“It’s ok, Faeryn,” Graysen purred as if he could hear my accelerating heartbeat. “She’s just curious.”
The creature seemed surprised by his voice, backing up enough that I could view her entire front through the window of green. Her empty eyes had dark blue rings surrounding them, fading into slate-toned flesh. She was missing the scales and horns I saw on other dragon species, but I noted that the end of her long tail—flicking out from behind her mass—was adorned with dazzling lights. Similar bioluminescent antennae waved behind her head and lined her throat.
I slowly began to kick myself towards the dragon for a better view, but Graysen’s grip cautioned me to stay put. “My kind didn’t domesticate water dragons,” he warned in a whisper I could barely hear through the muffle of water. “I can’t promise she will understand how to interact with a person.”
I considered his words. This felt far safer than our ride through the trees. There were no visible weapons other than her sheer size, and even then, she seemed more intrigued than aggravated. I wanted an unobstructed view of her majesty, to take a mental snapshot of everything. I was in the presence of a goddess as far as I was concerned, and I couldn’t forget a single detail.
“I just want to get out of the seaweed,” I objected softly, pulling my arm away and making my way into the open lake where she waited.
Her tail curled in graceful swirls behind her. A low thrum vibrated from her chest and sent goosebumps across my skin. I swam parallel to the flat of her long face, not able to see where her mouth was. No mouth, no teeth, nothing to fear. She was angelic. I didn’t need Graysen to translate her for me; I could feel her peace. Her song was a lullaby, wrapping me in notes that felt ancient.
I slowly reached a hand forward, resting it on the silky skin of the goddess before me. Her eyes blinked softly, and Ismiled. Of all the strange beings I had pet on Trebianna, she felt the most otherworldly. I hoped Graysen would abandon caution to come join me in a moment so we could experience this interaction together. After all, he said water dragons were his favorite.
I ducked my head and covered my ears when the piercing sound of nails on a chalkboard overpowered the creature’s melody. Our moment of connection crumbled, and she promptly disappeared into the watery shadows. I felt Graysen’s hands wrap around my shoulder and waist, fingers digging into me, further breaking the spell.
“We need to go,” he bubbled, pulling me back into the kelp by force while I tried to get my bearings. I was disoriented; the shrieking sounds were coming in dizzying layers.
“Graysen, what’s happening?!” I asked in a yell of bubbles, trying to carry my voice over the noise.
Before I could form another thought, something thick and slimy coiled around my ankle and slithered its grip up my leg. I snapped my head down, seeing a true monster from the depths of hell. A tentacle enveloped my leg. Empty, white, beady eyes gaped up from the cobra-like flat face of a man-sized deep-sea creature. Short bioluminescent tentacles wiggled around its sickly pale-brown features. Two nose slits flared aggressively and a mouth hole packed full of needle-like filtering columns gaped, thankfully not unhinging at the jaw enough to sink into me. Regardless, its teeth became the least of my worries as a second monstrosity wrapped its elongated body around my ribs and began to squeeze.
Staying calm was not an option. Soulless, dead, fish eyes stared at nothing in the direction of my face, water sucking in through the serrated pins stretching from one blackened gum line to the other. A dread beyond anything I’d experiencedbefore made my blood run cold. Starlight had clearly never touched its transparent skin, this creature was meant to be concealed in darkness. I could see a purple heart beating and yellow organs twisting within its bloated abdomen. I was in the clutches of a sickly oceanic wraith.
My hands ripped desperately at its slippery girth, as my lungs failed to expand. Bubbles rose from my mouth in bulk, I couldn’t suck in air to refill my aching lungs. One of my arms was seized by a third horror, limiting me to one hand weakly clawing at slick, leathery flesh. I tried to sink my nails into the viscera I could see contorting as it slithered around me, but the blubbery skin was deceptively strong. Already, I had wasted every breath in my lungs and was quickly growing weak and disoriented. My fingers slowed down against my will, losing the energy to struggle.
The water turned red below my neck. I braced for pain. It had to be my blood. It punctured a rib, probably. But the sharp pain never hit. As the puff of blood dissipated, I finally drew in a successful breath as the creature let go of me. Graysen was hunched around it, sharp fangs ripping into its sides like they were tissue paper. I watched as his black clawed fingers ran slits through its jugular before he released the twitching corpse. Its mangled body sank back to where it came from, while he removed the other creatures from me in a predatory struggle of claws and teeth. More appeared, wrapping around his legs in constricting knots. It only took him a moment to get the other two to let go of me—their focus had moved to a new threat.
“Get out of here!” Graysen snarled, his eyes glowed bronze along with the increased intensity of his neck emblem. One of his onyx talons pointed to the right, suggesting the way out.
My heart, desperate to fight for life, raced inside my chest. My vision was blotchy from oxygen deprivation as I broke into a full-blown panic, kicking and paddling as fast as I could to get away from the growing swarm. Only once I couldn’t push any longer did I breach the surface into the cold night air. When had it grown dark? The only light came from where I had just been, which illuminated a warm orange glow across the surface of an otherwise black mirror. My feet kicked to keep me afloat, my teeth grinding at the fear that I would be pulled back under at any moment.Gotta keep swimming. I just needed another second to choke water out of my throat and gulp down enough air to catch my breath. There was no land in sight, and I needed the strength to continue, knowing security had to be somewhere within a reachable distance.
When the orange glow of the water died and plummeted me into nothingness, I was jolted into action. My legs strained with every kick; I wasn’t a strong swimmer, and the tension and panic in my body were only making it worse. I felt like a desperately flailing fish going nowhere. Was I even swimming in a straight line? My stomach felt exposed in its prone position. I tried not to imagine teeth wrapping around my waist and pulling my innards out from under me.No, they didn’t have teeth. Maybe something else did, though? A lake shark lurking below to snap me in half like a damn seal. A fucking kraken could impale me on its beak for all I knew. The wonders of this world turned into demonic entities to fuel my nightmares. This swim was never going to end. I was never going to reach land. I knew I couldn’t drown, but I choked on the water lapping into my gasping mouth. I sounded like prey.
My hand smacked into something hard, painfully scraping my nails back against a rough surface. I righted my position, my foot catching on a rocky ledge in the water. Myhand clawed in front of my face at dirt that crumbled under my grip, splashing around me quietly. It was a ledge.
I pushed my hands up the vertical incline, finding soft grass under the very tips of my fingers just at the point where my arms fully extended. There was no way I could get enough of a grip on the ground to pull myself up at this angle; I would need to climb. I tried to steady my frantic movements, thinking it would be foolish to give away my location to a looming predator now that I was so close to being rid of the unknowns of water monsters.
Ledge after ledge collapsed under my weight, clumps of dirt and rocks falling into my eyes. I assured myself that if I kept trying, one would eventually hold. The eroded land was unfortunately less than compact, and at this rate, I was making more noise breaking down soil than I was swimming. I felt like I was ringing the dinner bell.
My wrist brushed a new texture, it was softer than its surroundings—fuzzy. I brought my hand down, finding I was able to wrap my fingers around it if I pushed my nails through the sediment. It felt like a sturdy root. I tugged myself up a few inches and found a new foothold. The ledge was within reach. I sank my fingers into the damp earth, grass tickling my palm, as I lifted enough to get my foot into the roots hold. With a strong push, I kicked myself up, collapsing onto the dewy land.
Faeryn
I lay on my back, chest heaving violently from exertion. The swirling stars in the night sky twinkled for a moment between heavy clouds before plunging the world back into darkness. I turned my head to search the lake, and all I saw was the sheen of black ink. Graysen was still in there.I left him.
“Oh, Graysen,” my voice cracked in between heaving pants.
I had seen the features of a demon morph over his face and hands, turning them into weapons. He had used those weapons to save me. He had held them off so I could get away, and Ifled. Maybe if I stayed we’d both be dead, but I would never know. The orange glow of water—his glow—had gone out. The unassuming surface mocked me, not a single ripple to hint he was moving within its depths. There had been almost ten of those things, all larger than him. What were the odds that he escaped them successfully? Negligible.
The biting wind was picking up into a sharp whistle. I rolled to my side to hug my stomach and curl into a pathetic ball, soaked and freezing in the stinging night air. My face was wet. I couldn’t tell if it was from my uncontrolled crying, my nose running from the cold, or the lake I’d escaped from.
Misery and guilt swallowed me whole. I had abandoned the person who had taken care of me. I let him sacrifice himself. I was nobody, I didn’t have a past or anybody to return to. He had a life, friends, and a future that was far more certain than my own. I should have taken the opportunity to repay him for pulling me out of the forest that night. He could go back to Mykie knowing he had filled my days with magic, rather than letting me die nameless and disoriented in the middle of nowhere. Had I died here, at least I would have had an identity to go with.
What now? I could let the seasons change around me, rotting into a pile of leaves in paradise. Wasting the sacrifice of the man who was perhaps my only friend. Bile rose up my throat at the thought. No, I had to get back to Mykie somehow and tell her. From there, I would do what? Find my way back to Earth? I didn’t care about that right now. Everybody on Earth was a nameless nothing to me, unlike the man I had just left behind. I would figure out what to do once I had returned his Silvates safely to their home and alerted his community of their loss.
At my core, I was empty with the ache of loneliness. I hadn’t realized how much comfort bonding with Graysen had provided me in a short few days. My entire sentient life. Returning to a state of emotional isolation sounded worse than death. I also couldn’t help but feel that even if there was a world of mysterious and loving people to meet, none of them would be him. Without any logic to back the feeling, I knew there would be a hole in my heart where he had been. It would never heal.
I rolled my quivering body to its hands and knees, looking around with a squint to try and make out shapes in the dark. Left or right? I supposed it didn’t matter as long as I found shelter for the night. I wantedto hide inside the deepest tree burrow, alone with my thoughts. Somewhere tucked away and safe. Iremembered vaguely how I had survived the woods that first night: taking one step at a time.Time to take a step.
