"Wake up! Dammit Floa, get up!"
Floa jerked as she was shaken awake and blinked her eyes to clear them. She still felt tired, her body weary, but she ignored it.
"Why? What's wrong?"
"Captain thinks we're under attack. Just grab your gear and I'll see you topside." He left her, fleeing through the open hatchway. Floa wasted no time and began equipping herself with the gear she'd left next to her. Only when her hand grasped her gun and she started to rise did she suddenly pause.
"What am I doing?"
Floa staggered for a second, staring at the gun in her hands. It didn't look like any ink gun she had ever seen. She didn't see the ink capacitor tank anywhere and the gun was much sleeker, made of dark metals and hard plastics. A scope was mounted on the top, like a simpler version of the scope she had seen on chargers.
She looked down at her splat bombs; they had changed too. They had gone from colourful pyramids to dark-grey cylinders with a small lever on top. How was she supposed to use them?
She didn't have time to figure it out, she had to move. So she ran through the hatchway after Bran and climbed to the top deck where she found things had changed again.
She was still on a ship but it was not the Inkopolis Bay ferry at all. The deck was narrower and the wooden decking had been replaced by cold, grey steel. The bridge was also narrower and fully contained except for a small wing where… No, it wasn't Abri, was it?
The uniformed inkyora standing on the bridge wing, looking over the water through a pair of binoculars certainly resembled Abri but was too young to be her mother. She looked at Bran and now that she was paying attention, she found that he too was changed, now a fully grown inkyar, peering over the edge of the railing with a weapon that matched her own.
Nervously, Floa glanced around for a reflective surface and found a hollow brass cylinder lying on the deck, rolling with each motion of the ship. She peered into its grimy surface and saw her reflection with unnatural clarity. It was her, or how she might have imagined herself looking in ten years.
Floa looked down at her own feet and nearly toppled as her brain registered the deck as too far away for her little legs to possibly reach, but she didn't have little legs anymore, she had the long, strong legs of an adult, or near enough anyway.
She found her footing again, forcing her mind to adjust by reminding herself that it was a dream, but it was hard. This felt more real than any of her previous dreams.
"About time you got here," Bran snapped at her. His voice was deeper than before. "Squids coming our way. Should be here any minute."
Floa frowned. Squids? Not 'enemies'? So some of the words were changing too? Now that she recalled, the words he'd said when waking her had also been different.
She looked out over the sea and saw other ships that looked like the one they appeared to be on. They were angular, vaguely shark-like, and wore the same non-reflective grey.
The ship rocked and Floa tried to grab onto the railing. She managed it but it felt unnatural, too far away, and her hand-eye coordination, though it was working, felt strange, as if guided somehow.
"It's here! Find it, hit it!"
The familiar shout was deeper than before, the voice of an adult. Had everyone been aged up? Why?
"We're trying!"
They scanned the surface of the water. Floa, knowing what was coming, felt her insides twist with anticipation.
A black tentacle shot out of the water. Someone screamed, then it crashed down onto the deck.
"Shoot it! Kill it!"
A loud bang nearly caused Floa to jump out of her skin. It was followed quickly by a staccato chorus of similar bangs as they peppered the tentacle with rapid, high-speed, ink blots about the size of her thumb. Much smaller versions of the brass cylinder she had looked at herself in, clattered from the guns onto the deck with each bang.
The tentacle slipped into the cold grey sea, bleeding blue from dozens of holes before it vanished. The ship shuddered again and screams of terror sounded from the port side, drawing some of the others from their side of the ship to go and help while Floa and Bran remained.
Floa scanned the water, her nerves frayed, ink leaking down her back as adrenaline surged through her, her hearts beating in her chest like a sequence of hammers.
Why were the guns so loud? Since when could ink do that kind of damage to flesh?
Bran fired into the water, the little ink bursts kicking up tall splashes on the surface. A geyser of magenta ink burst from the water and slammed into Bran, knocking him back against the superstructure of the ship.
"Bran!"
Floa's own voice was foreign to her ears, deeper and more resonant.
There was a rush of water and two black tentacles latched onto the ship as the massive sea creature hauled itself up, causing the ship to groan as it listed.
Floa turned around and at first, she thought she saw Mrs. Cuttlefish, but the eyes gave away the truth, as did the pattern until now. What she beheld was a giant version of an adult Callie, her cut tentacles regrown, longer and more sinuous than ever.
Their eyes met and Floa saw her own horrified expression reflected back in those malicious golden orbs.
The ship groaned again as the list evened out. With the deck more level, Floa was able to scramble away, through an open hatchway, slamming it shut behind her.
She hurried down the corridor to the other side of the ship, even though what waited for her there was no better.
The giant Marie was there, and as Floa had come to expect, she was an adult, but there was much more different about her than there had been with Callie.
Marie was noticeably larger than even Callie had been, and her dominant tentacles were backed by her inferior tentacles growing out the back of her head. She might have looked regal were she not using these tentacles to sweep the deck of all life.
One swipe of her dominant tentacles knocked three inkyar into the sea, another had their gun knocked away by a swipe of one of her inferior tentacles before another slammed him into the superstructure with a horrible wet sound that caused Floa's stomach to somersault.
Floa watched, transfixed as the very still form of the inkyar slid down to the deck, leaving a red smear on the superstructure before he flopped onto his side, lifeless.
Floa's hearts beat faster. She stopped breathing. Was he dead? He was dead. Marie had just killed him in front of her eyes. No, that couldn't be right, it couldn't be true. That red smear wasn't blood, it couldn't be blood, blood was blue, not red. It was wrong, no, this wasn't happening, it wasn't possible. He wasn't dead, he couldn't be dead!
"Floa, wake up!"
A white tentacle wrapped around her waist. She was in such a state of shock she barely noticed it until she was flying through the air, up and over Marie's head in an arc, and then plummeting down towards the cold grey ocean, screaming.
"Floa, wake up! Please, wake up!"
It was her mother's voice. It was something unseen, yet Floa reached for it, stretching out with hands both physical and imaginary until she hit the water.
Floa jerked upwards in bed, screaming, ink leaking down her back and staining her sheets. Her mother had been trying to shake her awake. Floa buried her face in her mother's chest, clinging to the folds of her housecoat in a death grip as she screamed again.
Her mother wrapped her tightly in arms and tentacles, rubbing her back and desperately trying to calm her down. Floa's hearts fired like a three-cylinder engine. She trembled violently. It was too much for her.
Floa's insides twisted and clenched as tightly as her fists. She felt it coming, fast. She tore herself from her mother's hold, crawled to the side of her bed and promptly vomited onto the floor.
After her early-morning dramatics, it took a lot of effort for Floa to convince her parents to let her continue to participate in the Cavern Run going on that evening. Half panicked they'd taken her to the clinic the second it opened. The doctor examined her and prescribed bed rest and plenty of fluids, telling them it was probably stress related. Floa hadn't needed a doctor to tell her that.
She insisted it had only been a bad dream but her parents believed there was more to it. Maybe there was. Now she understood why Priestess Winterveil had been so serious. She would be at the Cavern Run tonight and she would speak to her.
The one benefit of her awful morning was that she'd been able to take a day off school, her mother forcing her to take at least two naps throughout the day while she played, doing everything she could to distract herself from the dream until she could see the priestess.
In the afternoon, her friends appeared at her house, the first time she ever had friends over. Unfortunately, while the main reason they were there was to check on her and make sure she was alright, they were also there to deliver her homework and the results of their last test. She wanted to face that less than her dream.
They didn't stay long after that, just enough to see her bedroom and ask her if she was still coming to the Cavern Run. After that they left, promising to see her later. Reinvigorated after their visit, Floa eagerly waited for evening.
By long tradition, the Cavern Run began once the sun had gone down. There were only a handful of clouds in the sky and none of them obstructed the view of the horizon as the sun set against a red sky. A well worn path from the centre of town had been carved through the woods directly to the caverns.
She had been to the caverns only once before. She, Callie, and Marie had gone through the cavern with their fathers one day, learning the routes through and being told of potential dangers.
The cavern entrance was built into the side of a hill, carved out by water erosion between the end of the Precursor Era and the beginning of the Mollusc Era.
The caverns' interior was mostly smooth but there were also plenty of stalactites and stalagmites along some of the routes; and areas where the smooth rock had been broken to create tripping hazards.
Each route had its own difficulties, but all three met up in a main chamber, where a single break in the ceiling allowed light in. From there, a sharp downward slope led to low point where water collected. One had to swim through it to continue on. The cavern exit was near the bank of the river, where all the families and other community members would be waiting for them.
They could hear the crowds well before the hill came into view. The leaves on the trees were largely yellow now, almost making the hillside look like a place far away. She spotted her friends among the crowd of children and waved. There was a momentary interruption as one of the school teachers registered her name then she left her parents and joined them.
Callie was there but not wearing her neck brace. After seeing her wear it every day at school it seemed unusual. She was showing some of the other children the mark indicating where her throat had been cut open to save her life. Floa was glad she saw it as a story she could boast about now, it was how people often handled such things back in Xapheerell.
While Callie was busy, Tandi greeted her. "Glad you could make it. You feeling okay?"
"Ask me tomorrow after I get some sleep. Right now I'm way too keyed up to be sick anyway."
Marie said, "just don't be sick in the cave and make another obstacle we have to get past."
Floa snickered. "Why? Because you know you'd fall in it?"
"It's the smell I'd be worried about."
"Yeah, sure, totally believe ya."
They smirked at each other. Floa wondered when exactly it was the two of them had become friends. She couldn't think of any particular point, it had just… happened. Of course, Marie wasn't exactly the same person she'd been when she'd first arrived. Maybe that had something to do with it.
Callie finally turned. The ends of her severed tentacles were starting to round out again, but it would be years before they grew as long as they had been before. Her neck was no longer discoloured but it still didn't look quite right. A little more time would be needed for it to heal.
Floa felt a sudden chill, her mind flashing back to her dream, remembering Callie having her tentacle shot up, Marie killing someone right in front of her, the red blood. Her insides threatened to revolt again.
"Floa!" Tandi grasped Floa's arm as she bent over, clutching her stomach. "Are you okay?"
Floa grunted and forced herself to stand up. "Y-yeah, just something I have to remember to talk to the priestess about."
Marie looked at her questioningly, Callie looked worried, but Tandi simply said, "Oh, yeah, I saw her. She's going be waiting with everyone else near the exit."
Perfect, Floa could speak to her right after going to her parents. She just had to make it through the cavern.
Callie said, "are you sure you're okay?"
"Positive. So long as I don't think of that one thing, I'm fine."
Marie tilted her head, now looking inquisitive. Floa pretended not to notice; she was more concerned with her own thoughts, because she had a bad, bad feeling.
As twilight approached, the teachers began assembling the children into a line. Friends and family were being separated so they could not help each other through the cavern. They would go in one at a time in intervals of about five minutes or so, each being told which of the three routes to take. Marie said it would take roughly two hours between the first and the last person to enter the caverns.
Although the selection was somewhat random, Marie already knew she'd be going last. When Floa asked why, Marie literally glowed in response, her mantle emitting lime light.
Callie explained that since Marie had the rather unfair advantage of being a firefly squid like her father, she would be going last so nobody else could use her light to get through, this in spite of Marie's insistence that she would not use it unless there was an emergency or some other such special situation. What she meant by 'special situation' Floa had no idea.
Floa was placed at the top of the last third of kids to go. All she had to do was wait the hour or so until it was her turn. In the meantime she talked with her friends.
"Don't need the neck brace anymore?"
Callie smiled sheepishly. "Mom tried to get me to wear it but I didn't want to for the Cavern Run. It was bad enough I had wear it at school and couldn't do Gym."
It had been painful to see Callie forced to sit out and watch everyone else compete. The gym teacher had stuck by her when he could, mostly to watch her and as a kind of protection. The whole teaching staff and student body were wary of Murl, Admus, and Drang now. Their school life had taken a turn for the worse while Callie enjoyed a surge in popularity as everyone wanted to know what happened.
Callie didn't like talking about the incident itself and the day after her return, Marie suggested to Callie's mother that she tell Callie not to speak of it, which would give Callie an excuse not to talk about it at school anymore. Marie then added a little white lie that since Security was investigating the incident there were laws that said Callie wasn't supposed to talk about it to anyone outside the family or Security. The other children griped about both excuses but people soon stopped trying to get the story from Callie and the rest of them. It was the sort of solution Floa would never have thought of.
Unfortunately, the pleasant reminiscing failed to dispel the nest of ants crawling around Floa's insides. After Tandi and Raven left them, darkness finally came, the forest illuminated by the full moon and the battery-powered lamps of the teachers. She kept looking around, searching for any sign those boys might be near in spite of their semi-exile. If anyone would cause trouble it would be them.
Marie guessed what she was doing. "Don't worry about them; they're not going to be able to show up without getting noticed. Kids can only get in through the two main ways. The rest, only adults can get through."
Floa did not feel reassured. How many times had she been told only grownups could go certain places and ended up going there herself just to prove them wrong? How many times had other kids she knew done the same? She didn't have much time to dwell on it as her turn neared and she was called to stand in line. Callie and Marie wished her luck as she left, but she did so feeling that they were the ones in need of luck right then.
Floa was told to go down the central route then, after the boy in front of her was gone five minutes, she was sent inside.
Darkness swallowed her, her eyes all but useless in the pitch blackness by the time she entered the central tunnel. She didn't dare shut them however, afraid that something might pop out she may have otherwise seen in the dark.
She heard some strange, deep groaning sounds within the caverns, but tried to ignore them. She'd been told that the wind, when it blew just right, caused scary noises in the tunnel. Getting through when that happened was considered something worth bragging about. But there was something that sounded unnatural about that sound she couldn't quite identify, it just sounded… off to her otoliths, and because of all the echoes she couldn't even tell where it was coming from.
The ants in her guts worked up into a frenzy and decided that, for now, getting out quickly was the better move, so she pushed aside her apprehensions for the moment and forced herself to get through was quick as she could.
Marie tapped her foot impatiently as she stood at the back of the line. Callie was talking to the two girls between them about some of the shows she'd watched on TV while in the hospital.
Marie listened though she'd heard it all before. She had nothing else to keep her occupied and she was eager to finally be able to do the Cavern Run. She had been waiting two years, a chance to prove herself independent and mature. By tradition that meant she would be able to stay up an hour later and would start earning an allowance as long as she continued to do her chores. She was excited for that; birthday money only went so far.
Abruptly, Callie broke ranks and moved toward her, bringing her voice down to a whisper. "Hey, Marie, I was thinking about the talent show."
Marie grimaced. This seemed like an odd time to bring it up. "Right, we haven't been able to do much for your choreography yet."
Callie flashed red. "No… well, yeah, I know but I was thinking that maybe you should come up and perform with me."
Marie's eyes went wide, her mantle flashing a bright orange, which glowed noticeably in the dark. "What? Why? I've always been your manager."
"But you could be more than that! Don't you remember when we were out in front during the Sports Festival. I could tell you loved it."
Marie flushed and averted her gaze, forcing her mantle to dim and return to its natural colour. "We were competing though. It's not the same."
"No, so imagine how great it would be to be working together instead of competing. It would be great!"
Marie crossed her arms and pouted. "Why are you thinking that now? I thought you wanted me to be your manager? I know I haven't done a good job of protecting you like I should but–."
Callie just laughed. "Marie, you're a good manager but you've changed. You don't want to be in the dark anymore, you want to be in the spotlight, don't you?"
Marie turned red. "No, I don't." But she didn't sound convincing even to herself. The truth was that part of her had always wished she could be in the spotlight, just didn't think she was worthy to stand there with Callie, she still didn't.
The teacher called Callie over to take her place. Callie told Marie,"at least think about it?" She left without waiting for an answer.
Callie waited at the cavern's entrance as the teacher counted down the minutes on her watch. She was still smiling but Marie could see her nervousness.
"Callie, it's just absence of light. There's nothing there that wouldn't be there even if you brought a flashlight. Don't worry."
Callie turned her head, something she hadn't been able to do at all for days after the incident and Marie bet it still hurt. But Callie smiled and said, "at least I don't have to worry about heights if I can't see 'em."
The teacher sent her off and Callie headed down into the darkness.
"Don't get lost," Marie called after her. She got no reply.
Murl stopped to take a breath and stepped away from the large, rocky hole in the hilltop. The moon shone a shaft of light straight down into the cavern chamber where the three tunnels met. He had been making noises using a plastic funnel to augment his voice. Drang had been doing the same by rubbing a steel rod over various pieces of thin metal, making freaky, screeching noises. They'd both managed to elicit plenty of screams from the Cavern Run participants.
He heard the rustling of grass and bushes and looked up as Admus finally appeared. His wide grin told all. He whispered so his voice would not carry down the hole.
"They're coming. Callie's ahead and Marie's last."
The fact that Admus actually used the girl's real names showed how excited he was. Murl shared his excitement though and nodded at Drang who stopped scraping the metal. It was time to get ready.
The three boys pulled the props they'd brought from under the bushes. Each of them had a scary mask they intended to wear to hide their identities and hopefully convince their victims that they were real demons and monsters, just like the many stories told of the caverns. Murl showed off the can he'd brought, full of a concoction he promised them would have the desired effect.
Admus showed them the knife he'd brought, wicked-looking with serrated edges on both sides. He demonstrated how well it reflected the light of the moon, making the blade gleam.
Admus told them who the last kid was before Callie. Everyone knew Callie was afraid of the dark, so she would proceed slowly, letting everyone else pass her. Admus had also heard which route she'd taken, which made things even easier.
After the last kid before Callie passed, they gathered their props and carefully climbed down the hole into the cavern below.
It was a tricky climb for kids their age, especially when trying to do it silently. Most kids didn't even know you could get down this way because you had to put your hands and feet in specific places to avoid falling, and it took guts to be willing to reach for those places because the positions were precarious and getting back up was even more difficult.
Murl's can kept making noise as they descended. Fortunately, this wasn't the first time they had entered the caverns this way. They'd done so many times over the years but they'd been careful not to brag about it to anyone else. This was their secret and Murl was glad for it now.
The chamber itself was about the size of the average two-car garage, with a few dark corners and alcoves for them to hide in.
Murl signalled for Drang to get on with the noises as they cloaked themselves in the shadows.
Pushi, a girl from the other third-grade class jogged by without noticing them, apparently not bothered by the noises. She'd already gotten ahead of Callie. They listened, heard footsteps approaching from another one of the tunnels.
Siri was next, walking past, lips trembling as she looked around, probably wondering where all the strange noises were coming from. She stopped by the slope that led down to the water. Murl's father had once described it as being like a grease trap in a sink, and it served to help muffle the noises to the outside. With all the socializing and celebrating the parents and teachers were doing by the exit, he doubted anyone would hear and they wouldn't take any of the other kids talk about strange noises seriously. The caverns made strange noises on their own. They were just adding to them.
Siri finally went down the slope. Once they heard the splash of her diving into the water, the three of them moved into the open. There were only their own targets left.
Admus drew his knife, Murl primed his can, and Drang intensified the noises. Whether the black freak ran away screaming or kept coming to be scared by them directly, they won. And the best part was that everyone, including their own mothers, thought they were still at home. Nobody would suspect they had ever been there.
Callie felt her way along the tunnel, her hand brushing against stone. She hated the dark and found herself wishing she could carry just a little bit of Marie's glow in her hands to light her way.
Marie claimed that there was nothing in the dark that wasn't also there in the light. But then how would she explain nocturnal animals or ghosts? She knew Marie didn't believe in ghosts but what about all the strange sounds they'd been hearing before they even entered the cave?
The teacher's hadn't reacted either, but her hearing and Marie's was better than most inklings, so they had an excuse. What was Marie's?
Callie let out a squeak as she heard what sounded like another scream. It didn't sound like any of the kids she knew and resembled more of a high pitched screech. Unnatural.
She swallowed hard, her legs had turned to jelly, slowing her progress to a painful crawl. She was sure Pushi and Siri had gotten ahead of her by now. But as long as she made it all the way through the caverns, she would be fine. She just had to keep going.
The noises became worse. It recalled memories of stories she'd heard, stories about the spirits of long dead Precursors resting in the caves who would become angry if disturbed. Stories of zombies emerging from the walls, rising up from the water; and apparitions made of pure light were just some of the ways they manifested. Some of the low groans she was hearing sounded like the popular image of zombies.
The sound of a small stone tumbling near her almost made her scream in surprise. She needed to move faster, needed to give her nerves a break. If she could just make it to the main chamber where the skylight was, she could take a second to relax before the final sprint to the exit.
Callie quickened her pace, gliding her hand along the wall. The noises became more fearsome and intense. A cacophony of groans, moans, and metallic screeches filled the cavern and Callie had to cover her ears, the noise vibrating her beak and insides.
It was too much, she needed to get out! Whatever was making those noises wasn't friendly, somehow she just knew it.
She began to jog and used a trick Gramps had taught her, making clicking noises with her mouth and listening to the echo. Though they were often drowned out by the awful noises filling the caverns, they helped her find her way and avoid obstacles and follow the twists and turns.
Murl, Admus, and Drang had derided her and Marie as freaks as long as Callie could remember because of their eyes, but their eyes worked very well in the dark, even better than those of regular inklings. This allowed her to see the moonlight reflecting off the cavern walls ahead well before the chamber itself came into view.
Her way lit, she broke into a fast jog, hopping over ledges and around the stalagmites until the light was sufficient for her to break into a run.
The noises suddenly stopped and Callie's otoliths howled as if unable to believe it. She could only hear the sounds of her own fast footsteps and the occasional drip of moisture echoing through the cavern.
Callie reached the main chamber, standing in the middle of the light beam on the ground. She stared up at the moon, never before so grateful to bathe in its pale glow.
She heard a scuffle from the darkness and she whirled. A dark figure with a face like half-melted beeswax emerged from one of the dark corners. The moonlight gleamed off a nasty-looking knife in their hand.
Callie started to panic and turned towards the downward slope to the water, only for a second figure to bar her path, this one with a face that looked like a tormented figure frozen in stone, then painted a bright red.
She finally screamed, turned to go back the way she'd come, only to find herself trapped by a third figure. This one wore a simple white mask, with tiny eye slits and one for the mouth, carved into a wicked smile.
Callie screamed again, spun all the way around, desperately looking for an escape. The red-faced figure advanced on her quickly. She tried to back away, tripped on something. The last thing she remembered was the sensation of falling followed by a splash of moisture, and then pain right before everything went black.
Marie knew something was wrong. It wasn't the noises, she assumed those were caused by the teachers or community members trying to make the caverns more scary than they really were. Part of the rite was testing one's courage, after all. Their sudden stopping on occasions had also dispelled any illusion that the noise was caused by something supernatural. It was when the noises intensified that she started to get a bad feeling.
She had been hearing the noises for almost an hour, before she'd ever entered the cavern. The adults hadn't reacted so she hadn't been concerned, but why would they intensify now? What was different from before? Was it a crescendo to end the night? No, the main difference was that she and Callie were in the cavern.
The noises abruptly stopped again, after they'd reached their loudest yet, and cold, clawed feet danced up the middle of her back. Something malicious was in the air, she could feel it.
Marie stepped her pace up, despite the utter darkness. She didn't want to use her glow yet, just in case she was just being paranoid. The echoes of her own footsteps helped her hear her way through.
Then, Marie heard a scream, Callie's scream. It was high pitched and terror-filled, just like when Callie had been thrown off the ladder over the bridge in the park, though not as loud, even in the cavern.
No more hesitation. She activated her glow and broke into a run, filling the cavern with bright-orange light mixed with red and white as fear and worry mixed with urgency in her mantle.
Up ahead, she could see the light from the main chamber. As she drew closer, she could see shadows moving. If Callie was there, she was not alone.
Marie skidded into the chamber and found herself face to face with three masked figures, and one of them had a knife. It was stained blue.
Marie lost all colour, her mantle turning as pale as the moon. She looked beyond the three figures and saw, lying supine on the floor, in a growing pool of her own blood, was Callie.
Marie lost all feeling. She was dead. The cousin she loved more than a sister, whom she had promised to support and protect, whom she always wanted to see on a stage, shining like a star was suddenly gone, her life reduced to a growing pool of blue glistening in the light of the moon and Marie's own stark-white glow.
The three figures advanced on her. They might not have existed for all Marie felt. She couldn't even bring herself to scream. She was falling into herself, a deep, deep well of despair, fear, and utter darkness.
At the bottom of that well, something began to stir. It wasn't supposed to awaken so early, and it shifted lethargically, constrained by powerful bonds. Marie reached the bottom of that well, a mere shell.
She regarded the thing with dull eyes. It looked back at her with eyes like burning stars, and she heard her own thoughts echo in the deep.
She didn't have to guess who the three figures were, she could identify Murl, Admus, and Drang by their stance alone, so familiar had she become with her foes. Now, they had finally taken everything from her, and probably about to take her life too, leaving no witnesses. But she didn't care. Her life would be empty without Callie, without her laughter, her beautiful singing, her joy in her life. They had taken it from the world, from her, from her aunt and uncle, from all of them!
The thing struggled against its bonds. Marie now met it stare for stare. It resembled a beast of some sort, yet it seemed formless, as if made from the darkness around them. They stared into each other's eyes, kept staring.
They had taken something precious, they had killed Callie, even after everything that happened, after her grandmother tried to show them mercy, an offering of peace, they threw that back in their faces.
The ground beneath her began to fracture with glowing red veins. The beast's bonds groaned as it struggled more.
She had lost what mattered most to her because she had failed to protect her, because she had been more concerned with being the perfect granddaughter than the safety and well-being of her cousin, her sister.
The floor burst into a lake of fire. The flames burned the beast's bonds, and it strained against them again.
Those boys had tormented them, humiliated them, hurt them and their friends, and now they were taking everything from them, from Aunt Mora – the real target. No more, she would deal with them no more. They were a blight on the world, they were criminals, murderers! They were not people, they were less than scum. The adults had gone too easy on them, they hadn't punished them enough, failed to make them pay for their crimes, so she would do it herself.
The beast's last bonds burned away, along with all of Marie's remaining inhibitions. It flailed and let out a roar that filled the well. The fire swallowed them both and rose until it erupted out the top.
Murl felt the situation was getting awkward. He'd seen the horror on Marie's face, expected her to start running back the way she'd come, but she didn't. She just… stood there, head and shoulders drooped, staring at the floor. Her glow had died. Her breaths came out quiet yet ragged, like someone about to start sobbing.
Their great trick had worked brilliantly up until then. Callie had been so scared she fainted. She hit her head when she'd fallen but she was okay… probably. Now they were stuck. They needed Marie to run for their cover to work properly, but he was starting to think they should take their chances and run before they had a chance to get caught.
Admus fearlessly stepped closer to Marie, sticking the knife out so that it caught the light of the moon and shone in the girl's direction. Murl could imagine a wicked smile beneath his mask as he advanced. He was having fun.
When he was in arm's reach of Marie he leaned forward and, mockingly, said, "awww, are you gonna' cry?"
Murl cursed inwardly. They weren't supposed to talk! They had to try and preserve their identities! Even if they'd probably guess it was them, Admus had just removed all doubt.
He was about to drag him back and make a break for it when Marie's mantle lit up the entire chamber a volcanic red. Quicker than their eyes could see, her left hand came up and slammed into the side of Admus' face. The next thing they knew, Admus was in the nearest wall. He let out a hideous gurgle then slid down the wall into a heap on the floor, leaving a blue smear.
Fear gripped Murl in its icy talons, his jaw agape as Marie's mantle flared so bright it hurt to look at directly. She arched back, and let out a scream that sounded like it came directly from the Black Pits themselves. It was so loud the whole chamber shook and Murl's insides were rattled.
Murl forgot everything. He made a dash for the slope, the nearest escape route. Marie's eyes focused on him, her pupils barely visible against the molten gold.
She charged at him with supernatural speed. He threw up his left arm to block her. They collided, tumbled a short distance. He raised his arm again to keep her off of him as he struggled to slither out from beneath her. Murl screamed half in terror, half in agony as Marie bit off a chunk of his arm.
Murl watched, as she swallowed it in a a few quick gulps and went again, but this time she was foiled.
Drang slammed into her with the full weight of his body, knocking her off of him. He scrambled to his feet. Somehow he forgot the pain and just started running down the slope, trailing blood, his left arm useless below the elbow. He couldn't move three of his fingers.
He looked back, hoping Drang was right behind him. Drang tried to run, but Marie recovered too quickly. She grabbed his leg, causing him to fall, then stood and broke it with a stomp of her foot. Drang's face twisted with anguish. His and Murl's eyes met just for a moment. Murl saw his silent plea for help, but looked away and moved to the water as fast he his legs could carry him. The last things Murl heard before he dived into the water were Drang's screams and the sounds of rending flesh.
Floa emerged from the cavern exit, still dripping wet. The underground pool had been foul and cold. Her mother appeared with a towel and wrapped her up in it. People clapped and cheered for her. She waved like someone on a parade float then let her mother lead her to a spot on the hill to dry. Her father waited there for them with a cup of hot chocolate.
"I knew it would be easy for you." He handed her the cup and rubbed her head. Floa smiled proudly.
"Just a glorified back alley, Dad."
She took a sip of the cocoa let its warmth spread out from her belly. It was exactly what she needed.
She heard a rumbling overhead. She looked up and frowned. "A storm?"
"Sounds like," her father said. "Weather sure is unpredictable out here in the country, isn't it?"
Her mother said, "I checked the forecast. It's supposed to be clear skies tonight and tomorrow. A bit chilly out though. I'm worried the children might catch a cold if this wind keeps picking up."
Floa barely heard them, she was still looking up. The ant colony in her insides were still at work. She swore some of them were biting her now.
She took another drink from her cup and looked around. Other families were celebrating in groups, some were playing music, others wandered around, mingling as they waited for their own kids to show up.
There were more claps and cheers as other kids came out the caves, looking a little shaken. Different kids mentioned either odd or scary noises inside the caverns. The adults didn't take them too seriously, but it stirred the ants in Floa.
She eventually found Priestess Winterveil sitting near the teachers. People were coming along and saying hello to her periodically but Floa noticed she kept looking up at the sky. She looked nervous every time she did it.
Floa stood and removed her towel. "I'll be back," she said, and walked. Winterveil spotted her about halfway and smiled, turning an inviting green and yellow.
"Hello, Floa. Congratulations on making it through."
"Thanks." She walked up to her and whispered. "I 'ad that dream again. It was super worse this time."
"Oh?" She patted the spot on the grass next to her. "How was it worse?"
"It made me throw up this morning. I… I saw someone die."
She arched an eyebrow at her, keeping her mantle neutral. "You're sure?"
"He left a bloody red smear against the wall and fell. Y-yeah, I'm sure."
She held her stomach as her insides tried to revolt again from the memory. Winterveil put a hand on her back and rubbed gently.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Floa insisted. At least the ants had been knocked off for now.
Winterveil leaned in close and whispered. "Are you sure you saw red blood?"
"Yeah. It was from an inkling but the blood came out red. It was weird, that's why I remember it." She almost wished she didn't.
After giving her another minute, the priestess asked to hear her dream in its entirety and Floa, quietly, told it as best she could but she wasn't much of a story teller.
She told her how the dreams had first started, how they gradually changed and got longer over time, then told her about the most recent dream in greater detail. Winterveil listened attentively, going as far as to display in her mantle that they not be disturbed. She didn't ask any questions until Floa was finished.
"And you saw Callie and Marie in your dreams before you ever met them?"
"Yeah. Well, their eyes anyway. I'd never seen eyes like that before. I'm sure 'bout that. I've seen a 'ole bunch of things in these dreams that I 'aven't seen before."
Priestess Winterveil hummed, placed her hands on her lap and stared at nothing. The deeper layers of her mantle were shifting like an unruly sea. After a while she came out of it and looked back at her.
"Floa, I wonder if you would consider –." She stopped, her eyes went big. The sky rumbled, more ominously than ever. The invisible ants that had been crawling around Floa's insides had migrated to her skin, causing her to rub her arms as if to push them away.
The teacher's radio's crackled. "This is the entrance. We just heard something really nasty in the cave. Maybe we should get Security to take a look."
Frowning, the principal keyed the radio. "What do you mean 'nasty'? The kids have been hearing weird noises all night."
"Yeah, so have we, but this was different – we hear screaming. Send in Security quick. Something's wrong!"
The principal barely took the time to put down the radio before he ran off to find the Security officers. Floa's opinion of him went up a tick. Her old principal would have gotten someone else to do it.
The priestess stood up, her mantle flashing, declaring danger nearby. People quickly took notice. Parents hurriedly rounded up their children, families formed tight protective knots with the children in the middle.
Floa found the Abbelorés in the crowd, knotted together with a few other families, but the Sanseas and Cuttlefishes were not. They were standing nearer the exit, waiting for their daughters to emerge. They hadn't yet.
A dreadful certainty enveloped Floa as her mother picked her up and brought her towards the Abbelorés. Whatever was happening, Callie and Marie were involved.
Floa was deposited in the centre of the knot with the other children. Everyone was scared and nervous. One of them whispered about the monster in the caves coming out to get them.
Floa peeked round her mother's legs towards the cave entrance. The principal had returned to his post with the security officers in tow. As they tried to contact someone on the radio, something emerged from the caverns, running. It wasn't either of the girls though, Floa could tell just by the silhouette; it was… "Murl?"
Murl burst out of the cavern into the light of the surrounding torches, screaming, clutching his bloody left arm which had a large bite taken out of it. "She's trying to eat me!"
Before anyone had a chance to ask him what he was even doing there, the inside of the cavern began to glow like the inside of a volcano, and it was getting brighter.
People gasped. Some near the exit scrambled up the slope to higher ground. Others looked on in wide-eyed amazement until the source of the glow emerged. Floa couldn't believe it when she saw it.
It resembled an inkling, about her height. Their mantle roiled like fresh magma, bright, full of hatred and fury in their rawest forms. Her golden eyes glowed like raging stars.
"Marie?"
Marie paused at the exit. She let out an angry hiss as she looked around. She spotted Murl scrambling away, snarled and gave chase.
People screamed and desperately dodged out of her way. She moved with supernatural swiftness, faster even than they'd seen her at the sports festival, but Murl had a head start, already halfway up the grassy slope to the road.
Marie ripped a stone from the earth slightly larger than a baseball and hurled it at Murl. The skill and accuracy which had let her win the beanbag toss at the Sports Festival served her well here. She managed to hit Murl in the leg. He let out a painful cry and fell face first into the grass. He quickly scrambled back up, clawing at the slope with his working arm to keep climbing, to get away. Marie was barely two seconds away from him.
A shape that moved with almost the same supernatural speed as Marie bowled into her. They both tumbled sideways along the slope, then rolled down a short distance, recovering quickly.
Mrs. Sansea got up in a crouch. "Marie! Calm down! What's happened? What's wrong?"
Floa had never heard Mrs. Sansea sound so frantic. She always sounded so in control, so cool and calm.
Marie acted as if she hadn't heard or seen her. She dug her fingers into the slope, trying to get back after Murl, tearing up the grass as she fought for traction. Mrs. Sansea got in her way again, pinning Marie down in a strong hold.
Marie kicked and thrashed violently, snarling and hissing like a feral animal. Mrs. Sansea was losing her grip.
Mr. Stansea jumped on top of them, helping to add his weight to hold her down. One of the security officers followed, the other went after Murl, who was still running.
Eventually, Marie stopped struggling, stopped snarling, stopped hissing. All they heard was a sound all too much like a dying gasp, then the adults got off of her.
The defensive knots started to relax. The crisis appeared over. Floa knew better. The thunder above was still rumbling, angrily. And if that was Marie, where was Callie? If that was Murl, where were the other two? She didn't have to think hard and she refused to stand still and do nothing.
Floa squirmed the back way out of the protective knot and took off running towards the cavern exit. Mr. and Mrs. Cuttlefish were already on the move. Mr. Cuttlefish led his wife not into the caverns but up the slope into the woods. Floa guessed they were headed for the skylight so she followed them. She was right.
The skylight was surrounded by a ring of bushes. Had she not been following the Cuttlefishes she would have missed it. A third Security officer was already there, about to go down when they arrived. He didn't protest when they insisted on going with him. He didn't seem to notice Floa.
The security officer went down first, followed by Mr. Cuttlefish, then Mrs. Cuttlefish. Floa was right behind them, having to move more carefully to avoid slipping and falling and trying to leap between the foot and handholds the adults were using. It was like when she'd climbed the walls of the old brick buildings on the old turf. One could scale several stories that way if they were brave enough.
Mrs. Cuttlefish gasped and fell to her knees next to a still form lying in a pool of blood. When Floa finally reached the bottom she realized it was Callie.
She was lying still on the floor of the cavern, the front of her clothes saturated with blue. While Mrs. Cuttlefish desperately tried to wake her, Mr. Cuttlefish lifted Callie's shirt to inspect the damage.
A horrible noise interrupted. The security officer was on his knees, retching onto the floor, not unlike Floa had that morning. He had dropped his flashlight. It shone on a pile of organic wreckage. Floa only caught a glimpse. She knew better than to look too long, lest the image be seared into the back of her mind forever. After this morning, she wasn't about to make that mistake.
"There's nothing," Mr. Cuttlefish said, sounding puzzled. "No wounds, not even scrapes – wait, this isn't blood."
He held his hand out into the moonlight, the blue fluid glinting. He smelled it. "It's theatre blood."
The relief on Mrs. Cuttlefish's face brought fresh colour to her cheeks. Floa was relieved too. She'd been so hyped up on adrenaline and distracted she hadn't had a chance to despair at Callie's condition.
Lights appeared from the three tunnels. It was the teachers from the entrance. They came in with flashlights and found another inert figure lying crumpled between two of the tunnel exits.
Floa's blood chilled as she recognized the bloody smear against the wall. Aside from the colour, it was identical to the one in her dream, right down to the splatter pattern. If this was Admus and Murl was outside, then that other body had to be Drang.
The security officer overcame his shock and told everyone not to move or touch anything, that it was now a crime scene. He went to Admus, checked his pulse, then checked on Callie before telling her parents to take her out and to the clinic. They didn't need to be told twice.
Floa decided to make herself scarce as well. In the urgency of the situation, she had remained unnoticed.
The security officer followed them out and began radioing to his partners. He spoke a bunch of code words she couldn't begin to understand before sliding back down.
Floa numbly followed Mr. and Mrs. Cuttlefish back to the cavern exit, found her own parents frantically looking for her. She looked around for Priestess Winterveil but couldn't find her. She needed to find her again, and soon. If these dreams could predict other disasters, she needed to find out as soon as she could.
Author's Notes:
I think this is one of the best chapters I've ever written in terms of prose. It's a little off my usual style, shorter and snappier in some respects, but I think it works given the things that happen in the story itself. I've written and rewritten this chapter so many times one of the main reasons I wrote this story was just to get this chapter out.
Those of you who have read earlier stories in this series were probably waiting for the old beast. Well, this is where it and Marie first "met". We also get hints of things from Floa and Priestess Winterveil. What could this mean? Some of you probably already know but others might have to wait longer to find out.
I very much hope you like this chapter and I hope it was worth the wait because I know some of you have been waiting literally years for this.
Also, wanting to address a question that was raised:
Yes, Marie has a stuffed penguin and bat. Penguins are not (as far as I know) extinct in the world of Splatoon because they aren't mammals and are semi-aquatic. As for mammals in general, they would know about them as much as we do dinosaurs. Our kids have toy dinosaurs and their kids have toys like bats and bears and stuff. With most mammals extinct, fluffy things are kind of a novel thing.