A Single Strand || #Wattys2018

Prologue

One thousand years earlier...

The old creature bowed his great head. He felt the world trembling beneath him, shaking like a frightened youngling. 

He respected nature's cycle. He understood that this world circled the sea of magma beneath, and that eventually, that magma would want to get free. It was how this planet worked. Everything had its cycle. Everything lived and breathed in one great unison, and some creatures took deeper breaths than others.

The rapid swishing of a large tail made the creature lift his head. He saw someone who resembled a shark from the waist down, but a sea turtle from the waist up. His flippers and tail flapped gently with the current, and bright amber eyes gazed down at the much larger creature.

"My lord," the smaller life form said, "all natives have been accounted for. They're heading to the surface, making for the subterranean sanctuaries."

The creature nodded once. "Good. Now, get to the surface yourself."

"Are you sure?" the smaller organism said. "You think you can survive this one?"

The behemoth sighed. "I have survived many more eruptions than you, Phrambas. I might be old, but I can make it through this one."

"Just making sure, my lord," Phrambas said. A smile pulled at the corners of his beaked mouth. "Good luck. I'll see you when the magma settles."

"Thank you," the giant said, bowing reverently. "May the waters give you swift passage."

Phrambas bowed in return before powering his way to the surface of the water, some four thousand miles up.

The creature settled down in his oceanic fortress. Though his eyes had lost most of their brilliant vision, he still saw the small shape of his majordomo returning to his creche near the archipelago. He watched peacefully as whole pods of his planet's natives made their way to the island chain where the magma wouldn't be able to reach them. 

The blackened ocean floor gave a violent jolt, a signal that the eruptions were coming fast. The gentle giant tucked himself away within the submarine mountains and began the wait.

As he watched the sky, he felt as if he had nothing to fear. Eruptions had occurred so many times in his life, and they had never hurt him before. Why should this one be any different?

Then, far above him and beyond the water's surface, he saw a dark shape resembling a plume of smoke hovering over the archipelago. He couldn't determine what it was. He'd never seen anything like it. Were they another species, here to observe this great migration? Did they want to study the volcanoes as they erupted?

His answer came moments later when a beam of fiery red light shot from the belly of the shape and pierced the chief island in the archipelago, scattering the migrants who had been trying to seek asylum in its cliffs.

The creature watched in shock as the pods scattered in terror, all trying to evade the shape and its terrible red lights. He wanted nothing more than to give these invaders a piece of his mind (and his claws), but as he began to rise, he felt the earth give one last shudder.

Moments later, the volcanoes around him began to erupt.

"NOOOO!!" he howled as he watched the columns of searing ash and magma race towards his people. The pods tried to get away, but were dissolved by more red lights aimed directly at them.

There was nothing the king could do as he watched his kind fall, either to the magma or the species who had driven them into it.