Calistya could barely see her way forward, her eyes squeezing shut involuntarily. Khrystal’s biting words rolled around in her mind, a painful replaying that triggered head-shakes and muscle tension, making the effort of swimming an uncomfortable chore.
She pressed on, swimming as hard as she could, striving for emotional release. She barely registered reaching the city limits and passing the gate with just a wave from her sentinel friend Marla. She never realized that Marla was heading for trouble herself, given that she had simply assumed Calistya was with her usual buddy, not noticing that Cali was with no partner at all. Such was their casual trust, which Cali had just mistakenly violated.
Khrystal doesn’t understand, Cali thought. She can’t even. How would she know what it feels like to be so trapped? To feel crushed under every rule, every denial, all those walls closing in on me?
With each stroke, Calistya imagined breaking through those walls, leaving everyone and everything behind. Forgetting that she’d ever even been a Technoquatic.
Mechanical mermaids, she thought bitterly, what a joke.
Thoughts of home—its meaningless rules, suffocating barriers, and sterile routines—tightened her throat. Even the name grated on her. The Shallows, what was that even supposed to mean?
She hardly noticed her trajectory, pushing downward purely on instinct. She didn’t even notice the moment she passed through the twilight and down, down further into the darkness.
She became aware of her surroundings only when the bioluminescence sprang up all around her path, coming up from somewhere deep below, swirling around her as she dove. The sudden glow startled her, threads of electric blue and green weaving through the water, snapping her out of her compulsive downward rhythm. She looked back, suddenly aware of how far she’d come. And what the ramifications might be. If the aquasentinels showed up now, she’d be in more trouble than she’d ever known.
A fearful pause later, she decided she didn’t care.
It was intoxicating down here, plying the forbidden zone. And the sealife was fascinating. Her upset fading, she started swimming more slowly, curving around and stretching luxuriously, pulling herself further down, further than even the stories she’d heard, from older technos who’d been down before.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Maybe I can stay for a while, go a little deeper even. The darkness felt like a run for freedom—untouched by the harsh glare of civilization, hers to claim and hers alone.
Why not, what can it hurt?
Going for broke, she swam hard again, pushing herself even more, feeling the surge of momentum as she sliced her way down into the darkness. She looked back once, her stomach dropping at the sight of the line between twilight and dark, now a frightening distance away. Still she continued—to hell with the headmaster, the school. And with Khrystal, too. To hell with them all.
She examined the rock formations that made up the sides of what seemed to be a chasm, arching downward in a narrowing wall. The glowing creatures clung to the sides for the most part, a few floating lazily here and there. No large fish to be found, though she saw motion far below that she assumed must be bottom dwellers. They usually minded their own business, but one couldn’t be too careful. A wrong finfall, and they’d make their presence known.
Still, she wasn’t sure where the bottom might be, so far down into the darkness the chasm stretched. She decided to take a little more risk, go down a bit more and have a look. After all, she was already breaking the rules, wasn’t she? So what was the difference if she went a little further? Enjoy the swim and see what else there is to see.
A surge of upcurrent pushed Calistya, forcing her into a violent reverse-tuck. She righted herself expertly, only to flail backwards as a rushing shift of water displacement revealed a shadowy figure. Her gasp overwhelmed the oxy-regulator, which chirped in protest. There, floating before her, impossibly deep for a free-dive, was a boy.
Calistya’s mind started spinning, trying to make sense of things. If he couldn’t have swam down, he must have come from below. But that made no sense either. Having risen up out of the darkness alone, he must have been a wayward too, as impossible as that seemed.
Looking him over, though, she felt a fresh surge of disbelief. He was wearing no oxyquipment at all.
Could he really be gill enhanced? At his age?
She peered at his neck, but where there should be scars from the implants, she saw only gills. Natural gills. As if he were born with them! It was patently impossible, and yet that’s what she was seeing.
The boy looked back at her with a mixture of expressions, perplexed and amused. He had bone-white skin and tapered, piercing eyes. She wondered if he were one of the exchange merkids they’d hosted so many years back. But they’d all gone home. At any rate this boy was less a familiar outsider than a truly unearthly presence. Like a ghost.
And just like a ghost, he turned and vanished. Only bubbles left behind, reassuring Calistya that she hadn’t seen an apparition. Not that her people believed in such things at any rate. They were too evolved for such tales. But the sight of him did give her pause. She had to know more, but she didn’t dare swim down any further. And it had seemed as if he’d swum back down. Down to a mystery more powerful than any pull to return home.