Submission (#6428) Approved

“Daeva!”

The cry sent a thrum of panic through every elnin within earshot, and the sudden mad scramble for cover, for attack, for defense, rendered even the captain’s practiced bellow difficult to hear.  Casimiro felt his heart thump hard in his chest, as if threatening to burst, his ears flooded with the growing sound of his own panic as he scrambled in a blind fright for anything to hold onto.  The shadow below the waves grew more distinct, and somehow even larger than should be possible as it neared to the surface.  Casimiro watched, as if on a trance, as it finally breached, a colossal creature with trails of sticky miasma, clinging to its side like oil and—

It was a whale.

It took a moment for his brain to catch up to what his eyes already knew—this was nothing more than a mere animal.  Panicked, yes, practically seething upon the waves in its urgent need to be away from the source of the foul waters, but clearly a completely normal whale.  Even in its fright, it was majestic as its surface, water splashing, and its enormous curve of a fin standing like the sail of a ship as it turned. 

The cries of panic, soon shifted into something like mourning.  Someone by him said, “It’s only fleeing,” the words heavy.

And just like that, the sudden spike of adrenaline that had lighted the crew ablaze was extinguished, leaving only dazed and drawn faces.  The words exchanged now were tinged and weighty, as if the sight of the whale had affected the crew more than the sight of a daeva would.

But the Captain, steady and long-since experienced in these waters, did not allow the crew to linger long in their fog.  Voice like a whip crack, orders were quickly handed out, which sent the elnin’s paws scrambling for their positions. 

“We need volunteers,” came the cry.

Casimiro turned towards the sound of the voice, pushing himself forward.

***

The waves swayed their small vessel as the elnin thrust their oars into the corrupted waters with a heave.  They frowned, focused, eyes narrowed against the ocean spray with shoulders tense, bodies stiff, mouths downturned as the distance between their current location and their destination grew shorter and shorter.  Whenever a glance was met, it was quickly flitting away, as if even the sight of another’s fear in that second was enough to catch, to send their pulses racing.  They steered their small row boat closer to the oily purple hue of the barrier that seemed to rise to hungrily swallow the small craft and its occupants whole.

To their astonishment, the world around them shifted in an instant.  The realm of tossing waves and spitting froth was immediately replaced by a nightmarish forest in the dark of night.  The boat, before pushed forward with the rocking of the waves, ground to an abrupt halt into the forest floor, headfirst into a dense thicket of what could never pass for any kind of natural shore.

There was no meeting of eyes, no trading of uneasy glances.  As one, the elnin set into a panic, yelling unintelligible words of what must’ve been shock.

“We’re in a forest?” Casimiro’s voice was cracking, threaded with fear.

They turned to glance back, to the impenetrable barrier, to what had just been the middle of the sea.  Turned back to face the nighttime forest, with its grasping branches, its thick leaves that blocked all but the very thinnest of moonlight to illuminate their surroundings.  A feeble strand they could never hope to navigate safely through.

“Let’s turn back,” Kawa barked, loud and echoing.

As one, the elnin jumped to action, pushing the beached craft back through the barrier, but besieged against the slick mud of the ground, the packed leaves that crunched below their paws, the struggling branches that whipped against their skin and scratching at their clothes, raising welts and even beads of blood with their thorns.  Casimiro struggled to free the vessel from what seemed to be the sucking ground itself, conspiring to keep them locked in place, and it was with a sudden gasp that he finally sunk through into the tossing waves.

He scratched at the side of the boat to clamber on, only to see that no one was atop the vessel.  In their fear, they had pushed the boat into the depths of the ocean without a single thought for the logistics of how they would reach into the vessel.  He kicked against the water uselessly, and sputtered as the vessel dove beneath the waves, nearly upturning, and tossing the kittom into the depths below.

Kicking frantically as he was tossed by the currents, trashing, against what felt like a cold hand wrapping around his body to frantically drag him below the waves, Casimiro barely managed to burst through the surface.  He screamed—for help, for a name, for mercy, he would not have been able to say—before the waters sucked him below the surface once more.  Casimiro’s lungs burned, his chest felt too small, compressing him further and slowing his frantic movements as he attempted to rise to the surface.  As his vision dulled, the black closing in, he couldn’t help but see a nightmarish tableau in the depths of the sea—a forest, twisted purple and dark meeting him in his descent, a haunting cry of a massive creature just beyond.

The darkness closed in, and he felt the lead weight of the water slowing his limbs until, at last, he stopped struggling, and left himself drift lower into the depths of the ocean.