Adrift in a Sea of Innocents

“What is it like in the world above?” Drift asked.

“You should not ask about the world above.” The Elder shook his head and swam away.

Drift frowned and followed, weaving through weeds and coral until once again the Elder floated close by. She swam beneath him, brushing her long white fingers against his wrinkled grey side until he looked down once more.

“When may I visit the world above?” Drift asked.

“You should never visit the world above.” The Elder shook his head and swam away.

Drift frowned, but lay still. Above, schools of swimmers danced together, their bodies silhouetted against the surface. Eating and playing, talking and sleeping.

But never looking up.

Drift sighed and swam on, following with the warm current that travelled along the bottom, still staring at the scene above.

Why did nobody ever look up?

The surface beckoned as it always did. Shimmering blue, with drifting greys and darting blacks nothing like anything among the rainbow corals.

Fingers brushed Drift’s flank.

“You should not pester the Elder so.” Flow’s stern face looked down at her.

“He is the Elder. Who else should I ask?” Drift kicked up a plume of sand from the bottom.

“You do not need to ask.” Flow shook his head and swept the sand away with a swipe of his thick white tails.

“How do you know that?”

“Because it is true,” Flow replied, and no more was said.

The two floated side by side for a while, Flow looking down, picking the occasional snack from the bottom, Drift gazing at the surface above.

“I want to see what is up there,” Drift said at last, when the light above the surface had taken on an orange hue that sparkled around the swimmers.

“There is nothing up there worth seeing.” Flow spun through the water, trailing his fingers through Drift’s crimson mane and silver hair.

“How do you know that?”

“Because it is true.”

“Then I wish to be somewhere that it is false.” Drift harrumphed, tearing free of Flow’s fingers and swimming away.

*

“What is it like, beyond the reef?” Drift asked the Elder.

“You should not go beyond the reef,” the Elder replied. His grey fingers pressed against Drift’s own.

“I have seen you swim beyond the reef.”

But the Elder had swum away, and Flow swam up, arms crossed.

“You should not bother the Elder with so many questions.”

“But I wish to know,” Drift said.

“You do not need to know, the Elder knows for us.”

“Then I wish to be someone who knows as well!” Drift kicked away, crashing into the corals before spinning away from the reef.

Flow called after Drift, but she ignored him, feet and tails pumping together until vast empty blue hung all around her. Below, unfamiliar fish swam among unfamiliar shapes, broken spires with criss-crossed skeletons of reddish brown.

Why did nobody leave the reef?

But there was no-one there to answer her question, so Drift swam on. Away from the Elder, away from Flow, away from all the swimmers who never looked up, past the crumbling brown shapes and into the open blue.

And as she swam, the bottom curved upwards, sand giving way to strange, smooth stone. Drift brushed against it, marvelling at its texture, following it up towards the surface until the greys that drifted and the blacks that darted were almost close enough to be something more than colour. Drift stared up at them with a sigh, trying to squash them between her fingers as they passed by.

Did the surface and the bottom meet somewhere?

And what was that over there?

Drift swam towards it, fins quivering in excitement. There, in the curving slope of the floor was a vast, gaping hole, stony grey giving way to all-encompassing darkness within. Blackness, right there, like it had fallen from the surface above.

Drift grasped at the blackness, but her fingers closed around nothing. She swam deeper, hand outstretched, but it always stayed just beyond her grasp.

“Ah!” Pain blossomed in her hand, and the taste of blood filled the water. Drift whimpered and licked the injury, tongue rasping over coppery knuckles.

Could the blackness bite?

“You should not go in the dark places.” Rough fingers ran across Drift’s mane before settling on her shoulder.

“Yes, Elder.” Drift turned around to where he floated, his wrinkled face looking sternly down at her.

He said nothing further, merely turned and began to swim. Drift followed in silence.

“You should not have gone from the reef,” Flow said, when they arrived back.

Drift didn’t reply, just wrapped some weeds around her wound and settled among the corals, falling into a fitful sleep where black shapes had jagged teeth like sharks.

*

“Why does nobody ask you questions but me?” Drift asked the Elder.

“They do not wish to know,” the Elder said, and he swam away, checking over the other swimmers where they still slept among the corals.

“Why do you never look up?” Drift called after him.

The Elder stopped for a moment, his emerald eyes narrow.

“Because I cannot bear to see.” He swam on.

Drift sighed and watched him go, running her fingers through Flow’s hair where he floated beside her. He didn’t stir, even when she tugged gently on his mane. It was not yet time for him to be awake.

“Flow.”

Nothing. Drift watched the Elder until he turned to attend to another wakeful swimmer, his dorsal towards her.

Now.

Drift darted through the corals, secreting a fragment of the glowing rock beneath her mane before slipping away, leaving the light and warmth of the reef far behind. On the surface a pale white disc gleamed softly, its dim light barely reaching the bottom where she swam.

Finally, when the reef was long out of sight, Drift pulled the coral free, bathing her surroundings in light. Above, a shoal of fish swam by, their scales reflecting the glow as they moved together in kaleidoscopic symmetry. Drift paid them no mind. It wasn’t the time for eating. There, below, sand gave way to stone once more, and there beyond it, even darker and even deeper in the night, was the hole.

Drift swam over to it, holding the coral high. A jagged tunnel stretched below her, filled with sharp rocky teeth that jutted out both top and bottom.

And there, deeper still, was the darkness. Waiting.

Drift swam inside. The walls left stinging scratches down her flanks where she had to squeeze through the narrow gaps, but she didn’t give up. Drift chased the blackness through every twist and every turn of that winding tunnel until a shimmering, moving wall barred her way, through which only blackness could be seen.

A surface. Drift reached out to touch the barrier, only for her hand to pass straight through with no resistance beyond a strange sensation of weight and loss.

So she kept going. Drift pulled through the surface onto smooth, hard rock until the crushing heaviness became too much to bear. She fell, barely half way out, her chest burning like it never had before, and the world faded from view. Drift convulsed, something spattered on the rock beside her, at the edge of her fading consciousness. And she breathed, a feeling like scraping across the tunnel walls within her chest. Each breath brought fresh awareness, fresh agony, more awareness, more agony.

Why did the surface hurt so much?

Drift’s hand came into focus, still clutching her coral, that lifeline of light, though it shone less brightly than it once did. Her mane lay heavy against the floor, tangled with her hair, like something was pulling on it.

Swimming did nothing. Drift’s feet just churned up the surface, her hands pulled against something wispy and unreal, giving no purchase. Drift pulled against the hard floor, so smooth and strange compared to the broken passages below.

How long had it been?

She didn’t know. Couldn’t know. There was no brightness, no light in that place but the failing coral. and it reflected off blackness. One arm at a time, then one leg, Drift crawled towards the black, hand outstretched to touch it.

And she did. Hard and slick, like the surface of a single, massive scale. There were no rough edges, no scratches on its surface. Drift brushed it excitedly, but the blackness didn’t move, didn’t respond. She crawled around it, pressing at long black limbs to no avail until she came to the creature’s front. An eyeless jaw dangled open above her, big enough to eat her in a single bite, tails and all.

But it was dead, a gaping hollow at the top of its head.

And there, half hidden beneath the bulk of the fallen creature, lay a swimmer. Except it wasn’t a swimmer. They had no mane or tails, and their crinkled flesh was dark, not white.

The not-a-swimmer’s outstretched hand caught Drift’s eye, and she laid her hand upon theirs, ragged breaths shallow.

The not-a-swimmer had the same long fingers as her own.

Something brushed Drift’s side and the Elder looked down at her, emerald eyes glittering as he stood upright.

“You should not have come here.” The Elder’s voice sounded strange, empty, on this side of the surface. “But you will learn.”

Drift didn’t know how to respond, didn’t know how to form words in this alien place. But it didn’t matter. The Elder spoke on.

“In the days before, the Fathers, Mothers, and Children were free.” The Elder brushed his fingers across the face of the not-a-swimmer. “They walked and stood in the world above. They lived and laughed and were happy.“

The Elder walked away from Drift with long, slow steps, his tails trailing behind him.

“But then the Eaters came from above the world above, full of wrath, and hunger, and pain.” The Elder closed his eyes, taking a long, slow breath. “To save the Mothers, the Fathers fought, and the Fathers died. To save the Children, the Mothers fought, and the Mothers died. Until all that remained were the Children, helpless, frightened, and innocent. With only one Mother and one Father left to protect them.”

Drift moved away from the dead Eater, unable to look away from the Elder who stood so fearlessly between those gaping jaws.

“So the Mother took the Children and hid them away, somewhere the Eaters would not go. She gave them manes of gills, to let them breathe. She gave them tails, to help them swim. She gave them the reef, to be their home, and she gave them the Father, to keep them safe. She sent them into the water, to stay until the Eaters starved.”

The Elder stepped past Drift, stepping through the surface until only his head remained.

“And now you know what lies in the world above. And now you know what lies in the time before. And now it is yours to know.”

Drift flopped after him as he descended, the coral barely a glimmer. But he was gone, leaving Drift alone with the Eater, the Mother, and the growing dark.

Drift dropped headfirst back into the water, keen to be away from the fearsome beast, from that crushing weight, and that choking dark, back in the warm, comforting blue once more. But the water felt cold, and it wasn’t blue, so Drift followed after the Elder.

It was hard leaving, with dark pressing down on all sides as the coral faded. Drift had to feel her way through the narrow tunnels until at last the bright and vibrant blue loomed overhead. The bright of the world above shone down, and the grey shapes drifted, and the black shapes darted. And the Elder swam, climbing slowly up towards the surface.

“Elder!”

The grey swimmer turned, gazing down at Drift with those emerald eyes as he floated upwards.

And with a flit of black, he was gone. A large ripple spread across the surface where he’d been, and the world was a little darker than before.

*

“Where is the Elder?” Flow brushed Drift’s side, his face lined with worry.

Drift looked at him and trailed a long finger across his forehead.

“I am the Elder.”

Flow looked at Drift, and nodded in contentment before returning to his play.

Because it was true.

~ Thank you for reading. I have a bad habit with short stories of leaving them to die without ever actually doing anything with them, making me something of a darling serial killer. Hopefully someone enjoyed it. ~ Pan