Animal Crossing New Leaf:

THE NIGHTMARE OF AIKA

By Windryder1

(Summary: Taki finds a body beneath the waves, and comes far too close to joining it.) (warning: contains a drowning scene.)

CHAPTER 10: The Ocean Deep

This can't be happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening…

My mind locked in an eternal loop of denial and desperation. I struggled against my fleshy binds. They seemed to tighten around my torso no matter how hard I fought. My captor moved swiftly through town, carrying me like a sack of gardening sod. With the way I was situated, all I could see was the path behind me disappearing into the sheets of rain. I reached for it with my free hand, crying. My tears merged with the rain, as if the sky joined in to mourn my fate. I had to get away from Octavian before he could go through with his threat. If I didn't, that would be it. Game over. End of my story.

"Please," I begged. "Don't do this. You've proven your point. I get it. You win. You can throw me back in that house and I'll stay there this time. Giant spider or not."

Octavian huffed with vague interest. "So, you broke into the library."

"There were books in weird languages, and a massive tarantula that attacked us." Mel knew where he was taking me. I figured if I could keep him talking, it might delay the inevitable long enough for my friends to reach me, to save me. …would they even be able to? "You know about it?"

"That tarantula was trained to go after one with a specific smell, but she's not here anymore. The others across the river simply attack any Human that enters their territory."

"Then why did they attack the animals on the train?"

Octavian's eyes shifted toward me. He ignored my question and adjusted his thick tentacles to get a better grip. "That isn't the shirt you were wearing before. If you changed into clothes from the house, then you brought that arachnid's wrath upon yourself. I have no sympathy for you."

So that's why the tarantula came after me and Mel. That person's scent must still be on these clothes. "Why would someone do that?" I grunted from the increased pressure from the coils constricting around my ribs.

"To force her to control her fear."

"How? In that enclosed space, she'd have nowhere to run. It would bite her."

"Not if she got to the whistle first." He snarled.

"What whistle?" Octavian didn't answer. My heart skipped in dread as I felt him pick up his pace. I needed more time to distract him. "A-and all the weird books?"

"The doctor wanted to know which ones she could read."

"The doctor... Dr. Shrunk?"

Octavian's arm whipped up in an attempt to cover my mouth. I quickly shielded my face with my hand, succeeding in keeping my mouth clear, but the end of it cupped around my head. "Why would that matter? Everyone speaks and reads Animaleese."

"It's not your language."

My questions derailed. "What do you mean, not...my language? It's the first language I think in. Wouldn't that indicate signs of a native tongue?"

"Could you read anything there?"

I thought back to the letter. "Y-yeah. I don't get it, though. What does that mean?" Why would he raise questions like that if he wasn't willing to answer them?

"You talk too much."

Before I'd realized it, Octavian had reached the furthest point out over the high cliff. Angry waves crashed against the flat rock wall. The roaring and pounding of the ocean obliterated all other sounds. Drifts of sea spray blew into my face and hair by a wind that burned my skin. Its force stirred up tumultuous white crests as the howling chorus of the ocean swallowed up the static rain needling the surface. It challenged the thunder above. The ocean became all I saw. I couldn't tell where the stormy sky ended, and the gray sea began.

Panic's cold fire shot through me. I pulled on the deep red tentacles. "No! Don't do this, please! I'm sorry! I'm begging you! Don't! I'll hit the cliff!"

The arms used for his feet curled into the cliff edge for traction. He wrapped two more of his arms around me and raised me over his head. "Not if I throw you far enough."

"I'll get washed out to sea!"

"There's a buoy net guard encircling this whole beach –nothing larger than a sea bass can get through."

"No, you don't understand! I can't sw-!"

He cambered his arms back. "Make it to the beach and remember this lesson, Human; my threats are never idle."

My free hand gripped tightly to the octopus' arm, my knuckles white. "No, wait! Stop! No! NO!"

Octavian launched me with tremendous force over the open water.

I flew and fell. My arms pinwheeled in the air in time to a scream that thrashed my vocal cords. The choppy waters rushed up to meet me, eager to pull me in, drag me down, and never release their hold. They taunted and danced, and lurched up for me. I inhaled one more time. For the last time.

The water exploded around me. All sounds of the storm muffled beneath the surface and plunged me into a cocoon of oscillating silence. I'd hit hard enough that the impact ripped at my nerves. The cold speared through my clothes, skin, muscles, straight to my bones. I managed to hold in my breath long enough to breach the waves.

A cacophony of sound slammed into my ears. I gasped and flailed for my life, sucking in greedy gulps of air. The sharp crests crashed over my head, forcing salty water into my mouth. I coughed. "Help!" My palms slapped the surface as if I could climb out. Lightning strobed over me, igniting the ocean in hues of cadaver purple. My legs kicked, but my entire body lost all coordination, like the parts of me had forgotten how to speak to each other. "Help!"

Something dark plum bobbed toward me. It wasn't a shark. No, this was worse. As if things weren't bad enough, I now floundered directly in the path of a jellyfish. It rode the waves like sliding along rippling silk. I try frantically to push myself away, but I can barely keep my head above water.

I felt its tentacles brush past my ankles. A sharp sting bolted up my legs and in that second, numbness overtook my muscles. My legs no longer worked. I knew a jellyfish's sting was temporary, but that didn't matter right now. It robbed me of the sparse hope I clung to.

The cliff face was the last thing I saw as a current pulled me under. The world above disappeared, distorted by the indigo ocean. I clawed uselessly through the water, holding my breath. My eyes were wide open, but I didn't care. I reached, pumping my arms to try to break the line between life and death again. Despite my efforts, I only sank further into the darkness.

My lungs began to burn. The urge to inhale strengthened after every passing millisecond, but I kept my mouth shut. Feeling returned to my legs. I worked my limbs hard, but the motions sent me deeper. The flickering lightning grew further away.

My foot brushed against something that felt like rock. Solid ground! I could push myself up back to the surface. With new hope, I pressed my feet against the rock and pushed...

My right foot slipped between a crack.

It stuck. I was trapped under the water and running out of air. Fresh terror hammered against my chest with each pounding of my pulse, which hurt more and more as my lungs constricted and my muscles contracted to squeeze any oxygen left into my blood. I yanked and pulled at my foot, thrashing and struggling to free myself. The painful pressure in my chest spread to the rest of me. My head hurt, my throat hurt, my chest felt like it would explode.

Shreds of crimson fabric drifted near my foot in the current like bloody seaweed gnarled around a long, straight, bleached stick. Attached to it were five smaller sticks jammed into the boulder on the sea floor. It connected to something larger half buried in sediment.

My attempts to free my foot ended up freeing the stick instead.

But it wasn't a stick.

A skeleton, blanched from salt corrosion, and picked clean by small fish pulled up out of the floor. Puffs of sand curled away into the water. Two black, hollow spheres stared at me above an open jaw. Its other hand clutched a bottle in its fist against its chest.

I screamed. The last of my precious air bubbled upward to freedom. The last of my breath, stolen by the ocean.

I was out of time. I thrashed to get away from the bones and from death with no more mind than an insect. Spots speckled my vision, leaking in like razor shavings across my brain in asphyxia.
And then I sealed my fate. My body gave in against my will, and I inhaled. Cold water poured into me. I gasped to no avail. Air... I needed air.

The water refused my desperation. I stopped struggling. My arms and legs went limp as the oxygen deprivation erased my thoughts.

A shadowed figure approached me quickly from the darkness, wrenched my foot free, and pulled me up to the surface. I remained conscious enough to see it was another human. But they were too late.

My heart stopped.

Seconds passed, or minutes. I couldn't tell, but I couldn't move, or feel my body anymore. Thank God.

The lilt of an unfamiliar voice brushed through my mind.

I want to go back to zero.

I found myself on that city rooftop as before. A girl with medium cut brown hair dressed in red faced me at the railing edge overlooking the brilliant city filled with humans. She stood no higher than my chin, but she looked to be around my age. She clutched the same doll Cecelia guarded in her arms.

"I want to go back to zero," she pleaded, though her lips didn't move. "Please."

"Who are you?"

"I can't leave until he returns to zero, or everyone will suffer. Give it to him. Free my hatter. Free me. I want to go back to zero."

"I don't understand. Give him what—" I paused, suddenly remembering the details in the library. "...The letter on the desk..."

"Take it. Help me." Her right arm raised like it was made of lead and lifted by a string. "Wake up, Taki." Her index finger extended. "Now."

A hard jab of pressure impacted my chest near my heart, followed by another, then another. I buckled and dropped to my knees, clawing my fingers into my sternum. It hurt...It hurt so much, I wanted to throw up. So I did. My stomach turned in on itself.

The scene faded to black.

I wretched, coughing and sputtering as I threw up great globs of sea water and bile onto the sand. Someone rolled me onto my side. Fresh, cool oxygen filled my lungs, sending shooting pains through my limbs, but I couldn't care less. This was air, beautiful, delicious air. I flopped to my back and sucked in deep, fast breathes.

"Taki," Mel gasped. "Oh my god, you're alive! Just breathe. Steady breathes. Come on, stay with me."

My mind spun from the rush of nutrients that made me dizzy and only capable of one instinctive act: breathing. The frantic flutter of my heart raced behind my ribs like a frightened caged sparrow. Gradually, my vision returned.

I was on dry land... and I was alive.

She cupped my face in her hands. They were warm. I wanted that warmth to soak through me to tear away the fear of dying, the chill of the ocean, and the trauma sheathing me in a thin film. I calmed down.

"Are you ok? Say something."

I wanted to, but my voice wouldn't work. It felt raw, scratched, and I wouldn't have been surprised if it was bleeding.

Instead, I reached up and gripped her hand.

She smiled. "Don't ever do that again, you idiot," she sniffled. "Why didn't you tell anyone you can't swim?"

"It," I coughed. My voice sounded like it was rubbing against sand paper, "doesn't come up."

Her voice quivered around the tension she could finally release. "We'll have to fix that."

At that moment, I felt Kenshin's strong arms pull me up to a sitting position as he hugged me tightly. I blinked.

"You're ok!" He sobbed. "I'm so happy!"

This person who had just shown tremendous skill and precision with the handle of a bug net again our enemy now clung to me like he was Cecelia, and I was her doll in the red dress. I still didn't have full control over my body yet, so I felt like a soggy wad of laundry -one stung by a jellyfish. My nerves slowly registered the sting. Ow... that would leave a mark.

Finally, he let me go. I managed to stay sitting up, but breathing deeply was out of the question.

Kenshin's expression shifted from pure joy to sorrow, and he dropped to hug his knees in the circle of his arms. "I was almost too late." He suddenly slammed his fist against the sand. "I'm going to rip that octopus' arms off!"

"Calm down," Cecelia settled next to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. "Go back to 'love' and think about that one, ok? It's a happy feeling."

The cliff face down the beach from us was empty. Octavian was gone. I coughed again, cringing from the ache. I was soaking wet and now speckled with a fine layer of sand grains. "How did I get here?"

"Kenshin pulled you out of the water," Mel explained.

"He was amazing! You should have seen it!" Cecelia chimed in.

I watched the blubbering mess that was our friend take deep breathes to focus on one emotion. He failed and broke down into sobs again, clenched his fists into the sand, then pulled at his hair. "How? Isn't he still emotionally rekt?"

Mel pushed her newly-short hair away from her face. "He focused on 'love' long enough to save you. He jumped in without even thinking twice."

Cecelia hugged the doll. "So that's why you didn't go in after your golden fishing rod. You're not afraid of sharks, are you."

I rubbed my chest. It still felt like there was water in there. "Sorry to disappoint." My eyes lingered on the toy in her arms, dressed the same way as the girl in my vision, and the skeleton deep beneath the ocean. "I heard someone... that voice from earlier that said 'get away,'" I sent my validation of sanity to Mel, who remained serious, but accepting. I knew she'd heard that voice at the cemetery, too. "She said she wanted to return to zero and and to give something to her 'hatter', or everyone would suffer." I hacked up more water and spit it out. "Mel, do you remember the letter on the desk? What it said?"

She nodded. "Green releases what's trapped. Blue reveals the unreachable path –or something like that, and 'Red returns you to zero,'" she quoted.

Kenshin removed a leaf from his pocket with a shaky hand and held it out. He couldn't summon enough mental strength to change it back and keep his rampant emotions in check, so Cecelia did it for him.

She held the small medicine bottle in one hand. "Well, this is red. Where'd you get this?"

He rubbed at his arms, stood, and started pacing. "I heard someone say 'take it.' I just reacted I never just 'react.' It's not like me. I think things through. I can keep a cool head in any situation. I... It's.. none of this is... It's... Aaahhhh!" He gripped his head. "Focus, focus, gotta focus."

Cecelia swished the liquid around. "Is this part of that weird riddle?"

Mel and I stared at it. "Wait...there was green stuff in the water, and all of us except Cecelia were affected." She unleafed the blue bottle from her pocket. "This has to be part of it. If the red stuff makes you forget, then blue would..." An answer failed to find her. None of us had a clue as to this its purpose. Mel's lips formed a thin line.

That's the conclusion I came to as well. I looked back at the ocean that came too close to claiming my life. Shivers prickled my skin. "There's someone's body down there. I think," I paused to catch my breath, which only added to the anticipation, "I think it's Alice."

Mel's mouth gaped in shock. "Alice?" I wasn't sure her reaction was more due to the fact that I'd found human remains, or that I somehow knew who they belonged to. "No way. That means she—"

My head bobbled lightly. My vision blurred from a wave of vertigo. She caught me from falling over. My heart spasmed in abnormal rhythm.

Cecelia bit her lip hard enough to turn the skin around her teeth white.

"Well, look what washed up on the beach, guys."

Mel, Kenshin, Cecelia, and I all instantly shifted our attentions to the new threat.

Emerson strode down the path to the beach. Except this time, he wasn't alone. Sarah trailed him in a fit of barely restrained, sporadic giggles.

Another man slightly younger than himself, sulked at the rear and carried a small fat gyroid in his arms. He mumbled incoherently beneath patches of slicked down blond hair. Small bald spots speckled his scalp –a testament to wads he'd pulled out by the roots. The exposed skin was covered in blood-splotched bandages from self-inflicted wounds. This 'brain-fried shut-in' he'd mentioned earlier was the only other human in this town we hadn't seen –the other victim of Emerson's experiments: John.

The joker mask was gone, completely exposing the burns lacing up the left side of his face into his jagged bangs. His pale blue eyes seemed to radiate their own wicked intensity. He feared nothing. Not the storm, not the insanity of Sarah, and not us. John swayed slightly side to side, refusing to make eye contact.

He stopped about ten feet away and regarded us with a hateful glare at the head of his deranged entourage. "A Treasure, a Tool, and two pieces of Trash."

TBC