//------------------------------// // A Black Ocean // Story: A Dreamless World // by SilverHoof1 //------------------------------//     Selena     She must look absolutely insane right now. Gemini was standing next to her with her arms crossed, smirking evilly. "Aw come on cheer up! A little insanity never hurt anyone,"     "It most certainly has, and I'm not insane!" Selena snapped, glaring at her body double. She at least didn't have to worry about talking to herself - it seemed her companions couldn't hear her if she spoke to Gemini, but that was only a small bonus compared to the embarrassment she had already been subjected too. When she had tried to tell them about Gemini, she suddenly found herself unable to breathe, her breath hitching in her throat as her lungs seemed to stop working for a moment. "Hey now kiddo, no telling supernatural beings about me, understand?" Gemini had purred into her ear, gesturing to Bio and Pomella.     "It's too much of a pain to deal with, what with their magic powers and blah blah blah," she rolled her eyes, and Selena had found herself coughing as her ability to breath returned. Then when she had cleared the water away, Gemini had spoken through her mouth while the words brutalized her own ears. It had been even worse to see Pomella and Bio watch her though, their eyes wide as they watched her in horror...     "If you're going to be living in my head, then I need you to stay out of my life for the most part... including private life," Selena hissed at her, never wanting to see such looks again. At least, not unless it was completely necessary.     "Well, of course, I was just about to take my leave since I am no longer needed after all - just had to harass you a bit before I left," Gemini conceded, grinning mischievously right into her face. They had begun to walk into the water, Pomella creating a glowing blue orb between her fingers to illuminate the ball of air as they walked as well as a few feet of the murky depths beyond it. "Although I have a feeling you would prefer to see Bio go - or at least like to 'watch' her go if you know what I mean..."     Selena's face turned beet red as Gemini mimed slapping the air, then vanished in a poof of smoke while cackling all the way. Selena cursed under her breath, then turned her focus back to their surroundings rather than Gemini. They were fully submerged by now, the air pocket moving with them as they slowly walked down deeper and deeper into the sea, the undead fish and other creatures taking a second to watch them pass with unblinking, rotting eyes. Those that had eyes, at least - the others just stared with bony sockets. She shivered slightly, unconsciously pressing closer to Bio who still had an arm around her.     "The sea knows we're here..." Bio mumbled under her breath, looking at the watching fish with a tiny amount of worry. Selena still had trouble telling what she was feeling at times, but she liked to think she was getting better at it.     "Yeah, I just have to hope it's more friendly than it looks..." Pomella grumbled from upfront, frowning at a dark silhouette just outside of her light that Selena thought might have been a shark. "This wouldn't happen to include some kind of shield, would it?"     "No sadly, it's just to keep the water from touching us, but anything other than the water can enter freely," Selena responded sadly, grimacing as the question shifted her focus to her gloved hands. The metal was digging into her hand, binding the gloves to her hand... she could feel the power coursing through them which dulled the pain a bit, but the longer she held the bubble the stronger the pain grew. Gemini had given them to her before she left the house, and they had locked themselves in her hands the second she put them on.     Most of Gemini's magic seemed to be linked to her mind, and, annoyingly, anything that could make her crazy. She had a feeling she would be able to use the gloves and anything else Gemini gave her as long as she was sane, but every item would rip at that sanity. Gemini had mentioned that it protected her from outside horrors and insanity and that she would become saner as time went on. In fact, it almost sounded like Gemini wanted her to stay sane - which she was grateful for - but it was only because she was only interesting when she was sane.     "So, if say we were attacked by some creature..." Bio spoke slowly, choosing each word carefully. "Then it would have no problem doing so?"     "I mean, it would have to be able to breathe air to do anything effectively," Pomella added, glancing at the flopping fish and other creatures they were leaving behind as they walked.     "By the way Pomella I was meaning to ask, is it your light that's keeping away those... hallucinations?" Bio questioned, tilting her head curiously.     "Yeah I think so, but I have a feeling it won't last much longer, the bad feeling I got from the ocean when we were at the water's edge is only getting worse the deeper we go,"     Oh right, Selena had forgotten about the hallucinations. At least Gemini's gloves had some perks, she supposed. "I see, so while dealing with hallucinations and possibly other monsters, we're going to have to search the bottom of the ocean for who knows how long for treasure we don't know what looks like, then hope that we can wish the sea to be better for... Selena, how long can you hold this bubble?" Bio began to rattle on, pausing to look at her for a moment.     The pain was getting worse, more intense as time went on and it felt like it was sending spikes into her brain already...     "I'm sorry, but at most I can probably hold this thirty minutes, but at that point, I'd be so out of it someone would have to carry me..." Selena apologized, feeling hopeless.     "Great, this is going to be fun..." Bio deadpanned, a frown stretching her mouth into a tight line.     "We can do this, we have to!" Selena encouraged, doing her best to ignore the pain. "We have to save this town and make everyone better!"     "You sound like a hopeful child..." Bio grumbled, looking to her then glancing at Pomella who was hiding a smile. "But we need all the energy we can get, so I can't complain," her lips quirking at the edges in the hint of a smile. Pomella smiled a bit as well, tired eyes looking back at them with the rekindled embers of hope. Meaning she didn't see the dark shape at the edge of her light coming toward them at top speed... Pomella "Get down!" a sudden cry snapped Pomella's attention to Selena who was currently pushing herself and Bio to the ground, looking up at her - no wait, that wasn't quite right. Looking past her with an expression of fear and surprise that sent Pomella to the sea bottom just in time to feel a whoosh of wind as something huge sailed over her head. She glanced up in time to see rotting flesh and yellowed teeth before the shape was gone again, vanishing into the other side of the sphere without even a ripple. The sudden motion broke her concentration though, her light snuffing out from under her and leaving them in darkness, leaving her keenly aware of the sounds of something big - a couple somethings - circling their sphere. "What the fu-" Bio's swearing was cut off as Selena gave another warning cry, and the three rolled to the side as another large undead thing came hurtling through their tiny sphere of air. "Pomella, can you get that light back up and maybe stronger? If we want to not join the zombie fishes we need to see where they are coming from," Selena whispered furiously, and she nodded - too tired to remember they couldn't see each other - began to focus on the palm of her hand, channeling what positive emotions she had left into as bright a light as she could manage. Her power worked off her own emotions, specifically joy and desperation - the ladder was less potent, but she had plenty to spare at the moment. Their sphere lit up like a lightbulb as the raw energy manifested in her hand, illuminating their surroundings to some extent. Pomella, almost wished she hadn't - she could see her family's bodies drifting through the see past the dark shape of many undead sharks... "The hallucinations are back..." Bio mumbled from behind her, the shifting sand informing her she was standing up as she stared dumbly at her dead relatives. She knew she was right, but it was still shocking to see your parents simply floating on the currents in an unforgiving sea full of the dead. The fact that another of the sharks - she could dully make out a hammer-shaped head swimming right for her - was taking another shot at them. This time it was Bio who saved her, Pomella focusing on keeping her focus on the light as Bio roughly grabbed her shoulders and yanked her out of the shark's path as it hurtled forwards. "There's at least ten of them... if we have to constantly avoid them, we won't be able to get to the treasure in time," Bio commented, a frown evident on her face as she stared at the circling shapes. "Don't sharks only attack prey like seals, or like if there is blood in the water?" Selena panted, coming up from behind them to stare along with Bio. "Ha, they have their own blood in the water to put them in a frenzy," Pomella answered wryly, a tired grin stretching across her face. The next shark was already charging, this one having a long saw-like appendage on the end of its nose. "I can't do anything to the undead without touching them, and as far as I can tell the most I could do is put them to 'sleep'," she added, squinting at the shape as the group shuffled to the left to avoid the newest challenger. She couldn't explain how she knew the extent of her abilities - it was more instinctual than anything. "That last one gave me an idea, but it would only be able to get one at a time," Bio reasoned slowly, glancing back at the two of them. "If we could manage to sprint and only pause when they attack, we have a chance of making it in our time limit," "Yeah we could, but it's going to be close, especially if more sharks come..." Selena grimaced, and Pomella noticed as she clutched her hands as one of her eyes began to twitch. She had to imagine whatever magic was keeping this sphere up wasn't pleasant - but she was too tired to think about it much. "Alright, we've got to do this quickly, you ready?" Bio asked, and the two of them nodded and crouched just a bit. Pomella did her best to mimic Selena, but her limbs were just so sore... "On three... one," Bio began, a shark starting to turn to take another run at them. "two," it built up speed, splintered teeth shining in Pomella's light as it got close. "Three!" A hard, white substance suddenly erupted from Bio's hand as she charged forward, Selena only a few steps behind her. Pomella watched in bewilderment as Biovera's hand turned white, a red substance she could only guess was blood pushing out of the disintegrating skin and vessels as her hand twisted into a long white spear, the edge wicked sharp. The shark was almost to the bubble as her arm seemed to grow more growths of the white substance, forming at her elbow and shoulder as if adding hard padding. Then all in one motion she jabbed her new spear forward straight through the shark's neck and anchored her feet, the momentum of the shark viciously jerking her arm back seeming to nearly take it out of her socket. Pomella darted forward with all the energy she could muster and shoved the ball of energy she was still holding onto the shark's side as it thrashed on its perch. The moment the light was inside there was a bright flash, and suddenly its flopping stopped, Bio letting it slide off the spear with a squishy 'thud'. Bio let out a quick breath, rotated her arm a few times, then began running forward again as the next shark seeming enraged began to charge. Pomella, high brain functions occupied on keeping the light up and keeping pace with the other two let her instinct take over, mind going blank. Biovera The bones of her left hand and arm screamed in protest as she skewered the next shark, using her power to make her muscles extra stretchy for a split second so as her joint popped out of its socket it only took a moment for it to pop back in with a flash of pain. Pomella pushed her ball of light into the shark, Bio let it slide from her bone rapier, then kept running. Her entire body was tired and the ligaments in her arms were starting to run thin, what bone remained on the inside of her arm beginning to scratch and rub painfully together. Selena was right behind her followed by Pomella, all three of them panting from the exertion as they took down shark after shark, till finally, the bottom of the sea was just coming into sight as the sea of sharks now circling them began to thin. There was no time for talk, the three of them to focused on simply reaching their goal to worry about speech. The pain was crashing down her arm in waves now, a few blood vessels beginning to show through her skin as the ruptured from the exertion. She knew she could repair the damage to some extent later, but she had no time right now. Run, stab, pop, snap, pop, squish was all she knew for what felt like the next ten minutes, seconds stretched into hours and hours stretched into eternities. She could tell it was beginning to wear down her companions too, Selena beginning to giggle and speak to herself as -whatever it was she was doing - began to get to her, pupils like tiny dots in a pool of white. Pomella looked even more exhausted than Bio felt, having developed a limp over the last few minutes. But she was almost there, she could feel it in her core. So they ran, getting closer and closer to their goal as the sharks thinned and thinned. Then from the blue above them came a blood-curdling shriek, and Bio only managed to get her arm up in time to catch the metal prongs of a trident as it plunged toward her face. As the sharp points dragged across her rapier pain erupted down her arm and she cried out in pain, taking a knee as a horrific figure hissed at them from the water just beyond the air they had left, their bubble getting smaller and smaller as time went on. The figure looked like a person, but their face was scaled and twisted into a horrifying animalistic grimace of fury covered in green scales and glowing yellow eyes. A long-tail lashed where its legs should have been, and the tips of its scaled fingers ended in jagged claws as it gripped the metal trident in both hands, grinding it against her. Bio could just make out the figures of more of them approaching quickly, their own spears clutched and ready to strike. Knowing what she had to do, Bio grimly turned towards her companions - one exhausted and one out of it, and murmured, "You have to go and find the treasure, fix all this... I'll buy you time..." "You're going to die out here again, and I won't be able...!" Pomella protested before going silent as Selena took a shaky step forward, giving a small nod. Her eyes were determined, even as insanity seemed to claw at her mind. Bio nodded back, then breathed deep as Selena ran ahead as fast as she could, Pomella close behind. Water colder than anything she had ever experienced suddenly pressed in on her, and she nearly took a breath from the sheer shock of the cold. Then with a grimace, she closed her eyes and did her best to defend herself. Stab, block, block, stab, pain, blood, more blood... Selena Her mind was like a storm as pain, unlike anything she could imagine flooding through her body in a constant wave, crashing against her very sense of self as she ran for all she was worth. She barely had the sense of mind to worry for Bio as all she could focus on was running, finding the treasure, ending this pain... Then, just as her mind started to drown in the hurricane it was being subjected too, a glimmer could be seen ahead of her. Redoubling her efforts she ran for all she was worth, noticing the pile of treasure that glimmered like a precious gem in a field of suffering. Even Pomella was right next to her as they ran as fast as they could for the treasure, eyes trained on one specific item. There was a single blue gem resting on top of the pile, easily the size of her fist and glowing with an internal blue light. Within seconds they reached the gem, hands thrusting forward to cup the gem between two hands. The second her hands made contact the fog of pain that had been clouding her judgment lifted, Selena taking a deep breath as if she had been starved for air. Then, without another thought she dropped to her knees, screwed her eyes shut and cried as loud as she good as the power evident in the gem coursed through her, giving her a single wish, a way to fix all this. "Please! Fix this town, fix the sea and purge the memory of Samuel from this ocean! Let his sins be forgiven and no longer to be blamed on the ocean and town which had harbored him! Please, fix this!" Then with a blinding flash, the world went white.......