The Triton

Chapter 5: Vivien

My breath seized in my chest, a powerful knot weaving and clamping my vocal chords shut.

I saw his eyes unfocus and flash, physically glowing brighter for a moment, a small pulse of that violet light a slight shade darker, eyes seeing past me, beyond me for a second.

"What? What was that?" I managed.

His eyes flicked back to mine. They pierced through me with unholy awareness. "We need to go."

Frustration began to pool. "You're not telling me anything. What is going on? Who are you?" The words fell from my lips, but understanding quickly began to fill in the gaps of my unanswered questions. The human mind can comprehend even the incomprehensible when survival is necessary. Logic was abandoned quickly in the adaptation of assumptions.

"Later, I promise."

As if that answered anything. "Who are you? And why are you helping me?" I pressed. Anything, even at all, checked boxes. Silence only made for question marks, and more assumptions.

He laughed at that, a dark, crackling laugh that shook his chest as his eyes narrowed in amusement. It sent shivers down my spine."Naïve little human. Help? I'm not helping you. I'm kidnapping you."

And as if that explained everything, he turned to the darkened ocean depths beyond our cave, and whistled, softly, like a man calling his dog. I didn't have the time to ponder how whistling worked underwater before I heard...something.

But it wasn't a single sound, exactly, it was...a distinct absence of any sound. As the black-scaled beast peered into the darkness, the ocean around us quieted, far quieter than I would've thought possible, despite the muted nature I presumed existed down here.

Even the water seemed to still, drawing an eerie coldness in its pacified, quiet.

If he would not answer my questions, fine. I began to plot my way out of this, to get back to the beach, to check on the surfer, to get home.

His low whistle finally cut off.

As his muttering faded back into silence, and as if this day couldn't get any weirder, appearing at the edge of the cave was a creature that couldn't exist. Long, longer than a dolphin, the sharpness of a marlin, the jaws of a shark, and covered in black scales the same color as the black-scaled beast in front of me. Thin, narrow, and deadly, it froze ahead of us, the darkness in its eyes somehow darker than the blackness of the sea, of their scales.

If my kidnapper was a beast, then this was a monster.

The human part of me threw into fear, instinctually pushing away from this being of death, a monster created to kill and nothing else. Finding nothing but the cave wall behind me, I pressed myself against it, heart thudding in my chest, terror ringing in the pits of my ears. I felt my body seize again, my brain screaming, Flee, go! Be anywhere but where you are.

But I had nowhere to go.

But the monster, it made no move besides to bow its head, extending its nose down to the black-scaled beast. He grabbed the floating orb and took it with him as he crossed to it.

"Come, girl," he said, swinging over the beast with timeless ease, landing on its back.

"What if I don't?" It was a foolish plea, but to be weak wasn't an option.

His reply was a feather falling on soft snow. "Then you'll be killed. Or worse, they'll take you."

I paused, processing. Seeing my hesitation, he continued, "We need to leave. Now."

I pushed myself from the wall. I didn't feel like I had much of a choice. At least this one didn't bind me in whatever sinewy constraints the others had, so I pushed across the cavern's floors, the eyes of the monster watching me with every movement, unmoving, unnerving pits of nothingness that slowly followed my struggling steps.