Chapter 7
She hated waiting, especially feeling so exposed. There was very little light, and she would have to remain close to the beast in order to catch the eye when it opened. Her opening eventually did come, the beast letting out a screech from an unseen mouth, its singular eye opening and reflecting what minimal light there was into a milky white retinal lens.
Diana moved swiftly, stabbing down deep as far and as hard as she could, right through the centre of the pupil. The blood was dark and rich, sprouting from the wound as the beast began to thrash and recoil, it's dangerous tentacles going for Diana now, neglecting Arthur in the antechamber. She was slammed backwards, her hands leaving the sword as she was crushed back into the column. She let out a groan but quickly forced herself to stop, her rebreather had been knocked off by the thrashing tentacles as the creature went into its death throes.
She tried to reposition herself, get to a position she could get to the antechamber again, to rendezvous with Arthur and let him know she needed to get to the surface as soon as possible, but it was impossible. She was thrown back a second time as the creature raged at the coming of its fate.
Another scream, and a gasp, a vain attempt to take breath from the water, gagged her. Her head ricocheted back into the stone column, cracking the marble with the force. Diana was durable, extremely tough physically, and could take a hit, but the repeated blunt force to her body, the burning in her legs and the attempt to gasp for air, finding nothing but water, were taking its toll. She needed out. Now.
The hit had disoriented her, she was unable to tell which was up and down, the world seemed to be deciding to spin around her. Things got dark, but she swore she saw a shimmer of golden light coming from the other side of the monster.
"Diana!" she heard his voice call out from across the outer chamber. She couldn't respond; she wished she could, but there was no breath left in her body to scream out.
Arthur sent a bolt of lightning towards the creature; it was already dying, he just needed it to clear a path. He needed to get to Diana, now. He could see from the other side of the room she was in trouble. She didn't respond, her body appeared to be "hanging" in the water, her eyes, lumescent as they always were, even in the dark, murky red stained water, were dark, perhaps even closed.
He intercepted her free fall to the bottom of the sea bed, realizing immediately something was wrong. Her body was limp as he wrapped an arm around her waist, shoulders and head tilted back at an angle that denoted she had no control over her body at this point. "You stupid, stupid woman!" he growled, noticing her face was free of the rebreather device she had been wearing. "You always could be distracted by your own obsessions."
He couldn't see it, but knew neither of their bodies would suffer as a normal human would if he were to rapidly ascend to the surface.
There was always the chance that it might be too late already; he hadn't seen her get hit, he didn't know how long she had been without air, or if her body had tried to breath when she was knocked unconscious, but again, a slim chance at having her survive to die on the surface rather than under the waves, it was worth it.