Tidal-Bore

4. Welcoming Party

The luggage waited in the submarine for its relevance as the scientists crawled on land. While Wooyoung already skipped over the rocks to make his way up to the beach so he could see the second gate, the captain closed up the ship behind them. Kiko and Petra held onto each other on their way across the wobbly boulders, and Yeosang huffed whenever his glasses or his bag slipped from him.

Once he had clambered up the black boulders that made up the arrival beach, Wooyoung straightened to look in awe at the second gate that resembled the first one. From his feet, it looked even taller than from the submarine. He was dying to find out what hid behind it.

As soon as Yeosang arrived by his side, they marched ahead, leaving the others to catch up at their pace.

"Do you think we can knock? I doubt my knock would be heard through that thing," Yeosang pondered. He smoothed out his clothing, stressed already with his leading role.

Wooyoung shrugged.

"If all six of us body slam it, they might hear."

Yeosang's glare on him was withering as if Atlantis was a brittle ruin when truly, they were looking at a massive, functional bronze gate.

However, that fear was irrelevant. As they neared through the passage sticking from the main bubble like the head of a tortoise, the second gate creaked open with a menacing rattle. There was no booming screech, but the movement of a door this size intimidated Wooyoung all the same.

While they waited for enough space to pass through, the others caught up with them. Kiko and Petra babbled about the artificial atmosphere inside the shell, how it kept a warm temperature and a brightness matching the sun even when they were surrounded by black water. They could see outside the bubble that gave Atlantis life, and the schemes of large deep-sea sharks passing by flustered them every time.

Wooyoung's marvelling eyes dropped from the sheer bubble back to the door when Yeosang hastened from his side. A group of people awaited them on the other side of the gate, matching the rocky beach that surrounded all of Atlantis and offered an opportunity to enter the water as if they were their own island within the shell. As the scientists followed to conduct the first formal greeting and leave a good impression, Wooyoung studied the way they dressed and carried themselves.

Six men and two women had come to receive them. A modest number so as not to intimidate and meet on even ground, yet Wooyoung felt their otherworldly elegance besieged the surfacers.

They were human, undoubtedly, but their expression of it differed from what the scientists were used to.

Wooyoung was glad to find they fancied clothes even down in the water. Their garments were made from woven plant strings and the shells of various deep-sea creatures. They walked barefoot, but bracelets of shells and pearls decorated their feet and wrists. Another striking aspect was their facial tattoos, as all of them bore them.

The person in their midst had to be the village chief. Around his head, he wore an impressive headdress made of some sea monster's ridges that fanned like a sun crown. He was older than the others, and the thick piercings dangling through his nose and ears bore heavy jewellery. He stood with the poise of a warrior, and he held a staff like a sceptre by his side. His aged eyes were strict, though not void of kindness as they scanned their group. The blue lines of his filigree tattoo were symmetrical over his features, painting thick lines across his cheekbones and nose.

A sun-shaped pattern similar to his crown spread over his forehead, indicating his role.

Two young men flanked his sides, one more unique than the other. The one to his right bore such a striking resemblance to the elder man he had to be part of the family. His hair was the colour of a raven's feathers. Not just black, but iridescent when the light fell upon it to shimmer in purple and green. The unwilling scowl on his face matched his dark clothes, though his features were delicate, like that of a woman. The dark tattoos on his face matched those of his father.