The human was so very small, in his dim room, before his bright table of screens. Stretching out beyond that was a wall of transparent material, the texture of glass but far, far stronger. Beyond that, still, lay the unfathomable darkness of the deep ocean. He busied himself with his work, barely daring to look up, forcing his tired eyes away from the world outside. His lips moved slightly, alongside his thoughts, and at some point the murmurs resolved themselves into words, as if he was explaining to some unseen listener.
"Nothing much out there tonight... They want us to keep searching around that area where we found the sceptre, for more human debris, but I'm not doing it tonight. We can't just keep the probes out all the time, with our luck they'll end up malfunctioning. The standard sensors are on, but God knows if they're working tonight, either..." he looked up at the window, just for a moment, the only thing between him and the unknown. The ocean outside was lit only by the dim glow of the laboratory itself, lights embedded in its metal exterior. He let out a slow breath and averted his eyes. There were words in his thoughts, but he felt as if he would bring greater fear on himself just by speaking them out to the dark expanse. So he thought instead, the words rolling through his mind like the waves on the shore, far above him.
I have seen the dark universe yawning, where the black planets roll without aim. Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge, or lustre, or name...
Her heart thudded fiercely as she made her approach, pressed low to the ground to avoid being noticed. The silty plain was a familiar touch against her body and tail, providing at least some comfort against the shrill keening radiating from the Tower. It stretched far above her- she was so small, beneath it.
She reached its base- so close she could reach out and touch the smooth surface. For a moment she paused to steady herself, to feel the water through her gills. Breathe. Calm yourself.
She was scared. But on the other side of this fear, in her mind, was the key to all she wanted... she wouldn't turn back. The hum roared through her whole body- she felt the tremor of it through the fine strands of her hair. There was no point in waiting any longer. She began to travel upwards, feeling about for any openings in the unfamiliar surface. But she was a strange creature, built for a world of cold and dark and pressure. She saw nothing, and never would- her kind navigated the world by the touch of their hairlike feelers, the vibrations in the water around them.
So she didn't realise that the surface she swam alongside was in fact an illuminated, transparent window.
"The darkness is the hardest thing to get used to, down here. The quiet? Not so bad, given the way things are on the surface these days. Even that weird feeling your ears get due to the pressure stabilisation... You get used to it, and after a while you almost find yourself forgetting that you're miles beneath the ocean... but it's that darkness that reminds you. I talk to myself a lot, when I'm down here on my own. Helps me process what I'm looking at, keep that uneasiness away-"
The monitor let out a gentle ping, but for all its softness it still made him start. He was used to the silence, broken only by the sound of his own voice. His stylus clattered to the tiles, and he cursed under his breath, bending down to retrieve it.
His eyes temporarily torn from those screens, the refuge of data he retreated to in order to escape the looming dark, he had no choice but to see it as he stood back up.
A horrible thing was rising out of the dark water.
Though she did not see, her body was illuminated near completely by those dim lights, reflecting off her array of scales, dark red as blood in the water.
A raucous chime thudded into her brain. She recoiled, her feelers splaying in all directions in an attempt to identify the threat.
But on the far side of the window, there was a louder sound. It was piercing and unknowable, the sound of the singing treasures but twisted all wrong, something holy made cruel and pained and terrible.
The human was screaming.
At first glance, as it approached, it almost had looked like a humanoid figure. For the briefest moment he had thought mermaid.
Then the cloud of what looked to be red hair revealed itself as feelers, long tubes emerging from the bloated figure's head and body, grasping at the window, grasping, he could hear it over the sound of his own rapid breaths. The frightened cry had burst from him without thought at the sight of that eyeless head, the toothed maw gaping open and shut so close to him, less than a meter between him and it.
The monitor chimed again, but he was already transfixed.
What was it? He'd never so much as heard of anything like this, any creature so large, alive down here-
It thrashed, those tendrils lashing furiously through the water, and then at once it was gone. Darting back into the darkness, leaving no trace behind.
He stared after it, shaking, as the chime died.
Vi swam for her life. Her feelers trailed behind her, every vibration in the water amplified, her senses heightened by terror. She wanted nothing more than to escape, and to never hear such a terrible thing again. Forget the sceptre, the Grouping Ceremony. All that mattered was her fear, and her desire to reach the safety of home.
She fled back to her Kingdom, where she would apologise, trembling, to her mother, entwining their feelers together until her terrified body stilled.
