His phone was a lead weight in his pocket.
(Well crap,) Soma thought, (I knew I'd need a sword.)
Soma had no sword so he also had no choice.
He pushed off of the step and let himself fall. Better the fall than to be mauled in that tight space, better some chance than none at all. The creature behind him roared and Soma swallowed a yell as the air rushed up around him. He flailed in space trying to find something to grab. (Gotta slow down! Gotta slow down-oh-shit-shit-shit!) The air kept rushing, he should have hit something by now, (She said three stories not-!)
Then he did hit, hit a surface that gave with a splash and passed through into the bracing shock of cold water. A moment of stunned confusion and a lack of being dead was followed by frantic floundering as Soma pushed off of the bottom of the flooded chamber and kicked his way up. He broke into air with a choked sputter and suppressed the need to cough as hard as he could. That thing was still up there. He had to get out of the water, find cover, hope that Flintstick would find him before it did.
(What the actual hell is going on!?) Blind and acting on instinct he reached out and felt for either a platform or the wall which would guide him to one. There were always platforms in the aqueducts. (No idea what that thing was, could have been anything at this point. Here's hoping it can't swim…) Flat cold stone met his fingertips and for what must have been the fifth time that night Soma pulled himself out of the water and onto semi-dry land.
(I'm getting really, really tired of this. It's so damn cold.) Soma crouched on the stone, catching his breath, shivered as he strained to hear either his companion or the monster in the dark. He thought he could just make out distant growling but it could have been anything, even the reverb from his landing was still moving down the walls distorting as it went. If Flinststick even knew he had gone, if she was calling to him, he couldn't hear it at all.
Gradually the echoes faded and his shivers calmed. Despite the cold his legs felt stronger underneath him as his awareness sharpened. Somewhere in the dark a stone fell into the water, somewhere else he could hear the faint pull of a current snaking away to god knows where. But no growling, no roaring, no small fairy calling. It seemed once again he was alone.
(Okay. Stop a minute and think.) He straightened, winced as the wet fabric of his shirt squeezed between his shoulder blades. (I'm gonna freeze before anything has a chance to eat me, clearly things are still trying that. One thing at a time, where did this water come from?) He felt for the wall again, found it and held on. Having something solid under his palm in the dark was a comfort. (Flintstick said there was a floor. I didn't land anywhere near a floor. She had no reason to lie so where did the floor go?) Of course he remembered losing the door back to the aqueducts, the empty rooms he'd flung open in the search for a staircase that had vanished like a thought. (Did the castle move to save me? Holy crap does this place want me dead or not?!) Without gear or ability souls he would have been lucky to walk away from that fall, the water had spared him. (What does this place want from me?)
He'd have asked Flintstick but if the castle had moved there was no way to know how far apart they were. (Shelve that thought. It doesn't matter now. If I've lost her I've lost that monster too and bought myself some time. I needed to get to the aqueduct or the furnaces and I'm in the aqueduct. Mission accomplished. Now I can find…shit!)
Soma closed his eyes and tossed his head back cursing again silently. (I've lost my light source! How am I going to find anyone in this without Flintstick! I lost my sword, I'm losing my mind, and I've lost my only light in this godforsaken haunted mansion.) He bit back a groan. (I can't even use my phone this time, there's no way in hell…) into his pocket went his hand, out came that hand and his phone. He pressed the power button.
The wonder on Soma's face when the screen lit up felt worshipful. (I… what..? I don't care. This phone has been blessed by a higher power and I am not worthy.)
He turned it so that the light faced the floor, minimizing his presence but still giving him the ability to see what was beneath him. (Have to find some kind of weapon, even a stone would be better than nothing. I've seen sharp ones down here before.) Breaking one off the ceiling would make noise but it would be worth it to have some defense. (Find a weapon, find the girl, find the way out. And find some warmth before I freeze. And to think this morning it was too hot…) The morning felt like a lifetime ago. Whether that was the events of the day of the influence of the castle he'd never be able to swear to. Soma started walking.
It was hard to tell if this was the area he had passed through before. The darkness and lack of clear landmarks wasn't helpful, everything was damp stone brick and blackness above and below. He considered that he ought to be marking his path somehow; if he could that would prevent him doubling back or searching the same place more than once, but he had nothing on him to mark with. The only change he could perceive was in the water which was gradually growing louder, starting to splash and lap at the sides of the passage and dampen the footing. (Must be a descent of some sort ahead. I'm probably close to a larger area.) He held his phone higher. (Can't see it yet but I can definitely hear it.) The indicator for battery remaining was disturbingly low; he had minutes left at best. (No-no-no don't you do it, you've survived too long to go out on me now.) He quickly opened the settings menu (What if I decrease the brightness? Can I stretch it out for…)
Soma stopped and studies at the screen of his phone, really studied it. The battery had been low before he fell, how low he couldn't swear to but… (What is happening..?) It was higher than it had been a moment ago. He was sure of it. And as he watched it continued to change, increasing from 5 percent to 7, then dropping to 3 before jumping up to 10, all the while the symbols at the top of the screen never indicated a charge. (Okay that's strange. That's an entirely different kind of strange.) 4 to 15, to 7 again, 9 to 5. It seemed unable to rise over 10 but it also wasn't dying. (Is there some kind of base electric charge in this area? I don't feel anything, and no, wait… no. Even if there was that wouldn't make sense either. I have no idea how this is working.)
Maybe it was haunted too. Why not? Anything was possible in the castle. But it did give him an idea. (If I don't have to worry about the battery then maybe I can utilize all of my functions?)
Soma opened the camera, indicated flash, and took a picture of the darkness in front of him. It wasn't as good as Flintstick but for a moment the phone lit up the pitch and he glimpsed a hint of pillars, a distant wall, and some truly ugly stone fish carvings. (Hell yes! As long as I don't hear any enemies this will make things much easier.) More confident in his steps Soma made his way through the chamber, using his screen light and snapping black pictures that revealed water worn walls beneath great arches of stone carved like desiccated sea creatures. He didn't remember these designs but that may have had more to do with the lack of evil angry fish head pillars than anything else.
(I don't think this is the way I came before.) Soma eyed the space and snapped a few pics to line up the jump to another platform. (But that's fine. The girl from the train must be somewhere I hadn't been or I'd have found her on my way up. I could be getting close) The alternative of course was that she had been on his path and he'd missed her because she had drowned before he even knew she was there. He might even have jumped over her in the dark. (Don't think about it! Stop it! Stop doing that! She's fine. I need to believe it and I've got no proof she isn't! It's morbid and pointless to think this way and I've got to stop doing this.)
Soma knew himself. He knew he was a decent student who excelled in problem solving tasks. He was a sociable loner. He was a good friend, a more or less honest person, and he was damn good in a crisis. He had been tested, twice, and he had passed. Sure there'd been nightmares, sure he'd had moments, of course he felt different about the world than he had before the castle. He knew more. That happened. (But I don't imagining horrible deaths for strangers!) And he hadn't felt this thrown by the castle since that first time a skeleton had attacked Mina in the courtyard. (There' something else going on here. I know the castle is off, but is there be a connection there? Is the castle making me 'off' too?)
The only time during this insane situation that he'd felt like himself had been on the train. He'd been unarmed against the thing that attacked him but he'd been ready and willing to improvise, to fight. (Then it used some version of the power to rule against me, I hit the wall…) And then? He wasn't certain, he'd rallied somehow and managed to turn his own power back on the monster, force it from the car. (I called the castle, I fought with the teleport room which… hell if I know what I even fought in there. Some kind of legion?) But it hadn't looked like a legion, and whatever that was that had pulled itself through the floor hadn't been something he'd faced before either.
(There's a bigger difference between the monster's I've encountered this time around than those prior disasters, and it's not just the range of them. The galleries actually been really small. But Flintstick is completely different than what I fought on the train, and what I faced in that room was something else all over again. I don't understand it fully but I know there is and it's got to be important.) Even Death had changed. He hadn't felt as he had in the past and Soma knew what to expect from the reaper. Death was the biggest castle monster of them all. (Except me…) Soma shook that thought away as well. (Death isn't as threatening because he-)
Soma stopped walking. (Holy crap.) He took a steadying breath. (He really wasn't my enemy. What I felt on the train and in that room was malice, rage, focused intent. I've learned how that feels in my past fights. When something plans to kill even the air feels heavy. Those things wanted me dead but Death honeslty doesn't, Flintstick doesn't, both are denizens of the castle itself. What I faced in that room wasn't the train monster but… did it not belong to the castle? Can other things get in from outside? Death said the castle was safe but I know better than that. What if the walls are full of those things?)
The water was now a dull roar and the flash from his phone showed a gaping descent into a far larger cavern space. And for a moment the light caught something more, a shock of pink amid the black and grey. (Wait!) Another flash, his eyes desperately scanning though the sudden illumination thrown off by the fast moving water. There again! Further down on a small outcropping, something pink!
Soma flung himself down towards that color, feeling the water pelt his face and hands before he slammed torso first onto the stone. He scrambled to pull himself onto the wet surface, kicking and writing until a foot found purchase on another wall piece out of his sight and he boosted himself up with a grunt. Out came the phone, another flash of light, enough to see that the pink which had drawn him down was a scrap of fabric caught between two rocks. She had been here. She was not here now.
"Kimarie!" Desperate that she might be nearby Soma abandoned caution, shouting into the darkness beyond the reach of his phone light; "Kimarie where are you? If you can hear me say something! Kimarie !"
The distant roar of the water, the echo if his own voice, nothing more. Another flash from his camera showed another platform below at the water's edge and Soma slid down the wall to reach it. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called again; "Kimarie I'm here to help! Can you hear me? Make a sound, say something, anything!"
This time there was a reply. Something in that darkness wetly giggled. The sound cut through the echoes of Soma's call and the sound of falling water and froze the blood in his veins. That was no little girl, that could not be Kimarie. (I have no sword) The water of the pool shook and the ripples fought against those being cast from the falls. (I have no souls) Several feet ahead of him a light was rising up beneath the surface, a florescent crescent glow growing larger and brighter as something rose swiftly from the unseen depths of the pool. Soma braced himself and prepared to meet whatever was coming for him. (Take its weapon, do what I can, escape!)
When the light broke the surface the cavern entire was cast into soft rippling patterns, the water distorting and reflecting the illumination around the space turning the harsh stone into a misty grotto. Beneath that luminous orb as his eyes adjusted Soma saw the origin of the muffled amusement and in turn lost his breath.
She was unearthly in the halo the glow cast above her, a vision of a woman hip deep in the water with her long pearlescent hair cast down across her shoulders and over her dripping chest and waist. Her ears parted through the wet strands in elegant arcs shaped like small horn edged fins and her cheeks beneath her pale lashes were dusted with milky scales. When she spied him in turn her azure eyes widened and a smile parted her lips, showing teeth white and sharp. She dipped lower in the water, the reaction appearing modest as if she were concealing her willowy form. With the dark pool lapping about her chin she smiled up at him in coy delight and he found himself smiling back at her.
She giggled again, the sound moving oddly in the space, her hair waving around her like a veil, her eyes catching her light starlike as she gazed at him and he realized they were closer than they had been, that he must have knelt, for her chin still touched the water but those soft lashes were much clearer now, curved and sweeping her cheek with each blink. He thought that he could look at her for hours and some new thing would enchant and delight him every minute of it, and he wanted to. There was a desire in him that had not been moments ago; a need to possess, an urge to covet. She would tuck so well into his arm and he could see those soft cheeks and wide eyes framed by the fur of his coat.
He wished for her to smile to form just for him beneath her glance so tender, to touch the curve of her lip with his finger, to draw her to him. Her arms came out from the pool as if sensing his desires and her hands settled atop his where they grasped the edge of the platform. They were cold, terribly cold, but she was almost close enough to kiss and he found his lips parting even as she pulled herself further upward and opened her mouth in turn…
Something broke the spell, he couldn't say what it was; perhaps it was the realization that there was no breath coming from the mouth mere inches from his own. Perhaps the distant realization that the giggling he heard still sounded like it was coming from beneath the water. Perhaps the ripples finally caught his attention in that they were bigger than she appeared to be. Or perhaps it was the last whisper from his mind that it wouldn't be like kissing Mina was. Whatever made him hesitate saved him for when he leaned back and away from her he Saw.
In the water beneath her other lights had opened to cast their own pale glow and the many florescent protuberances under the surface revealed a monstrous anglerfish, it's eyes blinding and terrible beacons as it stared up at him with a gaping maw. She was only the tip of its lure.
Soma hurled himself backwards with a yell of shock and pain as the nails of the decoy ripped at the back his hands. She lunged upward, reaching for him with eyes rolled back to white and daggers claws as the laughter beneath the water slid into a shriek of frustration. Lacking other immediate options Soma fell into a haphazard stance and slammed his fist hard into her nose. The impact did nothing to stop the attack though her head shot back and hung limply. Her nose broke beneath his knuckles but didn't even bleed. Her grab likewise was completely unaffected and she seized his shoulders, nails catching deep in fabric; before he could strike her again she'd pulled him with force into the water.
Fully submerged and looking down into the terrible maw of the monster Soma struggled in blind panic to reach the surface but he was caught fast by the lures talons. The monster laughed, a distorted wet sound with enough power to make his skin vibrate at this range. As the lure began to tilt lowering its struggling quarry towards its needle jaws Soma twisted and choked, terror and the absence of air making him uncoordinated and desperate before his logical brain finally clicked on. In a last ditch gambit for freedom Soma let his arms go limp in his sleeves and kicked hard with his feet at the stalk of the angler monster. His gamble worked and in a rush of air bubbles Soma slipped free of his coat and the lures grasp.
Frantic swimming, guided to the surface by only the lack of light and horror fish, Soma breached the water heaving and gasping for breath. He was disoriented in the dark and unsure where the platforms were leaving him stranded in open water and already mourning his coat, but alive! (Screw you demon fish!) He mentally crowed, (Thought you could evil mermaid my ass but-) The chamber shook with the anger of the monster beneath him and he did not need to look down to know it was rising fast, he could feel the water being pushed up and away from its furious ascent. He had to do something now or die in a manner he'd never even factored into his nightmares. The light of its spines and eyes flooded the dark beneath him as for a moment he was a small bobbing speck of darkness above the florescent horror. He took a deep breath.
As the monster broke the surface the force of its wake threw him into the air. Free from the water and lighter without his coat Soma was just able to align himself to press with his foot against the upper lip of the beast, all cartilage and bone, and use that grounding to thrust himself away from its mouth. The monster roared and snapped its jaw, almost reaching him with its overbite but Soma threw himself across the forehead of the beast and grabbed the base of its trashing lure. The stalk was thin compared to the rest of the fish but still almost as thick as Soma's thigh and proved a solid hold to keep from being tossed free.
It also brought him back beneath his coat and the one weapon he always had on him, small as it was. His pocket knife. He jammed one hand into his pocket with the other clutching the stalk and pulled his knife free, flipping it open with practiced ease and his own killing intent. He had to level the playing field and he only saw one way to do it. But he'd need more reach. Soma stuck his knife hard into the lure stalk above him and when the form at the end writhed and tried to grab for him he jumped upward to catch one grasping hand at the wrist, locking them as it seized his arm back and slicing his blade hard against the palm of its reaching partner. The monster roared and thrashed at the surface of the pool more irritated than hurt. It curled the lure to bring him close to its mouth.
But now Soma had grounding and a bungee cord. He dug his fingers into the wrist he had seized and swung, using his weight and momentum to move him past the edge of the jaw and in range of his target, the giant true eyes of the monster. His knife made the initial piercing and Soma snarled as he followed that force with his fist tearing the creatures iris wide.
A scream of true pain pierced the cavern as the monster half blinded slammed about in desperate jerking throws. Soma was ripped up and away from the damage and whipped about in the air as the lure desperately tried to toss him free but his blood was up and his strength rose to meet it. Fingers sank through skin to pierce muscle as he secured himself in his grip, heedless of the creatures claws shredding his skin in turn, and its fingers severed when the other hand tried again to seize him but met his knife instead. His own battle cry answered the wails of the monster beneath him and resonated in the chamber as if belonging to a greater being. He would win this fight, he had to, if it took a thousand cuts he would not stop. He would never stop.(I will get back to Mina!)
The thrashing of the creature brought them to a wall, the last leverage he needed. Soma used this to kick off of and hurled himself towards his remaining target. He watched the great lamp contract as he approached but before he could reach its thin cover the monster pulled him away with its lure and the terrible jaws moved in a ghastly pantomime of speach.
"Wait-! W—wait!" It cried out, it's true voice was a dry croaking until it sank lower in the water and its gills filled, then it became the wail of a woman to almost match its lure's form. "Wretched morsel you have taken my eye, broken my dancer, is that not enough for you? I am bid to guard this place and I have done my duty. Release me and I will let you leave if only because I do not want any more of you in me then I have received!"
"You started this!" Soma snarled back, "And you have something I want and I will take it!" He couldn't disengage now, he didn't trust it and he couldn't have this thing swimming about as he searched, lurking, ready to ambush in the dark and holding a grudge. He was no idiot and he was owed a soul and so ready to have one at his disposal one again. Eager and hungry the power reached out of him to the monster below, testing weakness, ready to seize and claim.
And the monster felt it. Recognition blew its remaining pupil wide. "Master!? Is that you? You have become a morsel!" The great fish struggled, its indecision visible as it fought to decide whether to kowtow or kill. Discretion proved the better part of valor as the beast stretched its lure so that Soma could plant his feet on a platform if he chose to. "I did not know, how could I know? Why did you not say? I would never have been so bold as to… if I had known who you were… mercy, master, mercy! I was only doing as you bid me!"
"I bid nothing! I don't even know you!" Soma squeezed harder into the limb he held, not trusting for a moment to release his grip as it could clearly still reach him here. "If someone came down here and told you to do something it was someone else, if you want to make this easier on yourself you'll tell me what they looked like!" If somehow there was already another wanna be dark lord in here with him Soma would lose his mind.
"No Master, only you! But with that child's soul I assumed you wanted—"
"What soul." All tone fled Soma's voice, the light of the lure above him failed to reflect from his eyes. Somewhere between horrified and grimly numb he knew the answer already, between his fingers bone cracked and the Siren angler jerked in fright. "What have you done with her." His wrath gave teeth to his power and he perceived the monster's pulsing blue spirit just beyond his reach. It was wispy to his sight, tethered to something, tethered to another. He would tear them apart.
"She is mine!" An angry hiss answered him, petulant, childlike itself in tone as if perceiving a toy was to be taken away, failing utterly to realize what she was about to lose. The tone lowered, rasped, becoming less human as the silence from Soma grew heavier. "You cannot have it back, you gave it to me! I won't go back to being a lesser demon!" The malice of the monster rose again, the nodes across its body began to shiver and cast sparks between them, the air crackled and charged. Soma gave no response and the siren angler grew angrier still in the face of this. She roared out with a spray of water; "And I will not answer to a master who manifests as a morsel and doesn't honor his boons! Maybe its time for a change of hierarchy, maybe I'll be the master now!"
The rage was Soma's, the blow that landed wasn't. For a moment he almost believed that it could have been, that he had reached deep enough to somehow touch a soul long since claimed and lost because the form plunging past him was familiar. The great face of the warg brushing over his shoulder as it leapt down upon his foe was right but it was no disembodied soul. The full weight of the living beast came down upon the angler's head and roared out a guttural 'Traitor!' as it's great fangs tore out the monsters remaining eye.
Howling with agony the monstrous fish loosed its gathered power in an unfocused blast that brought one of the walls of the chamber crumbling down. As the ceiling trembled and brickwork blasted outwards the water of the floor rushed with it, slamming fish and warg alike into the rubble as the pool drained. The lights of the angler flickered out and the room plunged back into complete darkness.
Separated from his phone and blind on his perch Soma listened to the screams of the beached fish and the wet tearing sounds of the warg as it ate its way through it and shook with helpless rage. (She was a child… just a little kid!) His fist clutched harder around his knife, his eyes burned, his jaw ached. (Just a kid who wanted to get back to her parents and that thing…. That monster…)
"Master!" The angler wailed, "Merc-!" a loud wet crunch and a broken shriek heralded the monsters end. Briefly illuminating the darkness a rolling blue soul burst up from the space below and flew true to sink into Soma's chest.
Soma's awareness and senses expanded as the new spirit settled beside his own, passive in death and with no secrets from him now. (Oh crap.) Soma's jaw dropped and his pocket knife slipped his grasp but he didn't notice. Armed with what that soul knew Soma's wrath bled away into an abrupt shock. (Oh my God how?! What?!.No!) He had to get to the corpse now before it burned as so many monsters did or the warg…(No-no-no-no-no!)
He sent out the new soul hopeful it would be of some help reaching the floor and groaned aloud as what he got for his trouble was a floating form of the monsters lure which, outside of lending some light to the air, did nothing to improve his situation.
"Master!" That voice, he knew it, Flintstick! He could hear her though just barely, she sounded excited but also far off. "Master hold on, I'm coming, I'm almost… why is this tunnel so long!? Say something you mangy mutt! Did you find him? Hey! Hey!"
From the floor below the unseen warg gave an irritable grumble which trailed off into a whine that sounded…almost doggish? The whining was joined by the sound of paws tapping and excited panting and Soma perceived just barely in the light his angler soul cast that on the floor beneath it the massive wolf was jumping up, front legs splayed open as if to catch it. (Are you kidding me?) He couldn't believe it. (All that thing dropped was a glowing doll?!)
"Sombody say something!" She was closer now. "Am I talking to myself!? Bluey! Master!"
"I'm here Flintstick!" Soma shouted. "You're almost here!"
"Master!" moments later the distinct sound of her wings reached him and a beat after that Flintstick shot out of the passage above him still spilling water into the room. "Master I was so sca—ooooooh…" The fairy zipped down not to him but to the glowing lure in the air before him like a moth drawn to light.
Abruptly Soma realized that analogy was 110% accurate as he felt the soul start to gather a charge. (It's not a doll, it's an electric doll trap!) Before his familiar could reach the trap Soma dismissed it, leaving Flintstick hovering dazed and the warg below them cutting off mid whine. "Sorry Flintstick, not a friendly soul." There wasn't time for further explanation. "Help me find a way down!"
"M-master? What was..? O, Oh! Right, of course!" She zipped over to him and flew in tight excited circles about his head. "I was so worried! You're pretty high up, what if you slide down? You just disappeared and then the whole area went haywire! Or maybe you could jump over there? It that solid? I don't think that's solid. And I was almost clotheslined by a bookshelf! Ooh there's not enough water to try that. No one keeps books in the aqueducts so I knew you'd be furious but; master, you're shivering!"
Soma had noticed that. With the adrenaline from the battle gone and his clothes soaked through yet again it was mostly his fear keeping him standing. His teeth had started chattering but there wasn't time for this now, he didn't know how long they had or how she was still alive. "It doesn't matter! Just help me—"
The warg landed on the platform before him in a great bound, its nails scratching the stone and its fur up and bristling. Soma saw that it's eyes just beyond Flintstick's glow were two red points in the darkness and realized with a start that he recognized them. This was the monster that he had escaped on the staircase before falling down here. Instinct ordered he brace for another fight but the wargs aura held him back. This was not an attack. (Don't question it now, roll with it, save her!) He held his hand out and the massive beast moved forward and rested its terrible jaws on his palm.
"Master…" it rumbled, the sound more a growl than tone. "Forgive my failings. I was slow to your aid."
"Help me down there!" They would clear this up later. "I need to get down now, can you do that?!"
"As you wish." It pulled its head back and lowered its nose to the floor, exposing the rolling fur along its spine and shoulders. "Mount me and it will be done."
Soma was cold and going stiff, more than he'd realized. when he tried to jump forward to clear some of that neck his muscles failed him and he landed hardly above the monsters massive head. It simply lifted its neck as if his weight were no bother, sliding him back until he was able to orient himself and swing his legs around to sit astride properly. The hair he seized was thick and almost sharp, matted and with a faint musty scent but incredibly strong as he held its scruff and braced against the vibration of the beast sliding down the wall.
At the feeling of the wolf's paws meeting flat ground Soma slid off and staggered in the direction of the corpse. "Flintstick! Light!"
"Here!" She flashed ahead and hovered over the desecated form. "You too Bluey!"
"I do not answer to you pixie." The warg growled but it opened its mouth all the same and a strange glow filled the air around it from the back of its throat and its many teeth.
Soma worked fast, he tore deep between the scales of the anglers belly, easily ripping through the weak tissues of a form nearly faded from being. A rush of water as something pierced, a stench of gas as the swim bladder burst. And there, more tenacious by far than the flesh around it, a knot of tissue like a cancer nodule lodged deep and high in the carcass as if the monster still clung jealously to her prize. "I need this opened but carefully!" He couldn't feel movement through the mass, was she suffocating? "Hurry!"
The warg's blue fangs bit into the tissue and tore. The carcass they were in to the waist jerked suddenly as if in one last desperate attempt to live, slapping its fins and tail on the floor as it jolted through its second death spasms until the mass burst open and an small form slid into Soma's shaking arms. Immediately the remnants around them caught blaze and burned away to nothing leaving only the water, the smell, and the girl.
"…Kimarie..?"