Citrine (Deliverance #3)

41. Eli

41

Eli

He finally lets me go and I swim up to the surface to feel the sun on my skin. I rub along it like I'm bathing, and that's when I feel it.

Something is different about my skin. It doesn't look like it's changed much, but on closer inspection, I see there's a hint of blue around the fins at the back of my arm, and my skin feels just like his now. I sigh and float along the water, spotting him at the corner of my eyes.

I want to start yelling, but what's the point?

It's already changed. All I can do now is live with it. I don't have much of a choice, really.

He brings me breakfast. He seems to vacillate between letting me feed myself and some irrational fear that I won't takes over him and I can tell he's battling his desire to stuff food in my mouth.

I drift along, trying not to think of anything. The cliffs look fine after the storm the other day. It took down trees, but I guess the rocks were indestructible. I let my mind wonder what they're made of, thinking of all mythical metals stronger than diamond.

My eyes fly back up there and I notice something, just for a moment. I feel like my eyes are playing tricks on me and I almost shoot out of the water. His tentacles recoil like a rope, pulling me back in. I just knew he wouldn't let me go so easily, not like this.

"You cannot leave."

Of course I can't. I can't beat him or even fight him at all. But I do have the right to find out if what I saw was really real and not the sun of an alien planet playing tricks on me because I cannot afford tricks right now.

"I need to check, Wroahk."

"Check what?" he asks, eyeing me nervously. I wonder why he's the one who's nervous when he's the one who has me trapped in his tentacles.

"I saw something over there," I tell him, pointing to the cliff. He and I both turn to the look at the same time and the shadow I thought I saw was no longer there. I hear him speak.

"There is nothing there."

"There was something just a moment ago. If you let me go check…"

"Too unstable. You cannot leave the water yet. You will…"

He doesn't complete the statement, but I realize that he believes that if I leave the water, I will die. I mean, there is some truth to it, but I can't accept that there aren't windows of time that I can be out of the water.

I swear, he might be more scared of me dying than I am.

But that's the thing with fears. You have to take them one day at a time or they will overwhelm you. You need to let them go just as fast as you can.

I draw closer to him, putting my head back down to face him. As I thought, his face is becoming more expressive and human like. I don't know if this is a good thing, but I'm glad for the ability to understand his emotions.

"Wroahk, are you absolutely sure there's no one else here?"

"There is no one else here."

"You haven't seen a creature that looks like me, well, looks like how I used to? Are you sure I'm the only one of my kind here?"

He hesitates. My heart starts beating faster, watching him. He's hiding something from me and I assume trying to figure out the concept of telling an elaborate lie to cover an initial lie.

"The thing is, Wroahk, people of my kind are rarely solitary. We seek out and protect each other. We move as a pack.. a, uh, school of fish that relies on its numbers and its close-knit relationships to survive. We are the apex predators on my world because of it. I need other people. Am I the only one of my kind you have seen?"

I look at him, begging him not to lie to me.

He turns away and swims down instead of answering. For the first time, I follow him willingly, wanting answers. He swims directly inside the cave and folds on himself, seemingly about to sleep. I remember him being wide awake when I woke up, and I realize that he probably hasn't slept yet.

"You can't sleep! We have to go out and check if there are others."

"…no."

It's the first time he's responded to me underwater. I smile, loitering around him, trying to get him to answer me again.

"You can be dull on any other day of your life, but not today. We have to find out if there are others. I need to know if I was part of a crew who crash landed here and lost her memories. That's a fairly good guess, isn't it? I mean, that means I had a whole second life out among the stars, but… forget it. Let's just go."

It still doesn't move him. He looks like he's going to sleep, no matter what I say. It just so happens that I know the exact right words to say to stop him.

"If you don't help me, I'll stop touching you kindly , Wroahk."

He finally turns to me and I see exhaustion in his eyes.

"There is nothing out there."

"How do you know that? We've only been living in one part of this lake for as long as I've known. You swim over there, but I'm sure you don't go too far. Come on! We have to satisfy our curiosity."

"I am not curious."

I frown and cross my arms. He rolls his eyes and then closes them. Yet another human expression.

"I can't live like this, Wroahk. I'm going to go out there by myself."

"You are living just fine, and you will go nowhere without me."

I move closer to the mouth of the cave, stretching out my tentacles.

"Is that a promise? Because I can tell you now that if I continue to stay with you, I'll become sad and lose the energy to be kind to you. It's called depression, the mental death of any social species. We still have a good deal, Wroahk. Let's just go out there and see what we can find. It's a whole world. We would be crazy not to explore it."

Saying it like that is a gross oversimplification, but he won't do anything to harm me, mentally or physically. I have to take advantage of it or we will stay in this stupid bubble like octo-cavemen.

He's become softer, I know it. Why else would he follow me out to the deep, even though he could've just left me wrapped me up like he always does? He cares for my well-being. He's serious about keeping me alive.

It feels… good, actually.

It's a reckless idea to explore, I know that much. But if there is another out there like me, I really need to know. Is there a way off this planet?

He moves to wrap around me, but I shake my head. Sure, it's a nice and protective gesture, but I would prefer not to be treated like a child.

Or a safety hazard… even though I am one. I prefer to have my dignity still intact. I hold out my hand to him instead. He studies it, most likely wondering what he's going to do with it. All that and he doesn't take it. It makes me embarrassed. It's like trying to hold hands with a boy in middle school all over again.

"Just take my hand and hold it instead of dragging me along. You can't swim properly if you're dragging me along, right?"

"I can swim just fine," he huffs.

"Still, I don't want to be dragged around. Let's just swim."

"You cannot swim properly," he points out.

"I have to learn somehow. Now, just hold my hand and let's go."

He grumbles but he does what I ask.

He wastes no time now that he's decided, and I realize just how fast he has been going the whole time as we move across the rocky structures of the lake.

"Slow down! I can't swim that fast!"

He doesn't slow down. He just drags to a halt, almost throwing me into a spin. I feel something pop and just pray that it's not my shoulder that got dislocated. I flex it and it doesn't seem broken. After confirming that, I glare at him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You asked me to hold your hand."

"Yeah, and you almost broke it. Would it kill you to go steady? Did you learn how to swim by going as fast as you can?"

He doesn't reply but I can tell he isn't pleased. Lack of sleep can make people grumpy, I know that, but I also need to know if there's more out there. This might be my only chance to find out, and I'm not going to waste it.

"Remember the way I taught you to. Be gentle. Be kind. Just lead me along and don't drag me along."

He stares at me for the longest time. I thought he would insist on returning to the cave, but he just holds out his hand again.

"I will be… kind."

His effort surprises me. I give him my hand and we try again.

This time, he goes slow and steady. I try to copy his swimming but it's hard since he has many legs, and I have just two. The only thing we have in common is that he keeps them together to go slow. I do the same, moving my body the way he does.

After a while, I realize the fins make it easier to copy the fish and I remember the times of my youth pretending I was a mermaid.

I look down at the rocks and fish and marvel. It's beautiful. Many of the fish blend into the rocks as they duck and hide from us, while others have surprisingly bright coloring for a lake. It's incredible.

There are thousands and thousands of the blue snails lighting up the lake bed, illuminating the outline and contours as I get close enough. The water isn't murky, which makes me wonder if it is a glacial lake. Except there is a current, so maybe it is more like one of the Great Lakes.

Such a mystery.

"How big is this lake?"

"Small."

My brow furrows. "Not compared to an ocean," I tell him. "How much more of it is there than what we've seen?"

"From the taste and the currents, where we are in just one small part."

"And you didn't explore?"

"Why would I?" he retorts. "There is no salt, so all I will find is more terrible-tasting prey."

I let out a huff of bubbles. "It's beautiful, Wroahk. I can't believe you didn't want to see more of it."

"It's just water. There's nothing to see."

I laugh, ignoring his cynicism. I try to pull him down with me, intending to touch the rocks. He pulls me back, a frown on his face.

Well, that's new. Human expressions look odd on him, but I like what it says about his inner changes.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to see it up close. It's not everyday you get to explore an unpolluted lake."

"You do not know what is hiding down there. Why do you want to see it?"

"There's just fish around here. I think we'll be fine."

He doesn't believe me, but doesn't argue anymore.

I'm starting to think he has a daily quota of words.

I dive closer to the rocky bottom where multiple schools of fish all swimming around between gently swaying plants of green and purple.

There's even something gleaming white staring back at me. I look closer at it, trying to figure out what kind of fish it is, compared to fishes I've seen on earth. Wroahk's still attached to me as I move closer, and I can hear his grumbling as I press on.

I ignore him and move forward, still curious.

The white goes away, and I frown in disappointment. Instead, I see something flicker, like an eye. I'm still curious, but I move away slowly.

As I back away, I hear low growling.

As Wroahk pulls me away and flings his tentacles out to snap out at the suddenly stirring creatures, I realize it was multiple Many Teeth, who had covered themselves in silt. Now blinking up at me and snapping their teeth.

Yikes.

"I do not know why you tried to get closer to their nest."

"You didn't say it was their nest."

"I didn't think you would be reckless enough to go look at it."

"And I assumed you would point out if I was heading toward them."

He wraps around me with his tentacles, but this time I don't disapprove. I can't out swim them, only he can. I watch safely from inside my new cocoon as he roars back an echo to intimidate them, making them stop their lazy float in our direction.

His clicking becomes violent as he searches for a way to escape. He sees a route and immediately goes for it, the Many Teeth following.

Wroahk speeds up, and I shut my eyes. The resistance around us is increasing and the water feels different. I feel his hand around me as the familiar feeling of his suckers disappears. It seems like our trip has come to an end.

"Did we lose them?" I ask, looking around.

"Yes. They did not follow us here. I do not want to know why."

The creatures not following us could mean a bigger predator and that is much worse than being chased by a group of crocodile-looking creatures.

The scenery around us has changed. I can no longer see snails and I was right in saying the pressure has changed. There's something different about this part of the water, something sinister. I don't like it at all.

"Let's swim up. We shouldn't stay here too long," I say, looking at him. He holds my hand and begins to drag us up. We are still pretty deep in the water, and I can tell he hasn't had anything to eat all day. Maybe the bigger predator in the water is him. I certainly don't want to be breakfast today.

As we move up, something in the water catches my eye. It is moving toward us, well, not exactly to us but in our general direction. It looks like it's sinking, being dragged down by the water's pressure. If it wasn't for Wroahk, I don't think I'd be able to swim against this water's pressure.

"What's that?" I point at it.

"Please do not bring us danger again."

"But it's getting closer. Shouldn't we check what it is at least?"

"No," he refuses firmly. I huff out a breath but don't argue with him. Eventually, we are going to pass it and I'll be able to see what it is. Hopefully, it's not a corpse or something. If it is…

We pass by it, and I can see it properly. My eyes widen as I see the gray-green creature with huge black eyes sinking down toward the depths. It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before, and it scares me.

I swim toward the surface, pushing myself to go faster until my head resurfaces near the shore.