Torn Pages

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this…” A little voice cracked though her quiet sobs. The Weedy Sea-dragon was curled around herself like a snake, her tears dissolving into the fountain. “This wasn’t supposed to happen…” She choked, rubbing her eye with one of the leaf-like flags on her tail.

A large, lavender slug rested on the edge of the fountain’s cup, looking sadly at the little seahorse that submerged herself in the pool. He wished he could speak some consoling words, but he knew that they would evaporate as soon as they found the girl’s ears. Instead, he wiggled his antennae, poking at the surface of the water, hoping to get her attention, hoping she would open up enough to tell him what had put her though so much grief.

Unfortunately, the muddy water serpent lay still on the bed of concrete, staring towards the other side of the fountain, but seeing more than just that bare, slate grey wall. The events seemed to be stuck on replay in her head, forever repeating like a scratched record, forcing her to relive that dreadful experience. She closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them again, she would be waking up, realizing it was all just a dream; just a sick, horrid nightmare, a stupid joke that her brain was playing on her. Maybe if she imagined her home hard enough, she’d be teleported there again. The image of comfortable little strings of seaweed wafting in the small currents, surrounding massive buildings of coral and intricate labyrinths of sea rocks sprinkled her mind. She saw small, pink fish flapping back and forth in the distance, and a shoaling group of black Tetras, each glowing with a bright stripe of pink. Two massive seahorses came into view, one sporting a bright blue coat of scales, with a few whisker-like appendages flowing from his skull and dorsal fin, while the other was as muddy brown as her daughter, but was decorated with much more leafy fins and a bright pink, flower-like adornment on her forehead. Her parents, she could picture them so vividly, so lively, and so loving to each other as well as to her.

It was Migrating Season, a time when many of the wildlife, especially the seahorses, travelled farther south, as the climate was growing colder in their current home. The family knew a special route through the rivers that snaked through the Dry World, and planned on taking this route once again. It would be their daughter’s first trip, so they wanted to take extra caution to ensure her safety. They taught her how to use her Labyrinth Organ, a special gland that allows many animals equipped with gills the ability to take in “dry” oxygen, in case the waters begin to grow thin, and they showed her how to camouflage her leafy parts with the weeds around her. They felt confident in her ability to practice safety, and in a battle of fight and flight, flight was always the best answer.

That’s when the Fog rolled in.

It was such a strange phenomenon; Fog is normally created when “dry” water hangs low to the surface of the land, and only few water creatures had seen it for themselves. But this Fog couldn’t have been made the same way, as it permeated through the water itself, blurring the vision of any sea dweller that crossed its path. Her father had looked to and fro, panicking at the sight, afraid that his camouflage was not nearly as advanced as the girls’. Her mother had calmed him down, and continued along what she assumed was their usual path, though blinded by the white dust.

Everything changed. What was once a blue little creek suddenly became a pool of red. She heard screams, so distorted that she couldn’t even recognize their owners. She had lost sight of her parents, obscured by a cloud of crimson mist. She was petrified; she did not even conceal herself like her parents had taught her, and instead stared unmoving at the stoic scene. A voice told her to run, to fly away, to abandon her family… but her body dared not to move. Her muscles were numb, and her body hung limp in the weightless water.

Another voice poured over her blindness; one much more brutal and aggressive than she could recognize; the voice of a predator. As if stricken by a bolt of lightning, her instincts pulled her away, severing her gaze at the lifeless pieces of what used to be her parents. She instead narrowed her attention to swimming, as quickly and as far away as she could muster. The carnivore was still behind her, she heard his taunts, but she could not find any way to hide from it. Wherever there was water, he was able to appear.

That’s when it hit her. She looked to the surface of the water, a wall that should never be broken. It was a general common sense that any fish who attempted to live on the Dry World would perish without water to breathe. That curtain that separated the two worlds had always seemed so great, so powerful, and so unbreakable. Yet, now in her moment of desperation, its demeanor had diminished, it had transformed into that thin ice that whatever creature dared to walk upon would surely meet its death. But, she knew she could break it. She knew she could burst through, and find refuge in the Dry World, even if it did endanger her life. No more than it was endangered already, right?

She pushed off of the bottom of the Wet World with the three flags at the tip of her tail, propelling herself through that fragile, unbreakable wall, and soaring through the air before grazing against the bed of dry seaweed. She looked up, and slowly took in a breath; the Labyrinth Organ surely would give out if she overworked it. She was desperate, she was scared, but her breaths had to remain steady and slow. What didn’t help was the temperature of this land; immediately as she landed in the strange, suspended plants, her belly was inflamed with a stinging, dry heat. She rolled over, spotting that massive, bright object that was suspended in the heavens… the water had shielded her from it’s brightness, apparently, as she felt her eyes burn just from watching it for a few seconds. She rolled over once again, noticing the stretch of above-water hills and dunes, all covered in this chartreuse algae. The Fog had inundated the area as well, walling away the land beyond the hills. She sighed in frustration, how long would she last in this alien world…?

She scooted along the prickly plants, scraping her moist belly against the fiery earth. She tried to push all thoughts out of her head, afraid that they would discourage her; she had to think positive. She had to be optimistic. She had to keep going, and find some kind of salvation, some kind of sanctuary. She couldn’t return to the water, what if that monster was still waiting for her? She shook her head, and wriggled along the empty hills, feeling her back beginning to lose its moisture.

She wasn’t sure what happened next, but she remembers waking up, sprawled out on one of the hills. She looked up; the sun had vanished, but everything was still scorching. However… It wasn’t Dry anymore. She looked to her sides, noticing the dusty grains of water touch at the terrestrial seaweed. She felt it pluck her rocky body, and looked up. The sky that was once surrounded by white blurs was now very dark, even through the thick Fog. Dots of the Wet World pricked at her from the sky… What was this? How did the world from below get into the world beyond even the Dry World? What was it like in that world that was even higher than this one?

She finally opened her eyes, being greeted with, once again, that plain slate wall that surrounded the little fountain. She sighed, blowing a few bubbles out from her little snout. She looked to the surface, spotting that little lavender slug… He must have saved her, didn’t he? She wriggled out of her tangled position, floating her way to the surface, poking her head out to get a good look of the Dry creature. Well, that’s not a good description of him, because even though this world is Dry, this slug was still moist, covered in a slimy protective coat that she assumed kept him from drying out like she did. He tilted his eyes towards her, and she looked away, feeling the need to slink back into the water, but something refused to let her drop. She found herself asking an enigmatic, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

The slug drooped his antennae in an expression of concern. “Aether, your name was, right? Ah…” He looked away, searching the air for an answer. “Sometimes… things just happen for a reason, you know?” He spoke towards the air, rather than to her. “It’s like… There are some things in life that you just can’t control, Fate controls it for you, and you just have to learn how to adapt to Fate’s decisions.” He explained.

She looked down, exhaling, feeling a bit disappointed. It took her a few seconds to really digest that concept, but once she did, she looked back up, her eyes glowing with a dash of hope. “I guess, then… Life is kind of like a book, right? One that’s still being written… so you don’t know how it ends until it’s finished.”