The Ocean Siege | Vol.2, The Eldenarian Artifacts ✓

10.

Sebastian was lost. In more ways than one.

It was Imogen's fault. With her psychoanalyst nonsense. She always talked to him as if she were some brilliant therapist and he was some little boy she needed to take care of. Just thinking about made his jaw lock up and his face burn. Had it not been for her, he wouldn't have stormed off into the forest.

Now he was lost.

He hadn't been paying attention to where he was going. He didn't leave a trail of cookie crumbs or golden yarn behind him. Most of the forest looked the same as well. While he wanted to get back to his group's makeshift camp, he didn't even know which direction to head in.

Looking around, he tried to figure out which way would take him back to the water. He knew it was south, but he had never been any good with his cardinal directions. Sighing, he decided to just take in the scenery for now. Small cliffs loomed beyond the trees, forming an opened half-circle around this section of the forest.

He had wandered into a cove. At the end of the closed-off beach was a dark cave guarded by craggy rocks that looked more like monster teeth than stone. Vines and shrubbery scaled up the walls and soft sounds emanated from the darkness.

Sebastian's footsteps faltered. A nagging feeling in the back of his mind told him to turn around and walk away. He wanted to listen to it. Really, he did. But he couldn't.

The sound of a woman, or multiple women, singing reached his ears. His gaze lingered on the cave ahead of him, his dark eyes fixating upon the unknown. The voices were the most beautiful he had ever heard. He couldn't make out the words they were singing but that didn't matter. Their voices burrowed into his soul and planted seeds of content and happiness within him.

Without even thinking, he found himself walking through the shallow water separating him from the cave. He ignored the water seeping into his shoes. The only thing on his mind was finding the source of the singing.

The water was up to his waist now. He paddled himself forward, occasionally splashing his face with the cool liquid. He didn't mind, though. The voices were all he cared about. They were the only things that existed in the world.

The cave swallowed him whole, enveloping him in darkness. Glittering crystals lined the rocky ceiling, sparkling with blue light from the water below. The serene voices echoed off the walls. Sebastian whipped his head around, desperately trying to find the source.

He had traveled so deep into the cave that he couldn't see where he came from. The water was up to his chin now. He was struggling to keep his head out of it.

"Come to us," an eerie, feminine voice called out.

He moved faster toward the sound. His eyes glazed over as his mind focused on the voice.

"You're almost there..."

His arms burned as he pushed himself through the water. The cave gave way into an even larger one. The ceiling was domed and littered with more sparkling crystals. Jagged spikes of colorful rock hung down like chandeliers. Lights of various hues hid within the marvelous gems.

In the center of the water, a wide plateau of rock rose. Three figures laid on the stone, their bright eyes piercing through the dark. Sebastian's eyes widened. The singing was coming from them.

As he got closer, he received a closer look at them. They were all naked from the waist up, their breasts covered partially by their long tresses of hair. Bright, green eyes watched him curiously as approached them. Sebastian's stare moved passed their bare torsos.

He realized they didn't have any legs.

They all possessed lengthy, human-sized fishtails with shimmering scales of varying colors, ranging from orange to purple. Their membranous fins swished around in the water below them.