Violet

I snatched my hand back, my heart lurching.

There was a shadow I couldn’t make out in the hazy glow. The orb pulsed gently, almost as if aware of my touch, and I darted back.

What was this place?

I tore my attention from the mysterious orb and looked around at the vast underwater forest. I should focus on following the pull and not get myself distracted.

Grateful for the light, I swam off.

The pendant continued to glow against my chest, and I noticed how the plants responded to it, their luminescence brightening slightly as I passed, as if recognizing something in the silver pendant’s light.

I wove between the plants, ducking around leaves that could have wrapped around me twice over. Some of the orbs hung in clusters, their combined glow creating pools of brilliant light. Others stood alone.

Gradually, the forest began to change.

The orb-plants grew sparser, their glowing bulbs appearing less frequently as I swam. The light dimmed, and for a moment I feared I was heading back into total darkness.

But then new shapes emerged from the gloom ahead.

They looked like tall green stalks rising in straight lines to the surface. I looked up, confused, the surface was rocky.

I swam for a longer distance into the darkness, sifting and pushing aside the stalks as I made my way through. I hoped I didn’t come across any living animal.

I soon saw faint light in the distance. Bright light, which shocked me. I increased my pace and my breath caught when the ceiling transformed from a rocky surface to open water.

Light filtered down through the water in shimmering rays.

And at the top of the stalks, where they met that distant brightness, I could see shapes and colours.

Pink.

I swam upward, my heart racing.

The stalks surrounded me as I rose, their dark lengths stretching past me on all sides. More and more of them appeared, until I was swimming through a forest of tall dark stems reaching toward the light.

I could now clearly see the flowers connected to the stalks above.

Enormous pink blooms floated at the top of each stalk, their petals spread wide like cupped hands reaching toward the light. They were massive, just like the orbs, and beyond them looked like the actual surface of water.

It was like looking up at a pond from underneath.

But I was deep underground. Far beneath the lake where Bei waited. Far beneath everything.

There couldn’t be a surface here.

I swam faster, the petals of the pink blooms silky soft as they brushed against me.

My head broke through and I gasped as I emerged into air.

Actual air.

I wanted to dissolve the bubble around my head but thought better of it. The space above the water was actually real, a vast pocket of atmosphere trapped beneath the stone ceiling of an enormous cavern.

The pink flowers surrounded me, their blooms floating on the water’s surface, their petals brushing against my arms as I turned in slow circles. Large green lily pads stretched in every direction.

Just when I had thought the glowing bulbs had been the most incredible thing I would ever see, I was presented with something else.

The source of the lights were bright white crystals embedded into the ceiling of the cavern, and it covered nearly every surface.

I reached the edge of the pool and discovered it was a rocky outcropping amongst many others scattered around and attached to the walls.

I sat on the edge and looked around.

The natural stone platforms rose in tiers, each holding pools of water similar to the one I had just climbed out of.

The pools were arranged like steps, cascading down towards more pools below. They were connected by thin streams of water that trickled from one level to the next.

The water in each pool was different.

Some were pale green and luminous, glowing faintly from within. Others were deep emerald, dark and mysterious. A few held colours I didn’t have names for.

Small plants grew in the pools, their leaves floating on the surface like the ones here.

I focused on one of the pools a short distance away.

I moved carefully between the pools, trying not to slip and fall into the chasm below.

When I got to the pool, I wasted no time in diving in.

It led down into a tunnel that twisted and turned.

I swam through narrow passages that opened into small chambers before tightening again. I lost track of time and direction, just following the pull.

The water was darker here and colder. I kept my syzygy spread wide to sense what lay ahead.

The passage seemed to go on forever.

Then, gradually, the darkness began to lift.

Not from my pendant this time. The light was coming from somewhere ahead, filtering back through the tunnel in a soft hazy glow. I swam faster, curious, and the passage widened around me until I emerged into open water.

I stopped swimming and just floated there, staring.

The space before me was vast.

Far above, the water lightened into a hazy brightness, as if the sun were shining through heavy clouds. But it couldn’t be that case.

The light had to be coming from somewhere else.

It looked like being underwater on a misty morning.

And below that hazy glow, rising from the rocky floor in every direction, were perforated buildings. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

My heart stopped.

Structures of pale stone stood scattered across the underwater landscape, their walls curved and organic, riddled with circular openings that glowed faintly with their own soft orange light. Some stood tall and relatively intact, their strange windows watching me like countless eyes. Others had crumbled into piles of rubble that lay half-buried in silt and sand.

Paths wound between them, barely visible beneath layers of sediment.

This looked like a city.

An entire city, drowned and forgotten beneath the water.

I drifted lower, my movements slow and dreamlike, unable to fully comprehend what I was seeing. The buildings loomed around me as I descended, their surfaces encrusted with mineral deposits and strange growths that swayed gently in currents I couldn’t feel.

My feet touched the ground and soft sand billowed up around my ankles before slowly settling.

I stood in the middle of a ruined street, surrounded by the bones of a civilization.

Was this what was left of the Lycan civilisation?