Tale from the Deepwater

Chapter 23

Even from afar, she could see, to whatever extent the occasionally striking thunder and her sharp vision allowed, a colossal sinuous form on the water that could be distinguished as an entity different from the surrounding darkness only by its deep crimson sheen. So massive it was that even from that height, it was still not possible to see where it started and ended. IF not for the contour, it would have looked like the opening of a new dark horizon below. But soon what occurred was something so difficult to make sense of that had she not seen it before, it would have looked like a nightmarish confusion of mind disarrayed between hallucinations and crazy stupor. She saw what was hitherto darkness superimposed by surrealistic sinister specter, turn into a sea of blood, or that was how it vaguely appeared.

 Thinking in retrospect, she realized that it was not bloodied water, but the radiance and the heat emanating from the two opened eyes that were so unnaturally bright and flamingly colored that it had looked like red fire or opening vortexes of blood. Adding to the mere sizes of these pools was the motion which could be seen in the water because of the red light. In the confusion, she could not make complete sense of what was going on, but she could see swarms of entities going in them like whirlpools as if they were mere motes of dust traveling in rays. Then suddenly, without any warning, a flash of lightning illuminated everything which hitherto was hidden at least by the veneer of darkness, and in that split second, she froze at the mere sight of this form even before she could fully register it, and she came crashing down as if lifelessly.

Fortunately, whatever she landed on was not hard ground, but from the shock, she had already lost consciousness for a while. As she regained it, she could feel the texture first. Even before opening her eyes, she could feel that she was now on water. She kept her eyes shut subconsciously as she felt the pattering raindrops against her skin, wings, and eyelids. Except for their sound, there was no other. She could not understand why she could not open her eyes for what seemed like an eternity, but slowly and finally, she did. 

 At first, she hardly saw anything and then realized that she was looking at the sky still covered by black clouds. Her motionless hands stroked the surface of the water and realized that it was actually raining and she wasn't dreaming. However, other than the eerie calmness and all-pervasive gloom, it seemed relatively normal contrasting to what just happened before a while and it might as well have been a bizarre dream. She lifted her upper body to sit with her legs still stretched over the surface of the water. Like the black orbs that overwhelm one's vision after gazing at the sun for too long, all she could see wherever she looked was black shiny scales with a red that mixed in the darkness so well that it almost looked like clotting, thickened, shiny blood. As turned her head and her gaze stopped as she looked at the figure sitting not too far from her on the water.