Page 34 of Drenched

The algae.

It had to be.

I knew the algae had regenerative properties. It had healed Amanda’s cancer. It healed the diseases we induced in the test mice. But the sunlight was its undoing.

I crouched near the wall, staring at the glowing algae spreading across its surface. “Okay, think,” I muttered. Why does sunlight destroy it?

Could it be photosensitization? Some substances, like psoralen in plants, react with UV light to cause burns. Maybe the algae worked the same way, it healed in darkness but became toxic when exposed to sunlight.

Amanda never tested sunlight exposure herself. She avoided it entirely, and she was alive. The mice weren’t so lucky. When exposed to sunlight after being injected with the algae serum, they suffered rapid cellular damage when exposed to sunlight. They died.

But for me things were different. I hadn’t just ingested it, I’d touched it, breathed it, absorbed it through my skin for hours. That saturation might make me different. It was already healing me. My foot, torn open just minutes ago, was completely repaired.

What if I could go in the sun and when it started to burn, I took more algae creating a cycle of tear and repair, until I reached cover. It was a desperate theory one that I’d have to test.

I turned toward the pool, my mind racing with possibilities. Could the algae work in a constant cycle of repair and damage? What if, instead of killing me instantly, the sunlight burned me while the algae healed me at the same time? Could the algae keep up with the damage? Not reverse it, but keep pace with it long enough for me to find shade?

It was a dangerous theory. But right now, it was all I had.

I needed to test the algae, but I wasn’t about to try it on myself. Not yet. My eyes landed on a piece of driftwood near the edge of the pool. Perfect.

I scraped a clump of algae off the wall, its faint glow pulsing against the shell in my hand. It felt alive, sticky and warm, and I hated how it clung to the tool like it didn’t want to let go. I pushed the thought aside and got to work.

Using the shell, I ground the algae into a paste and mixed it with a little seawater, creating a thick, slimy coating. Carefully, I smeared it over the driftwood, making sure the layer was even. It glowed faintly, fragile but steady. My heart raced as I set the wood into a patch of sunlight streaming through the hole above.

At first, the algae held. Its glow fought against the light, pulsing with quiet defiance. But then, the edges started to curl. The glowdimmed, turning to ash as the sunlight burned through it. The driftwood blackened, the algae reduced to nothing.

I yanked the wood back, my fingers trembling. “Okay,” I muttered. “Let’s see if you can fix this.”

I scraped another clump of algae, mixing it with a little crushed shell for added strength. My hands shook as I worked, spreading the paste over the blackened wood. This time, the coating was thicker, more deliberate. I placed it back into the sunlight, holding my breath.

The algae glowed brighter than before. It pulsed steadily, clinging to the charred surface like it was trying to fight back. For a moment, I thought it might work.

But then it failed.

The edges didn’t just blacken, they burst into violent sparks, the glow vanishing in an instant. The driftwood hissed and cracked, the damage spreading faster and deeper. The algae burned away completely, leaving the wood scorched and brittle.

I snatched it back, my chest tight with frustration. My fingers curled around the charred remains, the heat still radiating off the surface. It hadn’t worked. The algae couldn’t repair the damage fast enough. Worse, it seemed to make the burns even more violent the second time.

I threw the driftwood across the cave. It clattered against the stone, breaking into splinters. “Fuck!” The word ripped out of me, echoing off the damp walls. My hands pressed to my face, sticky with algae and sweat. Tears stung my eyes, hot and humiliating.

The algae couldn’t keep up. It wasn’t enough to stop the sunlight. Every test had led to the same dead end. No matter how I tried to force it, to apply reason, the results were the same. The cycle of damage and repair wasn’t sustainable. The algae didn’t work the way I needed it to, not for this.

I slumped back against the rock, my body trembling from exhaustion and defeat. The glow of the algae around the cave mocked me, steady and unchanging, as if it knew something I didn’t. As if it was laughing at my pathetic attempt to understand it.

And maybe it was.

My chest heaved, my breath shaky and uneven. I stared at the faint, rhythmic pulse of the algae. It felt alive. Too alive. Healing, killing, glowing, fading, it didn’t follow the rules. Not the rules I knew. This wasn’t science. It couldn’t be.

The realization hit me like a blow. This algae wasn’t just some natural phenomenon. It was ancient. Something beyond me, beyond us. It didn’t belong in a lab, didn’t fit in any of our neat, logical categories. This was designed, for what, I didn’t know. But it wasn’t just another organism. It was something bigger. Something incomprehensible.

Tears blurred my vision, but I didn’t bother wiping them away. What was the point? I was nothing against this. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t mine to control. It belonged to the depths, to something older and far more powerful than I could grasp.

The algae pulsed again, lighting the walls like a silent heartbeat. It wasn’t mocking me, I realized. It didn’t care about me at all. I was just… here. Trying to make sense of something that didn’t care if I lived or died.

“There’s no way out,” I whispered, the words hollow and raw. Not like this. Not by trying to reason with something that was never meant to be understood.

Just then a ripple spread through the blue hole.

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