Page 28 of Drenched

“Rest your eyes, let darkness creep,

In the abyss, all things sleep…”

I wasn’t on the beach anymore. The storm, the cold, the fear, all gone. The lullaby cradled me, blocking everything else. The world shrank to that fragile song.

?

When I came back, we were on a boat. My hands were still tied, ropes biting my skin. My head throbbed. Rain lashed my face. Tanya and Sebastian stood at the front, staring at the horizon. Two villagers sat at the back, lanterns flickering.

The ocean pulled at the boat, dragging us away. My chest tightened with every wave. The water was too deep. Too dark. Something was waiting.

Trevor’s voice cut through the storm. “You can’t do this!” He thrashed. “You can’t just send us to die!”

Sebastian didn’t look at him. “You were dead the moment you entered its domain.”

A wave slammed into the boat. We tilted hard. My stomach flipped. Kim whimpered beside me. Her body shook so much I could feel it.

“We’re not going to survive,” she whispered.

The villagers moved. One grabbed Trevor. He screamed as they dragged him to the edge. His feet scraped the wood. “No! Don’t! Please!”

“Stop!” I screamed. “Please!”

They shoved him over. The storm swallowed his scream. I strained to see him. Nothing. The water took him.

Kim sobbed, clutching Jaime. “Please, don’t let them take me.”

They tore her away. Her nails scraped Jaime’s arm. Her screams ripped through me. They shoved her overboard. The water rippled. A crunch. Her scream stopped. I gagged, bile rising.

Jaime didn’t fight. He turned to me, eyes hollow. “I never stopped loving you.”

“No!” I sobbed. “Fight!”

They pushed him into the sea. He disappeared. I screamed his name. Nothing answered.

They grabbed me. I was too weak to resist. Sebastian leaned close. His breath was hot. “For the Abyss,” he hissed.

He kissed me, rough and bitter. I gagged. He shoved me back.

The water hit like ice. The ropes dragged me down. The ocean crushed in from all sides. My lungs burned. Light faded above. Darkness pulled me deeper.

Something brushed my leg.

I froze. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. The water shifted, slow and sure. It felt alive.

I wasn’t alone.

Chapter Eleven

My eyes fluttered open to a faint, bluish glow. For a moment, I couldn’t tell if I was dead or dreaming. My body ached, my throat burned, but the cold stone beneath me made one thing clear, I was alive. Somehow. The villagers hadn’t finished me off. Not yet.

I tried to move, every inch of me hurt. My hands throbbed, raw where the ropes had dug in. Though the bindings were gone, my skin was tender, and each pulse of pain reminded me how close I’d come to death. My drenched clothes clung to my body, the dampness seeping into my bones. Every movement felt slow, as if the weight of the ocean still pressed on me.

The cave around me shimmered with an otherworldly glow. Algae coated the walls, casting shifting patterns of blue and green across the wet stone. The light pulsed gently, almost like a heartbeat. It wasn’t entirely dark, but the shadows crept in strange ways, curling into corners the light couldn’t touch. Above me, jagged stalactites dripped steadily, glistening faintly in the glow.

I touched my face, searching for my glasses. They were gone. Yet somehow, I could see everything clearly. Every groove in the rock, every drop of water catching the faint light, it all stood out in perfect detail. My heart sank as the realization hit: The algae. It had changed me.

I forced myself to stand, my legs trembling. The air was damp and thick, clinging to my skin. My fingers brushed against the marks on my neck, the same ones left by the creature in the water. They pulsed faintly, an unwelcome reminder of its bite. I didn’t need to see them to know they were worse now, darker, deeper.

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