FATE\Deus Decipit

Chapter 89: A Boy's Best Friend

...

Monica lazily opened her eyes.

It was strange. Every time she came to this golden sea it felt less like a dream, even though she was increasingly aware of just how unreal it was.

'Unreal?' That was a curious phrase. Who decided what was real and what wasn't? What made this world any more real than the other? Was this world false? Was it a lie? Or was it just an alternative reality, just as real as the other, existing along another axis?

In any case, she took a deep breath of the water, another curious oxymoron, and let the pressure of the sea comfort her like a blanket while the light caressed her with its warmth. She was so comfortable that she could swear that if she closed her eyes too long she would fall asleep and enter some brand new dream within a dream- or, perhaps, as it suddenly occurred to her, she was awake already. She found herself imagining, though she didn't know why, two rooms, each on a long end of a hallway, where each room was a waking world, both as real as the other, and the hallway was the world of dreams. It was as if one could wake in the wrong world just as easily as she could wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

These questions rose as easily as bubbles in the water, and she could have easily spent the rest of her life pondering them in quiet contemplation, not because she was the philosophical kind, but because that was the kind of attitude that this severe tranquility inspired. More so than any walk in the forest, more so than any lazy sunbathing: a sensation comparable only to the deepest and most profound meditative trances. With this was a feeling Monica had never felt before, not even once: the feeling of belonging, as if she were exactly where she ought to be.

However, to her own chagrin, there was one question that refused to pop at the surface of her mind: it lingered and bobbled there, refusing to be ignored, and she cursed her own curiosity.

She had to know what happened to that island.

As her lazy arms and legs moved to pick herself up, she found there was no need. The moment she intended to swim upwards, a current rose from underneath her, gently lifting her up and turning her upright. It was as if this entire ocean existed for no reason other than to serve her. Although it was foreign to her, it also belonged to her, and was as much an extension of herself as it was completely separate. One more in a long line of paradoxes.

It wasn't long before she broke the surface and took a deep breath of true air. It was... disappointing. One would think that the air would be more refreshing than the water, but the opposite was true. Although the air was clean, fresh, and as rejuvenating as a misty fog on a mountaintop morning, for some reason the water still felt more real. The fact that she needed to breathe signaled to her that she didn't belong here nearly as much as she did under the surface, but that wasn't of any concern to her, in fact, she took it as a given. Besides, she wanted to find that island.

It took longer than she thought it would. She thought that, with the clear, citrus skies overhead and the waters so calm that it looked like smooth tile, it would be easy enough to find, but that wasn't the case. After some time, she did finally find it, although it looked as if it had fallen beneath the horizon, and the high column she had previously used as a lighthouse was crooked and nearly fallen over.

Just as she had before, she willed herself to move towards the island, and found that the water once again pushed her along. Just as had happened before, as she left the surface of the water, much of the ocean clung to her shoulders and solidified into the smoothest fabric one could ever feel, as if she were clothed by the wind itself- feeling at once both the freedom of nakedness and the security of clothing. Her girlish spirit couldn't help but marvel and feel at the wonderful dress, and this wonder kept her from realizing that she was now standing atop the ocean, and that it was moving under her, carrying her to her destination. She walked along the current, and arrived at the island in less time than it had ever taken her, soon stepping onto the soft sand and gravel with her bare feet. Along the way, she also realized why the island had been so hard to find: it had sunk beneath the waves. The cave that had sat atop the rising hill had collapsed, and, whether the island had fallen or the water level risen, much of the beach was gone, leaving only the rocks.