way to play in the sand. She began hand-walking across the chasm floor, feeling her way along. She proceeded that way for a while, long enough to become bored. Then something shifted, shocking her, and with a turbulent whoosh, the entire bottom gave way.

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

She backtreaded in panic, acting on instinct, horrified to see the bottom rushing downward like sand through an hourglass. It almost prompted her to flee. Almost. But she’d come this far. Still holding her own against the flow, she gave one more upward glance, then kicked downward and surrendered to the current, allowing it to take her straight through the sand.

She slid downward for an eternity, rushing ever faster, protected in the core of the powerful flow so that it felt less like a force of nature, more like the guiding hand of the sea itself.

When the current finally released her, she tumbled gently to rest in a cavern so vast it seemed to stretch beyond sight. Her breath caught at the sight of that same strange, otherworldly glow, almost sun-warming in its intensity now, reflecting off walls of crystal and marble and shell, as if she’d plunged into an alternate universe, vastly more spectacular than her own.

* * *

When Calistya didn’t show up for dinner, it didn’t immediately ring any alarm bells. Students were occasionally held up, in tutoring sessions or extra-curriculars. There was usually a good excuse to be had, so the kitchen staff hadn’t brought it to the administration straight away. Even as late as night-check, there wasn’t any alert given, though at this point it was the fault of a lax administration more than anything else. She’d been known to be a wayward soul, and her recent interactions with the troublemaker Khrystal had given them plenty of cause for concern. However, she was not reported as missing until the final lights-out.

Lights-out check was the only time where every student was required to be exactly where they were meant to be. In this case, bed. And it was plain to see that one mergirl was missing among the ranks of her classmates. When Calistya’s name sprang forth, only then did the administrator on duty put two and two together, and hurriedly placed a call to the headmaster.

Within twenty minutes, the entire staff was assembled in the headmaster’s office. They were careful to enter quietly so as not to wake the students in the dormitories. But when they got inside, all hell broke loose.

“Did she say anything to you?” the headmaster challenged Ms. Terri. “You and she have tutoring sessions this term, don’t you?”

Ms. Terri nodded, but had nothing more to add. Thoughtful, she did say, “She’s been asking some odd questions, about merfolk out to sea, that sort of thing. You don’t think…”

“Think what?” the headmaster snapped. “That she’s gone swimming in the open ocean? What do you take me for?”

“I just—”

“She’s around here someplace. Somewhere in the school, most likely. Around the city at the very least. So we’ve got to find her before we’ve got to get the authorities involved. Got it?”

The other teachers, with Ms. Terri in the lead as Calistya’s primary, headed back out to search the school. They were less concerned with keeping quiet now, as the headmaster had ordered an all-hands search to be taken. That would certainly rouse the dorms at any rate, but it might not be such a bad idea to get the students involved.

An hour of frantic searching later, during which they’d disturbed the bulk of the student body, they were no closer to finding Calistya’s whereabouts. They had narrowed it down, realizing that the last she’d been seen was during Ms. Terri’s tutoring session. So she’d been missing for some seven hours now, and with it dark outside to boot. She could be anywhere, but there was no way to search the city without the help of the city guards. So the headmaster, reluctantly, put out the word.

Within a short span of time, the city guards were all over the school, taking it upon themselves to search the same territory all over again, as if the faculty had no idea what they were doing. This wasn’t far from the truth, however, as it should never have been such a long time between disappearance and realization.

Ms. Terri was beside herself. She blamed herself for not noticing, though as several of her colleagues pointed out, she couldn’t be expected to notice every clue. And there was little to be done if the girl couldn’t stay put. All a teacher could do was encourage her to stay the course. Which, of course, Ms. Terri had done.

The headmaster was cooperating, dredging up files and photo-records. These came as a surprise—Calistya had a backstory he’d never known about. Taken in under mysterious circumstances, with no record of her parents. The child seemed to have just appeared one day. A call had gone out to locate the parents, city guards brought in and the like. To no avail. She might as well have been a ghost.

And now, she was a ghost yet again. The officers had already begun to search the city, but at this late hour, after nightfall, there wasn’t much hope in finding her.

“She probably crawled into a corner and went to sleep,” one of the officers suggested.

“Yeah, or she might’ve made her way up to the fin section. Sometimes little merkids like to hang around up there with the swimmers. She could’ve found herself in an unfamiliar place and hunkered down.

“We’ll keep looking, but our best chance is morning. She’ll likely come out for food.”

But as the city guards began wrapping up the paperwork, Ms. Terri couldn’t shake the feeling that Calistya wasn’t just lost—she was drifting further out of reach with every moment that passed.