The Neo-American Pantheon

A Trip to The Aquarium

When Samantha woke up she had no idea where she was, and once she got over the initial panic of being in what shaped up to be a vast human-sized fish tank. She was calm, for the most part.

'Did they know I was a goddess of water? Or had they just wanted to test if all of us could breathe underwater? Could everyone breathe underwater?' Samantha thought to herself.

The tank that she was in was well lit, and they left her in her jeans and a black t-shirt, which was a plus. Though admittingly she was quite unsure where, here, was. She hadn't put up too much of a fight when the military had showed up. She was also the goddess of life, and she didn't like hurting living things all that much. Even if they were in armored suits and shooting her and her friends with darts.

So when shooters came crashing in the back door, which was attached to the kitchen- where many of the gods had gone to congregate to eat- she had gone almost willingly. She, of course, tried to run away. Samantha wasn't an idiot, but a tall Asian girl running away from G.I Joe's, the winner was evident.

Samantha looked around her new home, or at least "cell," for a good fifteen minutes. She found that it was a cube of 40ft, walled in by some sort of plastic or glass, she couldn't tell. Outside of that was dark nothingness. It wasn't that she couldn't see out the transparent wall. It was that there was nothing to see. Just above the cube was what looked like a cement ceiling.

She flexed her power, which now came naturally to get a sense of her surroundings in the cube. The water in the tank was an extension of herself; she could feel the way it ebbed and flowed. She found that even though she could not see them at all, there must have been tubes that let fresh water in and out of the cell, or something similar.

She pushed on the sides of the cube to test how strong they were. They were unfortunately very sturdy. She decided it would be best to try using her new powers for a way out. Tentatively she pushed with the water on the sides of the cube she was stuck in. Only to find the water drained on the bottom the more she pushed.

'Great.'

She would need to try something else. Slowly she felt the water flow into herself, not in the literal sense perhaps, but the physical changes that were taking place were evident. Her black hair previously a web around her face, started to shorten, then became in a way harder. Transitioning from actual hair to green gill filaments to extract oxygen from the water around her. Her ears became iridescent green fins, and her eyes became twice their normal size. She stopped the change there; jeans and a fish tail were not a good combination.

Taking a breath of water out of habit more than need, she tried again to use the water to push against the cell. This time, however, she kept the water from going down below to keep the pressure building. This became increasingly difficult as she had to both keep the water from flowing bellow, as well as continue to cause the water to expand against the walls.

Samantha was at it for about a minute before a booming alarm went off cutting her concentration. The lighting in the cell became red, and then Samantha wasn't in control at all. Her ability to control water was cut, and she felt how cold the water was on her skin, how heavy it was.

She also started to choke. When she took in a breath of water, it hurt. Drowning had become a foreign concept to her since the beginning of her godhood. She realized as she clawed at her throat she was suffocating. Her ears which had returned to normal filled with water. Her hair moved in front of her face obscuring her vision. She only vaguely noticed the water draining around her, and not a moment too soon.

After about forty seconds she was laying on the glass floor sputtering wet and cold. When she collected herself her eyes were still blurry. She saw what looked like many small tubes that lined the bottom of the cube, and she heard a door open.

Samantha quickly looked forward and saw a bright light in the shape of a door, and the silhouette of a man. As quickly as she went to look, she turned away, the light was an obtrusive attack from the dim glow of her cell. Then she heard the door close and heard steps as the person who entered walked slowly closer. Each step sent alarm bells off in Samantha's head, everything in her told her to run. So she crawled over to the far end of the cube only looking back when she heard a voice.

"That was an impressive stunt you pulled; we got some nice data," the male voice said. Samantha pressed herself against the opposite wall but turned to look at him. 

She was met with a rather unintimidating man. He was portly and about 5'6, he had little to no hair, obviously not by choice, as the few straggling strands of male balding attested. He wore thick, blocky brown glasses and suspenders. Under the later was a white shirt with some very visible sweat stains. He also wore some ill-fitting black slacks. To put it lightly he was the man that people usually avoided, and was easily missed. In this situation, he was terrifying.

"Who are you?" Samantha whimpered.