Page 79 of Whispers of the Deep

Mira

She wasn’t sure how long she waited for him. There was another undine swimming around the dome, and she wasn’t quite certain where it was at all times. The male, and it was clearly male, circled her multiple times. Every now and then she would catch a glimpse of his marked face, and the gills along the sides that were so similar and yet so different from Arges.

She could tell him apart from the others without any issue at all. The lighter blue color of this male, the size of it, none of these were the correct features of her undine. But she knew how dangerous all of them were. And she knew how much danger she was in right now.

If the creature wanted a show, though, she wouldn’t give it one. Grinding her teeth together in anger, she sat on the very edge of the bed and remained frozen in place. She didn’t move even a muscle, not to reply to Byte’s questions, not to do anything other than stare at the moon pool.

Apparently, this angered the creature.

The undine smacked the glass multiple times, trying its best to get her to move. She even saw it lift a rock to the dome, but the ancient glass held. Even if a couple places where he had struck were marked by the stone’s dust, it did not shatter. Mira halfway expected it to.

What would she do then? She could swim to the surface for air, but then she wouldn’t be able to see the undines that were hunting her. They were faster, stronger, more capable in every way, shape, and form. There was nothing she could do.

If they wanted her dead, she would die. And her only regret would be that Arges himself hadn’t killed her. At the very least, she would have respected a death at the hands of an undine like him.

This creature? The one who swam in circles above her, baring his teeth like a shark? This was a child who did not scare her in the slightest.

“Mira?” Byte said, hours after she’d first sat on the edge of the bed. “There are more of them.”

She stood a little too quickly. Her heart skipped a beat as she peered out of the parts of the windows that weren’t quite so covered in algae. And sure enough, there were two more undines swimming toward the next. Both she recognized from before. The angry red one, missing an arm and trailing blood from the angry stump. And the yellow one who stayed farther back. But it was the red one who paused right above her.

He glared down, malice on every scale of his body. Mira glared back before pointing to his wounds and giving him a feral smile. “I know you can’t understand me, but I’m glad he hurt you. You deserved it.”

Mira didn’t flinch when he punched the glass, and only watched with mild apathy as the others tugged him away. The three of them left, and only black blood remained in the water. Only then did she sink back onto the bed, her legs suddenly jelly.

“Where is he?” she whispered. “The others came back, but he...”

“Mira?” Byte asked. “There is plenty here for you. If he doesn’t come back, you will not starve.”

That wasn’t helpful. She didn’t want to be alive and stuck by herself for all eternity. It wasn’t living if she wasn’t able to speak with anyone other than a robot. Panic clawed its way up her throat. She could feel it trying to crawl out of her belly, trying to rip her mouth open from the inside with a scream that came from deep within.

She sat back down on the side of the bed. Folding her hands in her lap, she tried to still their trembling before she burst into movement. She needed to get dressed. First, she would wash in the small washroom that desalinated the water so she could actually get clean without being crusty. After that very short shower, she bolted out into the main chamber to see if he was back. He wasn’t. So she got dressed in another pale eggshell colored dress. Boring, plain, but it didn’t matter the color.

She was so scared he wouldn’t come back. Arges had said the other undines were hunting her, but what if they had actually been hunting him? What if they were mad at him for keeping her? What if he was dead?

Thunder and lightning rumbled above her head for what felt like hours. The darkness fell, and small solar lights blinked on in the dome. Their cold white light did nothing to stop the fear in her heart.

But then she heard it. A soft rap against the moon pool door. Clearly a knock, but not what she’d expected to hear. She ran for it, freezing when she heard Byte’s voice.

“What if it’s... not him?”

She didn’t know. If she let another undine in here, they would kill her. Death might not even be quick if they dragged her into the water. They might toy with her, drowning her slowly until she eventually gave in.

“What if it is him?” she whispered, the words feeling haunted on her tongue.

Opening the moon pool wasn’t a choice. It was a necessity. She had to know if he was alive. She had to know if he had come back to her.

At first, the moon pool opened slowly and revealed nothing. Just black water beneath her that the light from her dome didn’t penetrate. Her breath was ragged in her lungs, she felt her heart beating faster, faster, until...

The smallest glow of blue from the sand underneath the dome. Like he was lying there, like he...

“Arges,” she gasped.

Mira plunged into the ocean without another thought. Kicking her feet and spearing into the sea toward him, she hooked her arms underneath his. Mira felt along his body for whatever purchase she could get before she planted her feet on the sand and shoved them both toward the moon pool door. Other undines be damned. She wasn’t afraid of them.

But she was afraid for him.

Together, they struggled to the dome. And once his head came out of the water, he let out a ragged gasp and seemed to come back alive. He reached for the edge, keeping one arm around her as though he was still trying to protect her.

---