19 Days - One Shots

The Prince From the Depths - Part One

One Day

"Come on, Mo Guan Shan, how can you say no? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Guan Shan stopped packing his bag and turned to look at his white-haired friend. "Like this - no." He zipped up his backpack before shrugging it on his shoulder and looked at the other male. "Listen, She Li, we've been working on this project together for a few days now and nothing, but suddenly you see a blip in the middle of nowhere on the screen and you wanna ride out there and check it out? I didn't even see this 'blip'."

She Li moved to block the doorway. "That's exactly the point, Redhead, we've been working on this and we've finally gotten something. And it's not in the middle of nowhere, it's a few miles off the coastline. You've seen my boat and diving equipment, you know I've done this before. Please, you know I can't do this without you."

Guan Shan was weak to people that needed him. He had been wanting to see if this 'blip' was the real deal. If it was something, they didn't want to miss the opportunity. He gave a big sigh as he gave in. "When do we go?"

She Li's mouth relaxed into a lopsided smile. "Right now. If there's anything out there, we don't want it to get away now, do we?"

*

As they walked down the port, Guan Shan stepped on something and felt it give a little tear. He looked down and picked up what seemed to be a missing person poster. Guan Shan didn't recognise the person which was weird because he had lived in the town all his life and the guy in the picture had only been missing for 2 weeks. His heart dropped a little because he had stepped on it before he put the poster back on the board which had a mass amount of different posters on it.

The pair stepped onto She Li's boat and prepared for their journey a few miles out into the sea. They hadn't discussed much of what they would do when they got out there and Guan Shan was getting more nervous by the second. His heart jumped into his throat every time the boat bounced against the rocky waves.

Soon the boat slowed to a stop in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. Guan Shan looked behind him and could barely make out the town, leaving it to just a dark spot in the distance. "So what happens now?" Guan Shan turned to see She Li setting up the diving gear.

"Now," She Li said as he passed the mask to Guan Shan. "You dive."

Guan Shan's eyes widened as he looked between the mask and She Li. "Me?!" He exclaimed. "Why me?"

"Because I, my dear Mo Guan Shan, need to be on the boat and use the equipment. Do you know how to use it?" She Li gestured to the pieces of technology Guan Shan didn't recognise. "Because if you know how to use it, by all means, I'll be happy to be the one diving."

Guan Shan grit his teeth and stared once again at the diving mask. He had been scuba diving all of two times in his life but both times had been in shallow waters, nothing as deep as they were now. "Fine, I guess." He took a deep breath but it didn't help the skyrocketing nerves coursing through his body. "Shit." He mumbled.

She Li looked at him and smiled. "Look, if you're worried, don't be. There's no need as I'm gonna tie you to a rope attached to the boat and you'll also have a pocket knife with you in case you run into something... unexpected. Like a fishing net or something." He added for good measure when Guan Shan's eyes widened a fraction more.

After getting set up, Guan Shan sat on the edge of the boat and looked up at She Li. "What am I looking for?" He couldn't keep the nerves from his voice.

"Whatever is down there, I guess. I'll keep an eye on things and will pull you up if they get dangerous. You can also pull if there's anything wrong and I'll get you out. Not that anything should go wrong." She Li smiled but it was less than comforting. "Here, take this too." He passed Guan Shan a camera. "Take snaps of what you see."

Guan Shan nodded, not trusting his voice to hold out and put the diving regulator mouthpiece in his mouth before pushing back off the boat into the water. The first thing he noticed was how ice-cold the water was. He gasped into the mouthpiece and was relieved to be met with a breath of oxygen filling his lungs. Water filled his ears and rushing sounds turned to a deep silence. It was almost relaxing.

Guan Shan looked around and noticed he couldn't make out his surroundings except for when he glanced up and saw the bottom of the boat a few feet away. His nerves dissolved the more he was in the water. A school of fish came into view and he took a picture of them.

After a few minutes in the water, Guan Shan noticed the oxygen he was breathing in and started to feel a little thin. He pushed the mouthpiece into his mouth more firmly and hoped it was his imagination. He continued to take pictures of the sea creatures that made their appearance around him and he dived further from the boat.

Guan Shan looked down and noticed a black shape deep in the water. He squinted at it before he realised it was coming closer to him at an unnatural speed. Fearing it was a shark, he reached for the rope and tugged as hard as he could, but no matter how much he tugged, it never strained against the boat. Suddenly, the other end of the rope was in his hands and Guan Shan's eye widened in horror as he realised he wasn't attached to the boat.

He glanced down at the dark shape coming closer still and realised he was going light-headed due to lack of oxygen. He reached behind him to his tank and felt that it was attached to his mouthpiece properly so he wasn't sure why he wasn't taking in enough oxygen. Panic was setting in, causing his breathing to become erratic, wasting more of the precious oxygen he had.

Attempting to swim towards the boat seemed like a hard thing to do and the more he tried, the further he felt it was and it was then he realised that the boat was leaving. She Li was leaving him behind. His heart sunk and his panic climbed as he realised he was left to die and he was probably going to be eaten by a shark.

He looked down once more and found the figure was high enough that Guan Shan could make out that it was a... human? No, that's impossible. But it was a man's face swimming towards him at an unnatural speed. Suddenly he grabbed Guan Shan and wrapped him in his arms before bursting through the surface of the water and pulling Guan Shan's mouthpiece out of his mouth.

Guan Shan gasped for breath, clinging to the man that was holding him above water. The stranger pulled Guan Shan's face back until they were looking at each and he brushed the water off his face and out of his hair, a concerned look covered his face.

Guan Shan shivered, both confusion and panic making his teeth chatter. "W-what the holy fuck..." He started but didn't finish as the man started to swim back to the coastline.