Chapter 3 — The Weight of the Soul

  [Warning: Human Oxygen Threshold Critical.]

  [Tip: Surface survival impossible below 9,000 meters.]

  The red text was an eyesore, blinking with a sterile urgency that made the blood in Celeste’s veins turn cold. She stared at the man’s face, watching the last of the surface-world color drain from his skin. The golden pendant around his neck, which had been his only shield against the crushing weight of the deep, was sputtering like a dying lightbulb and he kept gasping for air.

  He was a creature of air and light trapped in a place where both were myths. And she was the only thing standing between him and the crushing reality of the deep.

  Think, Celeste. Think, she pleaded with herself. But what was she supposed to do? She knew how to call an ambulance, how to perform basic first aid, and how to look for a pulse. But none of that applied here. There was no 911 at nine thousand meters, and her "first aid" kit currently consisted of obsidian claws and a tail that wanted to eat the patient.

  The system chimed in as if it heard her inner turmoil.

  [Skill Unlocked: Resonant Transfer]

  [Description: Exchange a portion of the Host’s vital energy to sustain another lifeform. Warning: Process involves high energy tax. Permanent loss of vitality possible if overdrawn.]

  Resonant what?

  "How?" she panicked, her eyes darting from the text to the man's blue-tinged lips. "I don't know how to do this!"

  A massive, pressurized heat began to swell behind her breastbone, expanding with a force that made her ribs groan. It felt like her lungs had been replaced with a live wire, the electricity searching for a ground. The heat climbed. It surged up her esophagus, thick and magnetic, pooling behind her teeth. It was an agonising, suffocating fullness. Her jaw unhinged, pulled open by a magnetic vacuum that existed between her and the dying man.

  “It’s too much,” she screamed internally. “Get it out of me!”

  Then she was pulled in by an invisible force. The distance between their lips vanished, and as their skin met, the dam broke. It was a violent, jagged seal. The pressure in her throat tore out of her.

  Celeste’s spine snapped backward, her white hair lashing the water as a blinding, violet radiance erupted from the center of her chest. It felt like she was being hollowed out by a vacuum. The heat vanished, replaced instantly by a cold so profound it felt like her blood was crystallizing into shards of ice. Every cell in her body screamed as it was siphoned dry.

  The man’s body convulsed. His eyes flew open, the pupils disappearing behind a veil of borrowed, glowing blue light. He let out a silent gasp, his lungs seizing as they were forced to process the raw energy she was pumping into his tissues. He was a puppet, his limbs jerking as the violet fire from her body rewired his own for a life he wasn't supposed to have.

  [Resonant Transfer Successful.]

  [Human respiratory adaptation: Temporary.]

  [Energy remaining: 4%. Proceed with extreme caution.]

  Celeste tore herself away, her mouth still tingling with the metallic, ozone taste of the magic. She slumped against the jagged rock, her vision fraying at the edges. She felt thin and transparent. Like a ghost that hadn't realized it was dead yet.

  The violet glow of her skin had faded to a dull, bruised grey, and the weight of the ocean felt ten times heavier than it had a minute ago.

  She had saved him, but as she watched his chest begin to move with a rhythmic, artificial steadiness, she felt a wave of pure, human revulsion. She had just shared her life with a stranger, and she had done it with a body she no longer recognised as her own.

  The man stared at her, he looked like he was watching his own funeral. His eyes were huge, the pupils blown out so wide they nearly swallowed the irises, reflecting her own glowing violet face back at her like a funhouse mirror. His jaw hung slack, his mouth working in silent, hitching gasps as he stared at her obsidian claws.

  Celeste got it. If she were him, she would have freaked out too. But she couldn’t have him making any kind of sound now. She slammed her palm over his mouth, her sharp nails digging into his skin a little too hard. He let out a muffled, strangled yelp against her hand, his body jerking like a hooked fish.

  She looked him dead in the eye, and mouthed the words slowly: “Don’t. Make. A. Noise.” Her jaw felt like it was made of rusted iron.

  She jerked her chin toward the opening.

  The man’s gaze shifted. When he saw the massive, armored flank of the Leviathan gliding past, a wall of scales that seemed to stretch into eternity, his nervous system simply shut down. His eyes rolled back, slipping back into a shock-induced coma.

  "Great," she thought, her grip tightening on his weight. "At least you're quiet."

  She pressed herself into the furthest corner of the rock. The stone was jagged, scraping against her shoulders and tearing at the skin near her gills, but the stinging pain kept her from losing consciousness. She willed her glow to die, fighting her own biology until the crevice was a pocket of absolute, suffocating shadow.

  The Leviathan’s eye passed the opening. It was searching for the spark of light it had tasted. Celeste held her breath. A tail as long as a skyscraper followed, stirring the silt into a blinding cloud. The pressure shifted violently, a massive draw of water that nearly sucked them out of their hiding spot. Celeste dug her talons into the stone, anchoring them with a strength that made her muscles scream.

  [System Alert: Quest “Survive the Abyss” — Remaining Time: 9 hours 43 minutes]

  Nine hours, she thought bitterly. I have nine hours to find the Luminous Trench before my body dissolves.

  The silence outside became heavy. Then, the golden eye flared back into view, centering directly on their crevice. It had been playing a game of patience.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The creature’s jaw began to unhinge, revealing rows of translucent, glowing spires. The suction began immediately, dragging them into the abyss of its gullet. The water around her began to swirl into a vortex, pulling at her hair and the unconscious man.

  "Not yet," Celeste growled in her head. "I didn't survive the transformation just to be an appetizer."

  [Energy Remaining: 3%.]

  [Skill available: Abyssal Voice.]

  She didn't care about the warnings. She opened her mouth and poured every remaining drop of her will into a single, haunting shriek.

  The sound was like a hammer. It resonated off the ancient stone ruins above, causing the runes on the pillars to ignite in a blinding flash. The shockwave slammed into the Leviathan’s sensitive eye. The beast recoiled, its shriek of pain rattling the trench walls until the stone began to crumble. It lashed its tail in a blind frenzy, shattering a nearby rock formation before diving into the absolute blackness of the lower depths.

  It would have been her fate if her voice didn’t save her.

  Celeste collapsed. The song cut off, leaving her vision blurred and her ears ringing. Violet threads of energy drifted away from her like dying embers.

  [Threat distance increasing.]

  [Status: Safe zone — temporary.]

  [WARNING: Energy: 2.1%]

  [Critical System Failure: Motor functions suspended.]

  She couldn't move. Her arms felt like they belonged to someone else, someone who had died a long time ago. She was stuck, crushed between the ancient stone and a stranger, her face pressed into the grit and silt of the crevice floor. She could feel the rough texture of the rock scraping her cheek, but she didn't have the strength to turn her head.

  The man’s weight was a slow death. Every second he leaned on her, more of the remaining oxygen seemed to be squeezed out of her lungs.

  "God, please," she whispered, though lips barely moved. "Don’t make me die like this, please. Not like this. Not stuck in a hole."

  It was a pathetic prayer. She thought of sunlight pouring through her window. She thought of her bed, her phone, her city. She thought of all the things she’d never get to see again because she was busy being a battery for a stranger in a stone crack.

  [Energy: 0.8%]

  [Warning: Consciousness fading. Commencing Hibernation.]

  Her eyes began to flutter shut. The darkness of the crevice started to feel like a blanket. She felt the cold finally win, seeping into her gills and turning her blood to slush.

  I'm sorry, she thought to herself, I tried.

  Then, the stone changed.

  The ancient, runes-etched walls she was pinned against burst into glow and started vibrating.

  A soft, golden dust began to seep out of the cracks in the rock, right where her skin touched the stone. It was fine, granular sparks that acted like they were being sucked into her pores by a vacuum.

  At first, it felt like needles. Thousands of tiny, stinging pricks as the dust settled onto her grey, dull scales. She let out a silent, sharp gasp, her back arching against the man’s weight as the first spark hit her nervous system like a jump-start.

  [External Energy Source Detected: Luminous Silt.]

  [Transfer Rate: 0.01% per second... Increasing.]

  Time moved in an agonizing crawl. The sparks settled into the wounds on her shoulders, sealing the jagged tears from the rock. They drifted into her gills, and for a second, she felt like she was drowning all over again. She choked, her body convulsing in the narrow space as the energy forced its way into her depleted veins. It was messy, there was no grace in it. She was twitching, her fingers clawing at the stone, her tail lashing out in a blind, rhythmic spasm that sent shards of rock flying.

  "Hurts," she groaned in her head, her teeth grinding together so hard she thought they’d shatter. "Stop... it hurts..."

  But the light didn't stop. It poured into her, thick and golden, mixing with the violet threads of her body’s magic. It felt like her veins were being scrubbed with wire brushes.

  [Energy: 5%... 10%... 18%...]

  The man was caught in it, too. The dust swirled in the tiny space between them, buoying him just enough to lift the crushing weight off her chest.

  Celeste shoved and swam forward. It was a desperate, panicked scramble to get out of the hole before she lost her mind. Her arms were still shaking, her vision still swimming with white spots, but at least she was moving.

  [Current Energy: 25%]

  [Status: Stable. Proceed to Luminous Source.]

  She grabbed the man’s collar, her fingers locking tight, and practically dragged him out of the crevice. The ruins ahead were no longer dark, they were glowing with that same golden dust, creating a path through the obsidian pillars.

  "O-okay," she whispered, her voice a jagged rasp that hurt her throat. "Okay. We're going."

  She kicked with a heavy, uncoordinated desperation, dragging the man through the shimmering clouds. She looked like a wounded animal trying to reach cover, but she didn't care. With one final, lung-burning push, they hit the threshold between the two massive pillars.

  Then the world exploded into white. The pressure vanished. The weight of nine thousand meters of ocean simply... let go.

  Celeste tumbled onto a floor of solid, warm crystal. She rolled to a stop, gasping for air that wasn't there, but at least she wasn't dying. She looked up, her eyes wide and stinging. They were inside a dome of impossible, soft light. A city of glass stretched out before her, silent and ancient. She lay there, covered in golden dust, holding a man who shouldn't be alive.

  "Don't wake up yet," she wheezed, collapsing next to him as her head hit the warm crystal floor. "I need... I need a minute."