Unbearable pain entered my mind as I woke up descending through dark water. My cells seemed to rip apart and form back together at a rapid pace on repeat. Each time the cells were ripped, screams roared from my mouth and water filled my lungs until no further screams could come out.
Panic activated my every nerve, which were still intact despite the constant destruction and reconstruction occurring throughout my body. Darkness filled my vision and I questioned if I still had eyes or if the blue substance had completely melted them. The thought of taking a breath of air terrified me as the pressure from the water became worse and worse as my body continued to descend through the dark abyss surrounding me.
On the brink of passing out from holding my breath, my body expanded my lungs and opened my mouth as a natural reaction in search for oxygen despite if the water would seal my fate even quicker.
The salty water filled my lungs.
The salty water left my lungs.
The salty water filled my lungs.
The salty water left my lungs.
Wait, what?
My head began to clear as the panic left and only confusion remained. The pain slowly blew away until no pain remained and it felt like the different cells in my body stabilized. The skin on my body felt as if I had just waxed the entirety of it but also the most refreshed it had ever been.
The ringing in my head from the tremors had also completely dissipated and been replaced with the water pressure on my eardrums. This water pressure eventually let up and I began to hear slight noises and signs of movement from the complete black darkness around me.
So I know I am completely encompassed by water, by why can't I hear the water pressure? Am I hearing delusions once again? What happened to the five people in the cave? Were they crushed or were they thrown into the water as well?
Why the fuck am I able to breath? I must be dead. Or have I been turned into a fish? From human to fish, I guess the afterlife theory was right all along. Wait, is that my leg?
When my thoughts had began to recollect the events which had occurred and analyze my current situation, I became aware of the state of my body other than the pain being gone.
I felt sensations from below my left knee which I hadn't felt for the past three years. The malnourishment I had obtained for my few meals delivered to me in the cave felt nonexistent as my body felt natural and less skinny than before. The bones which were set wrong had also been replaced and molded back together as if they had never been broken or damaged in the first place. Somehow I have become even more aware of my body condition and body placement after the incident in the hole.
Is this all just a massive hallucination? Will I wake up soon to the familiar sight of blue light and green leaves?
As my mind continued to reel at the constant revelations of my newfound hearing and improvement in health and growth of body parts, a blue-white ethereal dot began to break the darkness directly below me. I determined the direction of the light based on which part of my body felt more water pressure.
The blue-white dot continued to expand and grow larger as my body descended closer and closer to it as the water pressure also continued to escalate.
By this point, my mind had determined this was not a hallucination. Well, at least 70% believed this.
Will the water pressure eventually become too much for my body or has my body adapted somehow? Did that blue substance from earlier have some effect on my evolved body? What is that blue substance? Why is there light at the bottom of all this water?
My brain continued to struggle with the multiple questions bouncing in my head as my vision started to see a few meters around me as the light got closer and closer. Falling debris and rocks fell through the water at different speeds from what I assumed was the tremor from earlier. Other than the debris, two more smaller blue-white ethereal dots seemed to appear to the left and right of the light right below me.
The lights also fully revealed my body where it was confirmed my left leg had returned to what it used to be before the Impact like it had never been taken away in the first place. My shaggy hair, which fell down nearly to my chin due to the years in isolation, had floated up due to the natural effects of water. When I looked up to inspect the falling debris above me, I noticed each and every tip of my jet black hair had turned into a vibrant light blue.
I decided to maintain my falling speed and see what the light was despite my rising fear. I had always been afraid of the depths of the sea which I assumed I was descending into. Humanity had always wanted to expand past the atmosphere and into space to find habitable planets which could sustain life and life forms outside our own; however, we had failed as a species to even explore our own planet first. A massive portion of the sea had not been explored before the Impact had occurred and changed my life.
Who knows what lurked down in the sea beyond our grasp before the Impact. Who knows what the Impact could have brought to life below the water surface.
My body shivered at these dark thoughts as the darkness around me became even more black and seemed to close in all around me despite the light continuing to increase in proximity below me.
Slowly my eyes adjusted completely to the salty water until it didn't affect my blurry vision and the blue-white light could be seen clearly. The light looked to be floating about 15 meters above the ground. The light itself was a blue-white flickering flame which was not fueled by anything in the area, at least from what my vision could determine.
Debris and various items covered the floor with moss covering a large majority of it. Small movements could be seen which could immediately be determine as various species of marine life. The falling debris from the previous tremor disrupted the moss-covered material on the floor and caused grinding noises to fill the area and moss to disperse throughout the open space before falling once again on top of the new debris.
As I neared the fire, the fear of my situation began to calm as I realized this fire could not be naturally created. Despite how mysterious this flame was from my limited knowledge of the world's technological innovations, this was definitely not from natural sources and was made from some intelligent life form.
I reached my hand near the blue-white ethereal flame and to my surprise no heat came from it. Working up the nerve, I ran my hand through the flame to see if the flame truly had no temperature change and I was proven correct.
My body soon landed on the debris covering the floor and knocked up moss in various areas. Moss made its way into my nose and eyes and made me choke and cough for a few seconds and made my eyes... water?
My coughing fit soon ceased and I decided to head towards the left light in search for any form of life similar to my own. At first, the movement felt awkward as I attempted to both swim and walk like a normal human being. The glaring issue in both of these things is I hadn't been able to coordinate my two legs with one another for over three years due to the loss of my left leg, so it took quite some time to adjust until I could begin to normally walk on the ocean floor.
The gaps between the two lights were decently large and I couldn't quite figure out from my vantage point how far the travel would be. The darkness in-between the two lights didn't completely block out one's vision and instead looked as if you were looking at tinted windows from outside of a car. I could still view where I was placing my feet and could sidestep when slight dips and holes would appear in the mossy-debris.
25 minutes had passed since I had first started my journey across the ground.
At this point, my hearing had adjusted once again to my body and the water around me and I could clearly hear the sound of the falling objects impacting the ground below my feet. Other than this, my hearing had become sensitive enough to the point where I could hear the faint sounds of movement of aquatic life both below me and above me even if my vision did not allow me to see it.
All of a sudden, the movement of aquatic life stopped.
I had already travelled halfway between the original point of flame and the second point of flame and was in the darkest area I could be between the two. The fear I had previously felt reignited in my mind as I quickened my pace.
Fwhooosh!
A sound 10 meters to my right entered my ear. I turned my head but the darkness was too much for me to see anything past a five meter radius.
Fwhooosh!
The same sound reverberated through the water to my left as I turned my head even quicker. This time, I was met with a jagged gaping maw four meters away from my body. I quickly waved my arms as fast as I could to swim upward past whatever creature was attempting to take a massive bite out of me.
My left leg was clipped by one of the dark yellow fangs and a small chunk of my calf was taken by the creature. I just got my left leg back you bitch!
Pain shot from my left leg as I tried to ignore my pissed and fearful emotions as I viewed the creature. My feelings of anger soon fell to hopelessness.
The creature which shot past me was 16 meters long and 8 meters high. It had a splotchy dark purple exterior with vibrant orange veins running throughout its entire body.
Once it went past me, it turned back around and quickly rose to meet my struggling figure. The creature had three eyes which ran parallel across its face and each were the same size. The pupils were red and its iris was completely yellow. A cloudy purple trail seemed to secrete past the edges of its mouth behind its figure as it continued to travel towards me.
I willed my chest to stretch back and bolt like a catapult to the right to avoid the second dive from the purple spotted monster fish headed my way. My arms went on maximum overdrive as my legs attempted to follow suit, but my left leg groaned in protest which caused my right leg to disrupt its pattern of movement and only move in place.
Luckily, the movement from above my legs was enough to flip myself in the water and avoid the mass of purple flesh and yellow teeth just in the nick of time by moving my body to the left.
A dark purple cloud passed by my tumbling form as the monster continued to move past me based on its momentum. The dark cloud from the initial and second attack began to spread in the water until it was almost completely surrounding me. Soon the tail of the 16 meter long fish left my vision until only the edges of the dark blue water and the cloudy purple mist surrounded me.
Alarm sounds rang in my ears at the sight of the purple mist and when I looked down, I could also see some of the purple substance had managed to pierce my left calf from the initial attack and enter my bloodstream. The creature's yellow teeth must have been covered by purple substance and seems to have completely paralyzed my left leg.
The worst part of it all was the numbing sensation felt by my left leg was starting to travel to my right leg and partially up my hips as well.
The dire reality of my situation became very apparent as the fish reappeared at an angle directly diagonal to my right ear. A quick plan began to form in my head as the fish quickly approached with his maw looking extra sharp this time around as death began to look more and more likely.
I willed every bit of energy I had left into whipping my arms up and extending my head and torso back. My body flashed backwards and as the purple spotted fish missed once again, I grabbed onto its massive frame with my arms.
The purple cloudy mist flashed by as the fish swam past it with me hitching a ride below its frame. The purple splotchy exterior began to shake a bit before purple liquid burst out in various places on its massive body. Some of said liquid landed directly on my bare chest as sizzling pain seared through my nerves.
My eyes closed tight as my grip began to loosen as more and more purple liquid made contact with various portions of my body. Parts of my body continued to numb from some of the mist entering my bloodstream from earlier and the numbness had now reached the bottom of my ribs while the rest of my upper body was thrown into a vat of acid.
The fish continued to expel liquid and started to thrash its body around to shake off the parasite trying to hitch a free ride on its body. My eyes were forced open by the mounting velocity as the thrashing continued to increase.
Soon, my grip on the purple splotchy scales began to come loose.
Just before I completely released my loving hug, a familiar set of green dreads flashed by my vision and sliced off the head of the three-eyed freak with two black blades.