Indigo Child (Part 1)

Ark quickly sat up as the fading scream of a dream still echoed in his head. Ark has had many names throughout the past, some of them famous, others unheard of, but Ark seemed suitable to this era. He quietly rose out of his bed after a troubled nights sleep. It seemed the older he became the less sleep he got; bad memories always surfaced to the top in the form of nightmares. He knows he probably has enough bad memories already to last him a eternity's worth of nightmares. Sadly, he had an eternity to find out.

He slowly made his way down the old dust hallway, floorboards creaking as he went. Dozens of old friends long gone stared at him through their wooden windows hanging on the wall. Thankfully he had one friend who hasn't left him yet. A friend whose been with him a very long time.

Ark finally came to the door he was looking for. He slowly turned the knob and entered into complete darkness. The smell of seawater slammed into him, and he could even taste a bit of it in the air. He felt his away along the myriads of books on shelves, and trying his best to avoid the various tables filled with ancient artifacts.

A voice met him as he neared the center of the room. It sounded dry and raspy, as though it hadn't taken a drink in years, while at the same time as if its lungs were flooded with water. Nearly impossible to describe to one who hasn't heard it.

"Couldn't sleep again?"
Ark couldn't help but smile. The owner of the voice knew him well enough to know he hasn't slept through a single night in years.
"Sleep is overrated anyways. Have you still not adjusted to how day and night works? You never sleep at night."
"I like the darkness, but why are you here? You've never been one to drop in for a friendly chat."
"I want to hear a story, but not just any story. I want to hear your story."
A silence quickly filled the void of darkness surrounding them. Ark shifted slightly in anticipation.
"You know my story, you've even lived through most of the latter half of it. Why?"
"I'm old, and all my memories are filled with things I'd rather not think about. I wanna know your memories."
The voice paused for a little. "Alright fine, I owe this much for all you've done for me. Sit, this will be long."

The smell of the ocean still gives me feelings of homesickness, even after a hundred years.
If close my eyes and take a bite of a fish, it's almost like I'm home again, but only if I close my eyes.
It'll be a hundred more years till I can even have the hope of returning.

Everything in my area of the Earth lives longer than what someone from around here is used to, but time down there doesn't work the way it does up here. There is no night, no day. No moon or sun. No light, only darkness. Legend has it that in an era long past, the gods became angry with my civilization, encased our city in rock, and then cast it down into the depths of the ocean. No one alive today remembers exactly how are great city came to be at the bottom of the ocean since the last of our ancients died.

It is a city living in complete darkness. I did not know what sight was until an unfortunate event that brought me and a friend to the surface. What happened to my friend I do not know, I can only pray that he is not locked within a research lab. I have come to fear those places, as much as humans fear the deep sea. It is amazing that I did not go blind upon my first encounter with the sun. I assume were it not a cloudy day I would be, not that it would made much of a difference to a being that's live in a cave five miles beneath the surface of the ocean.

I have remained aloof from the land people since my last encounter. Extensive scientific research was done upon me on how a bipedal being could survive in waters of that pressure, or how my gills worked. Sketches of me can occasionally be found through extensive research, but no photograph was ever taken. If I were to walk into a public square, I believe I would draw a fair bit of attention. I have radiant indigo skin, webbed hands and feet, and gills protruding from my neck.

A human friend of mine who died long ago once wrote a story based off of mine, he called my city R'lyeh.

Though I will relate my tale to you in English, understand that the language of my home is far older than any civilization you would know. Its hard to start my story for time did not exist for me till recently. To pick an exact starting place of significance is nigh impossible, but I must do it.

The eternal sounds of water crashing upon rock echoed throughout the cavern. It was during shlest'ylne or roughly translated, Sleep Time, for the city. This was the time when the dwellers of the deep cave came out to hunt. Our city was guarded by a high thick wall of stone, but this was more to keep us in, then to keep the monsters out. A rough estimate would be to say the wall was ten to fifteen times the height of a human man, and this would have been useless if even the smallest of the predators felt the desire to feed on us, which they often did. I still awake at night with a fading nightmare lingering of a horde shla'rtzan tearing through the neighboring family. In my nightmares they appear as if they have the frame of a bat without wings, human face stretched over a canine skull, they can jump over the buildings the size of a two story house, and would need to duck to go through a door.

My hunting partner led the way as we dove into the pool that opened up into a underwater cavern with three cave systems spanning from it. One leads to the open ocean, and the other two lead to places where animals as small as us do not return. Myths are told of eels that became stuck in the caves and became so fat that they are forced to wait with mouths open for anything unintelligent enough to traverse into those cave systems. Other myths tell of other cities like ours, but with inhabitants that could not cope with the loss of the sun. It is said that if one becomes captured by them, one would be sacrificed to their god in hopes of returning to land.

As we entered the open ocean we floated weightless, listening intently for the sound of prey and predators. I began to swim, but my partner grabbed me, tapping out the signal for large predator. I was blessed with the hunter with the best hearing in the city for a partner. We grasped onto nearby seaweed in hope that we would not be sucked off by the passing creature. Just as I secured myself, a feeling came upon me that could only be described as holding onto a tree in the midst of a tornado. I managed to find a crevice in the cliff face of our cave to hang on to. I hugged the rocky surface as tight as I possibly could, knowing that to be pulled off meant being lost forever in the abyss of the ocean, surrounded by creatures so huge that the human mind can barely comprehend their size. I was left clinging to the cliff face for an indescribable long time waiting for the monster's tail to pass me. This was a common occurrence when hunting for food in the open. Many a hunting party has been lost to a single sea creature also hunting for food.

I could smell that my hunting partner was still next to me. I tapped out the signal to continue, and continued our trek down the rock face to the sea floor. On arrival we waited silently for the noise of an ocean vent. Ocean vents were excellent hunting ground for crustaceans such as ones that would resemble crabs or lobsters, though these are a hundred times the size of the ones humans are use to. A dozen of these and our city would be fed for a week, though it would also take a city full of hunters to catch a dozen at once.

Before floating away from the rock face, my partner tied a string made from seaweed around a rock and attached the other end to the bottom of his spear. We then slowly made our way to the vent. The soft clicking of claws on the ocean floor signaled that we should prepare for a quick strike. We only had one try to take him down, and that involved precise strikes through the eyes, in hopes of piercing the brain.

As we had practiced, I gave the signal, which sent my partner torpedoing for the first eye, as I heard the swinging of a massive claw, I rushed in the for other eye, feeling my spear pierce through, i threw all my weight behind my spear and pushed. I felt the tip pierce through the soft point in the shell and pushed harder. The spear slid deeper in, far past the point needed to kill the brain. Silence set in as I took in the joy of victory. I listened for the sound of my partner close by to celebrate, but silence seemed to be my only companion. I questioned whether I should call out, but knew that if I did, I risked giving away my position to all the near by lurkers. I also couldn't risk touching the sea floor for I've heard of creatures that span one hundred body lengths that lie under sand waiting for any sign of movement.

I did what I've been trained to do since a child, I grabbed my kill, felt along the water for the signs of our wake from swimming, and swam back towards the rock face. The crustacean was heavy for two hunters to carry, let alone one. I had to get back to the cave though before a bigger fish found me and hunt.There was no time to worry about my hunting partner.

As I prepared to enter the cavern that led upward to my home, I heard to late the sound whooshing sound of nearby sea creature. I felt the force of the wave long before the tail itself slammed into my body. My gills felt singed as water was forced out of them. I flew into the cavern opening with no means to stop myself. My last thought before slamming into something hard was that I should have hit the cavern wall a while ago.

When my senses returned to me, I was moving along a stream of some sort. The water smelt like my cavern, but different at the same time. I reached my hands to feel the ceiling quickly moving along them. I had no idea where this underwater river was taking me, but fear swallowed me as the myths of the other two cave systems in the cavern flooded my mind.

I drifted for what seemed to be an eternity along the stream through a windy maze of tunnels, before it seemed to slow. I could hear in the near distance the river opening up into a large cavern. Hope began to rise in me that this cave led to the back of my home cavern somehow, but those hopes were quickly crushed when I saw how large the city in this cavern was. Yes, that's right. I saw. For the very first time in my life I was able to use my eyes. Far in the distance on top of the walls of the city were torches. At the time I was both confused, amazed and frightened, mixed all into one.

I had no idea of what was occurring. This new sensation of sight was beyond anything I could possibly have imagined. When one lives his life in darkness, ones dreams happen to be in darkness as well. Long have I heard myths of our original homeland, with its lushes green grasslands, and the vibrantly blue skies.
In the distance I could hear the beating of drums from within the city. Drums, or rhy'tas as we called them, were something used often in ceremonies. Quietly I pulled myself out of the water and onto land. For the first time I saw another living creature in front of me. It was a hominid as I, but it did not have the blue skin, or the webbed hands and feet that I possess. He looked much like a human, except more lean, and clawed hands, which held a spear. There heads were also much longer and narrower. The skin seemed to be almost stretched to tight across it.

I did my best to remain in the darkness as I scaled the massive walls to there city. As I neared the torches my eyes burnt from the intense light. I was forced to close them as I crawled down the other side of the wall, and began to make my way to the sound of the drums. The buildings seemed to carved into the stone wall itself. I can only assume now that this was not there original city, nor the only city of theirs in that cave system.

The streets were devoid of people for they were all at the ceremony, so it was relatively simple to make my way to the center of the city. I did my best to keep to the rooftops as to not be seen, and to have the best view of the ceremony below. Around a giant fire moved roughly five or six of these crude creatures. They moved rhythmically to the beating of the drums. In a circle around these dancers stood the rest of this population, chanting in an odd language. It seemed to be a mix of snarls and hissing, but despite its queerness, they seemed to be in unison with each other. I sat on the edge of a building and watched, completely entranced in this bizarre ritual. Partly because I've never heard of creatures like this, and partly because I've never had used my eyes before. I watched as the shadows on the ground flickered with the flames struck with amazement. I became so entranced at these vivid and new images around me that I had not noticed that the drums stopped. A loud cry filled the cavern as the sounds of hundreds of claws scraping against stone hurried quickly toward me. I rose to my feet to attempt to run but it was too late. As I turned around, I stood face to face with a hominid that rose half a body length above me. I tried to scream, but the creature brought down a rock upon my head before I could make a noise.