Beneath the Waves

A History Foretold

So now that everything Ria thought she knew about the world was a complete fucking lie, she didn't really know what to do with herself. Not only was the whole normal world a lie, she was a lie too. A weird lizard-skinned lie. How do you, at 23, change the whole way that you've seen the world and yourself? She has to just get used to the fact that somewhere inside her lives this weird lizard thing that sometimes comes out when she cuts herself or maybe gets cut or hurt or something? She knew now that the reason she is able to heal in water (yup heal in fucking water) was because she had activated her 'powers' by cutting herself with THE KNIFE. So technically she had brought all of this on herself.

Wha... h... what kind of world does she live in now? Are all the fairytale things real? All monsters? Ghosts? Vampires? She knew she didn't have time to freak out, because she had a whole entire library of historic tomes to comb through and figure out what was fact and what was fiction. This meant that she had to somehow get all of the books in the basement out and hidden somewhere so she could start reading to try and make sense of what the hell was going on with the world. Why couldn't she just have stayed boring normal Ria? Why did this have to happen to her, life used to be so simple and straightforward. She put her head in her hands and pressed her palms against her eyes hard enough to see stars. She breathed a deep sigh, collecting herself and reminding herself that she's still human (mostly), then walking towards her car, she planned the great exodus of information as she went.

Turns out sneaking a bunch of books out of your parents' basement is easier than expected when everyone is preoccupied by the imminent divorce proceedings and the emotions of those involved. So she grabbed everything (all of 7 books) the dragons and the minotaurs all together crammed into her backpack ready for a comfy ride and an extended stay in a yet-to-be-determined hiding place.

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The hiding place, super secret and hidden from everyone was just Ria's bookcase. She realized that no one really looked through it except for her and sometimes Chris and to Chris it would just seem like another bunch of random collectible fantasy novels. One less thing to worry about, you know, now that she has to deal with the whole lizard skin thing. For a moment she thought that this might all just be her having a mental breakdown over her parents' divorce and making up this fantasy world to somehow deal with it all. Then she looked down at whereshe cut  her hand and remembered the apatite coloured skin shining through the wound and it felt so real, almost as if she was looking at it again. So real that she shook the thought right out of her head, reassuring herself that she was not going crazy. That this was really happening to her however strange and unusual it actually was.

She decided to start her research on these other creatures and grabbed the first book from her bookcase. The first book she grabbed turned out to be Liber Dracones, the book of dragons. Opening the book on the first page she found the same beginning as she did in the book about her family and their monstrous origins.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters...

The rest was the same too. All about the creatures being given the choice to turn human, or retain their natural form. It was the same up to a point.

The next pages were filled with drawings. Anatomical drawings, once again she saw the vetruvian man style drawing of a creature, humanoid, but not quite. Its skin was closer to scales than human skin, the body an olive colour. Claws sharp enough to pierce flesh grew where her fingernails sat, and a long crocodilian tail curled to the side of it, resting on the floor, three delicate horns standing proudly at the tip of the tail. It's face was almost human, but at the same time not even close. Snake-like eyes, two slits for nostrils and sharp carnivorous teeth made up its face. It looked scary, but familiar enough to not be perceived as a threat. Another part of the drawing detailed wings that had a span of almost double its body length. Great draconian wings that, according to the writing, could be folded and hidden from sight completely beneath a section of skin found on the dragon's back.

A description on the origin of these creatures stated that 'they rose from the depths of the volcanic islands Jebel Zubair crafted carefully from the rock taken from the inside of a volcano, held together with the same magma that flows through their veins. Creatures born to thrive in intense heat, as strong as 5 human men and skin thick enough to withstand most blades'.

Damn. Meeting someone like this would be intimidating as hell. A part of her understood the ancient humans' fear of creatures like this... like her. Something so different, probably aggression stemming from jealousy or fear. This wasn't something foreign to her. Her own country was already against her for being a lesbian, she can't imagine what they would do if they found out she was some kind of lizard-creature too. Double whammy. Humans have never been very accepting of anything 'other'. Being different is a direct road to alienation and probably some sort of violence too. She suddenly (and oddly for the first time) felt really scared about what was happening to her. She realized that she could stop exploring this new path, she could stop learning and reading and finding out all the secrets that were still waiting for her. She also knew that she couldn't. She had to know what exactly she was. Why everything was hidden, even when it all became long lost family history that no one knew about.

As interesting as it was learning about the other creatures, or one of them at least, she knew that she had to focus on herself first. She had been avoiding opening the book of sea monsters ever since she read it last, avoiding learning more about herself, that knife and the apparent power of water. Opening her bag, she took out the only one of the books that she always carried with her, tracing her hand over her family crest on the back she paged through it, her hand resting on the page showing a detailed drawing of the knife she had hidden in her room. She started reading.