Page 66 of Call of the Fathoms

She always started at her feet. Could she move her toes? Yes. They were moving. Slowly, achingly, but they were moving. Good, she wasn’t paralyzed then. Moving up her calves, she felt no pain there either. Her thigh ached. Both of them, now that she was thinking about it. They hurt like she’d gotten sliced into, so that must have been what happened. Maybe a knife fight. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Twenty-five... twenty-six...

Moving up past her hips, there were no wounds on her torso, at least. That didn’t feel so bad, although there was a strange suction-y feeling when she breathed that might be bad. Her lungs weren’t breathing normally, and that wasn’t a great sign, but she would take it. Lungs could heal. Hearts couldn’t.

Fifty-three... fifty-four...

Her hands and arms hurt a lot more than the rest of her body. Mostly just her biceps, almost as though there was something really wrong with one of them. She doubted that was the case, though. She healed so much faster than other humans, so she must just be a little tired from all the drugs they’d pumped into her body. Nothing a stretch wouldn’t fix.

Eighty-seven... eighty-eight...

Alexia had a horrible headache and there was a strange, cotton-like substance coating her tongue. She needed a glass of water, and then a few more meds to kick the rest of this pain. Then she’d be fine. She could go back to guarding or doing whatever it was she’d been doing.

One hundred.

Blinking her eyes open, she squinted them against the searing white light of the infirmary. It wasn’t the one in Tau, though. Most of her memories rushed in at that. She’d been attacked by a massive amount of squid who were far too big for their own good, and then Fortis had saved her. At least he hadn’t left her to die. She really thought he was more likely to do that, considering the situation was entirely her fault.

But she wasn’t dead. So he’d gotten her somewhere with healers who knew how to kick up her body’s healing process. She wasn’t entirely sure of the science behind it. All she knew was that those with genetic modifications could heal far better than the average human. Alexia had died a few times in her life, only to be brought back with a sharp electrical pulse to the chest and an injection of adrenaline that seemed to make it better.

She blinked the sand out of her eyes a few times, trying to get her bearings. There was glass above her head. Now that her eyes were adjusting, she could see it wasn’t all white. The light had just been the sun spearing through the water, although she wasn’t certain she would see sunlight for much longer.

There was a thunderhead in the sky. A black cloud that was dark as ink, menacing as it rolled overhead. She stayed quiet as she watched it, just staring up at the coils of darkness.

Tiny drops of rain struck the surface of the water that was probably ten or fifteen feet above her head. Then the wind hit. Soon enough, she couldn’t see the sky at all. Rolling waves overtook all of it and then the sun was really gone. It was almost pitch black in the room until the overhead lights flickered on, one by one.

Where was she? Fortis had clearly taken her somewhere safe where she could heal, but this wasn’t a familiar city. She’d seen them all with her own eyes, having traveled with Harlow to all of them at some point in her life. This was not a familiar place. Nor were any of the cities close enough to the surface where they could hear the rolling rumble of thunder and the sudden cracks of lightning.

A door opened and closed. The sound was a welcome reprieve to the storm that rolled overhead.

Turning her head to the side, she realized that this room was a dome. She’d only been in a few of these before. Giant metal beams stabilized the whole thing, glass coming all the way down from the ceiling to the metal floor. Plenty of medical equipment was stored in glass faced storage units, and there were two other tables in the room. Not beds. Tables. So perhaps this was more of a surgical suite, although she couldn’t imagine why they would have one of these. This had to be a small settlement, something outside of Tau’s control.

The door wasn’t even connected to any computer. No automatic functions here. Just a real old school door that the young man who walked into her room closed behind him.

He looked up at her with massive eyes magnified by glasses before he cleared his throat. “Oh. You’re awake.”

“I’m awake.”

“Fantastic. I’ll get Mira.”

Her voice was little more than a croak, but she still made it sound intimidating. “Wait.”

The harsh word made the man freeze where he was. She could see his shoulders were shivering with fear as he looked over his shoulder. “Yes?”

“Water, please.”

“Oh. Right. Of course. I’m sorry, I forget that morphine can cause dry mouth with some patients. Allow me.” He walked over to the corner, where there was a jug of water. He almost dropped the plastic jug on the floor as he shakily poured it into a glass for her and then brought it over to her table. He hesitated before placing it down next to her. “Let me get you a straw.”

“I’m fine.” Alexia wedged her elbow underneath her and slowly sat up.

“You shouldn’t do that.” He lunged forward, almost placing his hand on her chest to hold her in place before he froze again. His hand shook. “I just think... You almost died, miss.”

Though she coughed as she sat up straight, much to his terror, she didn’t feel much worse for it. At least she could sit up straight and drink out of a glass. “I’m fine,” she repeated. “Get whoever you said you needed to get.”

“Mira. She wanted to know when you were awake first. The others were, of course, interested as well. They have all been popping in multiple times to make sure you were still alive. No one’s seen Fortis so...” He trailed off, those eyes somehow getting even bigger. “Right. I’ll go get Mira.”

She had no idea what had cursed her to end up in this place, but she would never forgive Fortis for bringing her here. Downing the water, she set the glass down and tried to stay upright. If she was going to meet someone important in this place, she damned well wasn’t doing it lying down.

Where was Fortis? She tried to look through the water surrounding the glass dome, but the storm above raged so powerfully that it churned at the surface. Foam filled her line of sight, making it impossible to tell if there was an undine out there watching her, or if it was just the nothingness of the sea.

---