The Goblin Crab was taken away to be cooked for dinner.

What I hadn't expected was the interrogation that followed. The pinch-faced woman came into my room and asked me all sorts of questions. Where had I encountered the crab? How had I defeated it? Were there more in the lake?

The questions were odd since I'd already told them about the crabs I'd found earlier that week though at the time I just said I'd spotted some, not that I'd been exploring caves and found a nest of them. It was the reason they allowed me to have a knife after all. I prevaricated a bit about where I'd encountered the crab. I didn't want them knowing I'd been digging around in caves.

Another person came in and asked me the same questions. I gave the same answers.

They left me alone for a bit after that. Aggie brought me my dinner and I ate it slowly. Steamed crab, lots of butter. I think I disappointed Aggie by not gushing over the food, but my mind was occupied.

It was weird, wasn't it? Why they kept asking me questions about the Goblin Crabs. Goblin Crabs were more dangerous than I'd thought, but out in the open and not cornered as I had been, I would have been able to swim away. I was certainly a faster swimmer than a Goblin Crab. Maybe that was it? They were wondering why I hadn't just swam away?

Thinking about it, it didn't make sense that I'd engaged a Goblin Crab in open water. I hadn't told them about the cave but I could have at least said something about being cornered. Too late for that though. Maybe they thought I was going a bit mental?

I tried to sleep but thoughts kept tossing around in my head. Plans for getting Maize into the cave. Why'd they asked so many questions? Something just didn't feel right about the questions. I just couldn't figure out what was wrong.

"00938, wake up," A voice echoed through the water of my tank to me. I must have dozed off after all. Someone was reaching into the tank and shaking my shoulder.

Pushing up from the bottom, I popped my head out to see who had woken me up.

Aggie was there with my wheelchair and the lift ready to be lowered into the water. I glanced out the window. It was still dark out. Late, if my internal clock was right.

The pinch-faced woman moved and drew my attention.

"00938, patient 48598 hasn't come back. With your reports of Goblin Crabs in the area, we are concerned. We are asking that you and patient 58008 assist us with the search. You will go in as a team and search for missing 48598. Please prepare yourself."

The woman glanced at her clipboard and left before I could even ask questions. I wasn't completely awake and I had some issues processing the information.

I looked at Aggie for an explanation.

"The patient Lord Filmore Cooperwrite is missing. He never came back from the lake this afternoon. They have searchers along the banks and some in the water on boats but they want you and patient Adam to team up and help look."

"Filmore? He's missing?"

"Yes, move over a bit I'm lowering the chair."

I followed directions and was sped out of my room towards the lake.

"Has anyone told Marcy?" I asked Aggie as she pushed me along the path. I could see lamps lit in the distance. There really was a search party.

"Marcy?"

"Flimore's wife. She should know."

"I don't know, dear. Perhaps it's too soon to worry her. He may just be tangled up in some weeds after all."

"The seaweed is troublesome," I muttered to myself.

I was thinking of the Goblin Crabs. If Filmore had come across one and been unable to get away. There was the possibility that we were looking for a body and not a missing person in distress.

The open ocean flashed in my mind. Had he found another route to the ocean? It wasn't outside the realm of possibilities. I'd been tempted to just swim away myself. But Filmore had a family. He wouldn't just leave his family, would he?

The truth was I didn't know him well enough to make that call. We were changed after the plague. The person Filmore had been wouldn't have left his wife and baby, but the Filmore after the plague. I couldn't make that call. I'd only seen and spoken to him the one time after he was first allowed into the lake. From what I knew he spent most of his time fishing with Adam.

Adam was waiting for me in the water. He had a real spear tied to his back. Not just a sharp pointy stick this time. I was given two daggers. Both in sheaths that strapped to my forearms. They were larger than what I was used to but they didn't hinder me much in the water so I didn't complain.

"Crazy right?" Adam said as he swam up to me.

"Right," I honestly didn't know what to say and we were being summoned by the pinch-faced woman who was standing on the shore.

"We are searching in a grid pattern. Leave the shallow areas to our boatmen and water users." She pointed to a group of people all dressed in the same black swimsuit. Standing on the shore. "The two of you are to methodically scan the deeper areas of the lake. If you spot any Gobin Crabs swim away and inform someone in one of the boats. Don't try and fight them off yourselves." She gave me a glare as she said this. So she was pissed that I'd taken on a Goblin Crab alone. Good to know. Adam gave me an appraising look.

What? Did I look like the sort of person that willy nilly attacked monsters? What did that sort of person look like after all?

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"We've been hanging out on the west side of the lake recently, maybe we should start there," Adam offered after the woman was done issuing her orders.

"The west side is rocky and not all that dangerous. It's the north end you need to worry about." I told him.

"Ya, but Fil never went to the north end on his own. He was sort of a pansy if you ask me," Adam said flippantly.

When had he started calling Filmore Fil? As far as I knew no one called him that. An image of a red-suited dandy of a man flashed into my mind. He was flamboyant, but that didn't mean he was a coward.

"I think we should go to the west, come on." With that, Adam dove under before I could argue and started to swim.

"STAY TOGETHER!" The woman shrieked at me from the bank.

"RIGHT!" I yelled back at her and swam after Adam.

Adam and I covered the entire west end that night. Around dawn, we even got around to covering some of the north end.

We were called away a few times when boatmen thought they spotted something and needed someone to take a closer look. It was usually just a dead tree stump.

The Goblin Crabs must have been worse than I'd thought. Several times I'd look to the bank and see men fighting one in the lamplight. Goblin Crabs were more active at night and seeing them scuttle around onshore gave me goosebumps. There hadn't been any crabs in the lake not too long ago. Now the lake was practically infested. What had changed?

Was something driving them inland towards the lake? Or perhaps it was my fault? I'd moved those rocks away from the face of that one really large cave. The cave where the crabs were nesting. I hadn't moved the rocks back. Had they infested the lake that way? I had thought the rockfall had been recent, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe all that had been keeping the crabs out of the lake had been that pile of stones? Shit.

Guilt washed over me and I redoubled my efforts.

We'd been searching all night and partway into the morning when we were taken back to our tanks. We needed to rest and eat something. We could go back out in a few hours.

But we would find nothing, not in the north end, or the east either. I thought that Filmore had just swam away became stronger. The lake was big, but it wasn't that big. Surely, we'd have found something by now. Unless he was in one of the caves.

If he had gotten lost and stuck exploring one of the caves then there wasn't much we could do. It hit home just how dangerous it had been for me to go exploring by myself. No one knew where I was what I was doing. If I had gotten trapped in one of the caves they would be looking for me just like this.

With that thought in mind, I asked Adam if we could split up. I wanted to check on my caves just to see, but he refused. I was left with a decision to make. I went to my grottos and we checked the first cave Adam had found. Those were the places that we both knew about. The cave with the Goblin Crabs, did I take him there? Or to the cave that led to the boats?

No, be logical. Filmore wouldn't be in the cave with the boats. You would have passed him on the way out. The cave with the Goblin Crabs. That was still a possibility.

I had to tell Adam.

I had to check just to be certain.

"There is one other cave I know of but it's dangerous," I said after we'd checked a particularly dense patch of seaweed.

"Really?"

I nodded and decided to lie just a bit.

"It's where I came across the Goblin Crab that attacked me. It's a massive open cave and it's a nest. Probably where all these crabs are coming from." I pointed to a crab swimming in the distance. It was too far away to bother us so I wasn't concerned.

"A nest of Goblin Crabs," Adam repeated. "I can't see Fil going into a nest."

"Well, it doesn't look like a nest. It just looks like a crack in the side of a rock. The nest is inside."

"Could the dive team come in as back up?" He was asking if the water magic users would be able to reach the cave.

"No, I don't think so, but maybe we should check just to be on the safe side?"

"Lead the way but if it looks too hairy we leave," Adam agreed.

So I led him to the Goblin Crab Cave. The rocks were left where I'd pushed them. I pointed to the crack in the face of the rock and Adam swam down to peek inside. He had his spear in his hand ready for anything that might pop out at him. He swam further inside and I soon followed behind. If there were Goblin Crabs in the passage Adam would meet with them first.

We both surfaced at the same time and looked towards the sandy beach. There were fewer crabs than I had seen the first time I'd been here, but it was obvious it was still a nest.

"He's not here," Adam stated.

"Doesn't look like it," I agreed.

"You know if the crabs were cleared out of here this place would be a good place to hole up in an emergency," Adam was looking around but made sure to maintain a distance from the crabs.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, do you see any debris? Or loose rocks? The ceiling is smooth, solid if I had to guess. If there was another earthquake this is the place I'd like to be in."

I must have looked at him as if he was mad. No one wanted to be underground in an earthquake. He ignored me though.

"It would be a nice place," he muttered to himself. "The crabs know it too."

"We should go," I said. We had other places we could look for Filmore. It was obvious that he wasn't here.

We were given some more time to eat and rest then we were dumped back into the lake. I could tell that by this point this would be our last official search. There wasn't much of the lake Adam and I hadn't covered. Filmore had just disappeared.

"You know, I think maybe you were right about splitting up," Adam began. I started to protest but he stopped me. "There's not much more of the lake to cover and I'd like to have a quick look over the north end again while it's still light out. We may be able to see in the dark but that doesn't mean we didn't miss something. Why don't you cover what we haven't gone over and I'll go back over there and do another pass."

The area we had yet to cover was a fairly safe place, but the place he wanted to go alone wasn't.

"I should go with you," I protested.

"No, I think you've realized by now that the handlers are getting antsy with us being in the lake with all these monsters. My handler hinted that this might be the last time we are allowed in until they've cleared up more of the crabs. We won't be able to cover both sections before we are due back."

"But the north end is dangerous." I tried to push my point.

"Up until recently, we've all been swimming around in that area without issues. It's no more dangerous now than it was then. You run the risk of getting tangled up is all. And since they've given us weapons we can cut our way loose. You go on and I'll meet you back here when it's time to swim in."

He gave me a slight push in the direction we still needed to search than swam off before I could protest further.

He was right. The lake hadn't become any more dangerous than it had been. It was a risk I'd been taking all along looking for caves. Just because there were Goblin Crabs and Filmore was missing didn't mean it was any more dangerous.

I searched the last area by myself. Nothing. Not that I was expecting anything at this point. No, Filmore had found himself in a cave. That was the only explanation. It wasn't in any of the caves I knew about so searching for him like this was useless. To find him, I would need to find more caves, but if Adam was right we wouldn't be allowed back into the lake for a while.

My heart grieved for Marcy. Surely by now, they've told her. Would she be sitting up waiting for news praying that one of us would find him? If we couldn't find him I didn't hold out hope for any of the other searchers. I had some time left and just to be able to tell Marcy that I'd looked everywhere I knew of, I checked the cave that led to the boats. Nothing.

I knew there was nothing, but I needed to check.

I met with Adam when the time was right, and we swam to the lift together. It was then that we were given the news that Adam had anticipated. We wouldn't be allowed back into the lake until the Goblin Crabs were cleared out.

Dinner that night was a solemn affair. I just couldn't make myself eat the Goblin Crab that was presented to me. The searchers had killed nearly twenty crabs and it seemed that was what would be on the menu for the foreseeable future. I swallowed back tears as Aggie took my full meal tray back. I felt like I had failed Marcy.