//------------------------------//
// Charybdis 
// Story: Shadows Swarmed Below 
// by Jay Bear v2 
//------------------------------//

6. 
I started skipping our swing dancing classes. We were both busy studying for finals, I told myself, so I wasn’t avoiding him. But I also started skipping our study sessions. 
Sandbar left a note on my door one day. He wrote that we should take an afternoon off to relax, maybe go paddleboarding at the lake. He asked what my plans were for the summer, whether I needed help packing up my room, if pony history made any more sense when I studied it by myself. I think that last one was his way of poking fun at me.
I didn’t write back.
After finals, we had a few days before they kicked us out of the dorms for summer, so to kill the time I found a good tree on the edge of campus and practiced pouncing on squirrels. Even with Ponyville squirrels being so lazy, I didn’t have any luck. Good thing I didn’t have to go back to Griffonstone.
I think I went up there to figure out what to write back to Sandbar, but his sixth sense about me kicked in before I got anywhere. He showed up at the base of my tree one muggy morning while I was distracted watching a fat gray squirrel.
“Hey, uh, do you want to come down a minute?” he asked.
“Why don’t you come up?”
The doofus actually put his forelegs around the trunk and tried to shimmy up. I had to float down to stop him.
He reached for a hug when I landed, but stopped himself. “My parents are putting together a big dinner for the six of us.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah, they’re cool. I think you’d like them.”
“I bet.”
“Actually, they want to meet you. Maybe for brunch tomorrow.” He rubbed his forelegs together. “Or we could take that trip to the lake. My sis really wants to learn how to paddleboard, too.”
His smile, even pained, beamed like the first sunrise of summer. It made my heart sink.
“I don’t know.”
A tear glistened in his eyes. I wanted so badly to brush it away, but he had to do it himself. “Do you have to fly back to Griffonstone soon?”
“Nah. I’ve got a job in Dodge Junction.”
His ears perked up with hope. He probably thought it’d be easier for us to visit each other over the break since I was staying in Equestria.
“It’s only a few weeks, though,” I added. “I’m not sure where I’m going afterward.”
“So do you want to meet my family before you go to Dodge Junction?”
“Not really.”
A squirrel chattered nearby. Probably sending out a warning about me to its squirrel buddies.
Sandbar swallowed. “Do you want to meet them...ever?” 
I wish I had had the strength to say what I should have. To not make him fill in the blanks. 
“No.”
He sniffled. “Because you’re breaking up with me.”
“Yeah.”
I should have said something else. One word wasn’t enough.
“Was it something I…” His voice cracked. “Please tell me why.”
I hadn’t sorted it out before then. All the time I spent with Sandbar had been incredible, from swing dancing and surfing to the calmness that came with holding him tight. I liked him everything about him. A lot. To the point that I got grouchy if I thought about him leaving me.
So when he asked me then, I didn’t expect to come up with an answer so quickly.
“Remember what I told you about griffons roosting?”
He made a tiny nod.
“It’s summer. Time to throw out the nest.”
For a second, he didn’t react. He simply stared at me. “This isn’t how you treat someone you love—”
“Please, don’t.” I didn’t have the energy keep listening. “Don’t say it. It’s not even real. It’s just hormones making you nice to someone so you can get what you want from them. It’s biology. They only call it ‘love’ to make it sound romantic.”
“Y-you said…you loved me.” He shook with each word, 
“C’mon, dude. Don’t make me spell it out.”
I could have flown away and left him to deal. But I’d messed up leading him on so long. If a final hug would help, I wanted to stay and offer it.
Then he glared daggers at me. “Bullshit,” he spat. “That’s bullshit and you know it, Gallus.”

	* * *

He didn’t need to make me feel any worse. He could have cried on my shoulder and I could have buried my beak into his mane. Held him one last time. We could have gone back to being friends. But, no, he had to yell at me, so I had to yell back at him until we ran out of shitty things to scream at each other.
We told everyone it was amicable. No need to cancel the summer plans. Maybe we learned how to fake it from Cozy Glow.
Now that I think about it, “Please be care—” is the first thing he’s said to me in months. I couldn’t even let him finish.







The wedge—the iron weight crushing my leg, trapping me at the bottom of the ocean with one dwindling lungful of air—won’t move.
I shove my talons underneath it, scrabbling for purchase. Stings flare across my claws as stones scrape against them. Using my free leg to push against the ground, I lift but slip instantly. The rock is too slick with algae to grip. 
I need help, need to call for help. The pit can’t be that deep, but if I try to yell I’ll just give up all the air I’ve got left. My lungs already burn like the time I swallowed a dragon’s tears pepper on a dare. Banging rocks together might make some noise—
The rockslide! It was loud enough! My friends must have wondered what caused it. They’re probably swimming down right now. I turn my head up to find them—
There’s nothing above except twisting ribbons of light.
Even if they stuck around, your “friends” still think you’ve got the necklace.
Grampa Gruff’s voice is right. I need to save myself.
The rock is slick underneath, that’s why I couldn’t lift it. Could I slide my leg out? I lean down, gingerly tracing the outline of my trapped leg. Delicate twinges at my hip turn to sharp throbs at my knee, but fade into a fuzzy ache as I near the wedge. It’s a bad sign for ever using that paw again, but I’ll worry about it later. I wrap my talons around my leg and pull.
Stars bloom. I let go, but my leg hasn’t moved an inch. I begin to feel around the floor, trying to find a rock I can use as lever so I can free my paw.
No, you need to free YOURSELF. Your paw can stay.
Bile rises in my throat. I’ve ripped open enough prey to know how easily flesh tears with a flick of the claw. Breaking bone is the hard part. It feels like I won’t have to worry about it this time.
My vision tinges with red. I lean towards my trapped paw again. My talons tense—or, I think they do, they’ve turned numb and clumsy. I touch claws to leg, my arms shaking wildly. Shocks like electric currents sizzle across my shin. My arms jerk away, but I force them back.
It won’t hurt as much if I do this quick, I tell myself. Not sure how much I believe it, but I gird myself anyway. 
Then I hear music. Drawn-out, arrhythmic tones devoid of any familiar melody trickle through the water. Out of the corner of my eye I see motion, a shadow swirling through the water. A second form follows it. They curl and twist through my field of view like spirits of two lovers.
They’re real. They’ve come to save me.
Ghosts aren’t real. No one’s coming save you.
What else could they be? Not the charybdis, it’s dead. 
Or it went away and left a kid behind. A kid you woke up with your little temper tantrum.
Now I understand the music, warped by the acoustics of this watery pit. The shadows are not ghosts but tentacles, probing the cavern to search for prey.
To search for me.
Any movement could draw its attention, but I can’t stay still. My lungs feel like they’re about to burst out of my chest. In a slow and smooth motion, I crouch into a kneeling potion. I have no choice now. My talons slither to my shin, my claws primed.
I clench.
I don’t even break skin before I let out a guttural moan. I can’t help it. For a second my vision goes black and my ears ring. All I can think about is the numbness now reaching to my hips and shoulders. I let go and unfold. Tension eases from my body.
My sight returns in a series of growing halos. The ringing fades from my ears, replaced by a sloshing sound as one of the tentacles race towards me. I slash at it with both talons and snap my beak, but they fall short. The tentacle pauses just out of my reach. The second is to my side, further away. Lulling notes fill the water again.
So this is how it goes. Trapped alone with an orphaned charybdis in its den, and every part of it is my own fault. I brought it here by being noisy. I invaded its home chasing made-up spectres. And I gave my friends every reason to leave me.
But I’m going to earn another chance. If I can claw my way through this by myself, and drag whatever’s left of me to shore, then I’ll deserve that. When I do, I’ll throw myself at their claws and hooves and beg them to forgive me. Even if they don’t, I’ll tell them all what they mean to me.
Yona. Smolder. Ocellus. Silverstream.
And Sandbar.
So, c’mon.
C’mon.
Come on!
I’m right here! I’m easy pickings!
COME ON!
Why is it just floating there? What is it waiting for?!
You really were a dumbass, Gramp Gruff’s voice says. Did you forget what Silverstream said? It wasn’t ever going to fight you.
It’s been waiting for you to drown.
My chest no longer aches. My trapped leg doesn’t sting. All my pain is gone, I realize, because there’s nothing but fuzzy numbness from my face to my tail. My muscles slacken and I sag. My vision goes black. The music dissipates into echos.
My last sparks of consciousness dim like wisps of the galaxy at sunrise…
When I feel water rushing at me.
I spring, my talons and beak spread wide, and burrow in. Ribbons of muscle tauten against my claws. Warm fluid washes across my face. Blood teases my tongue. Flesh squirms against my embrace.
I rip it apart.
My beak snaps, my arms tear, my paw rakes, all in vicious circles digging through my shadowy attacker. Every strike is answered with squeals made distant by my dulled hearing. Something bats my side, tugs my arm, but I do not relent, even as a light flashes around me. Vigor fills me, but my talons go dead. I pummel with them instead—somehow, my arms are longer now, they wrap around—and sink my beak deeper. My vision comes back, sharper than it's ever been. There’s a dark figure frantically gesturing at my side.
I can hear again. Silverstream’s voice cries for me to stop, to let go, while Sandbar moans pathetically from somewhere very close… 
No. No. It’s not him, no.
I freeze. My jaw slackens. My arms and tentacles peel away.
Please. Not him. Please. Please.
A shadowy figure of a seapony appears in my grasp. Black plumes flow from the muzzle I used to so tenderly kiss, now mutilated by my beak.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no… 
Repeated denial fills my head with my own voice. Grampa Gruff’s rasp doesn’t have anything to say to me anymore.
Sandbar sputters, and I reflexively cradle him. “I’m sorry,” I say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
He only whimpers.
I try to rise, but one of my tentacles is still trapped under rock. I flex and relax to free it. It’s like squeezing a pincushion, but I make progress inch by inch.
Why couldn’t I have torn it off when it was a paw and I had claws? Why did I throw myself into this pit? None of my useless apologies will heal Sandbar, but he has to know that I wish so much that we could trade places. If he swam down and got trapped, I’d save him without question. I’d take a thousand swung hooves to the face, crawl through miles of narrow tunnels, let my beak be torn away, if it would take away the pain I’ve caused him.
I’d give anything to make him happy again.
Everything starts to burble out, my words tripping over themselves, but an epiphany comes. The impossible turns inescapable. Made-up stories become real. I only need to say one word to him.
“Sandbar, I love y—”
His hoof presses against my beak, silencing me. My arms go slack. He’s drifting away from me, momentarily an earth pony, before Silverstream grabs him and turns him back into a seapony with her magic necklace. She rises silently through the clouds of viscera that flow from Sandbar.
His necklace is stuck in my beak, keeping me as a squid. He wouldn’t let me finish. Maybe he meant to keep the necklace secure on me. Maybe he thought he was saving me from another lie. Or maybe he was only protecting himself from me.
I am cruel, and Silverstream must carry Sandbar through the remnants of my cruelty. Soon I’ll pass through those clouds too, but I know now that they will follow me. I’ve made monsters I can never drive it away.