Tale from the Deepwater

Chapter 24

A black, amorphous entity sat there, which only by careful observation and imagination, had some semblance to human form. In fact, with a black, shiny, scaly surface, it hardly looked like a human at all; only the shape of the eyes gave it away. Even these eyes were completely crimson, with no distinction of color between pupils, iris, and sclera. Because of the combination of its eerie resemblance to a person, however farfetched, and the uncanny ophidian features, it looked creepier and more ominous than anything else, and it was difficult to gauge if it was more harrowing in the dark when it mended with the water and the rain, or when in the sudden flash of lightning, it was fully revealed.

The eyes that were wide open and couldn't blink, were completely unfocused and Maren couldn't make out whether they were looking at her at all now even though they were wide open in her direction. When the lightning flashed, she could see the form more clearly and the surface which was scaly and black, was smooth, and the outline unformed, with premature limbs separating out to a barely imperceptible degree. 

The eyes that were unfocused and perhaps unthinking, still had the depths of contents of their original design even if they were much smaller now, and they looked as if they were removed from everything alive. She felt as if they had at their core, something worse than entropy as it was completely static. It seemed like whatever they saw was tainted with the bloody crimson of these orbs, and maybe from this, they could not be freed or closed off. She, who did not know of any pain, felt it more than the vast fear she should instead be feeling now. Even when she knew who it was even now and as she always had, she could not help but juxtapose the image of the strong, robust, calm, enigmatic man whom she felt she knew even though she had known very little about him, with this entity in front of her now. She should be wary now and hiding, but like when she had first opened her eyes, she tried to reach out, and this time, she could.

She extended her hand near his face and felt boiling steam-like warmth from the eyes. Hesitatingly and carefully, she touched him near the corner of the eye, which in contrast, was completely cold and made a shiver run from her fingertip to arms to the rest of the body. She expected a response, maybe even a violent or intense one, but received none at all.

"What happens to you?" She murmured, even though she knew by now that he was not conscious of her at all.