What lurks within the abyss?
Deep beneath Earth's expansive oceans, there exists a race of people unbeknownst to most humans, who live in an underwater realm all their own- the Seafolk. An ancient evolutionary offshoot of human beings, these mysteri...
Chrystal and I had been swimming for a few hours. In the seemingly infinite blue expanse, it was hard to tell whether or not we were actually getting anywhere by sight alone. We messengers moved not strictly by vision, but by our heightened senses that picked up on the magnetic fields of the Earth. It was something like an inner compass that guided our general direction.
The further out we swam, the deeper we went as well. With every water column we descended, the darker the world became. Glancing up, I could only see the very cloudy, dim glow of the sun, but as we swam deeper, that meager light practically vanished. We hadn't quite reached the dark zone, not yet. This was the liminal space between the realm of light and the realm of darkness- a place the Seafolk called the twilight zone. Here, life was more sparse. There was an unusual quiet in the area that was rather unnerving. I couldn't pin down why, but something just felt...wrong.
As the ocean grew darker, I noticed my floaty pink body emanating a soft radiance. "Ah, you're bioluminescent," Chrystal said. "It's kind of a double-edged sword...it's better for us to see down here in the dark, but every hungry predator and their mom can see you for miles, and you look like food."
"Why do you have to be like that?" I grumbled. "I can't control my glow, it just happens when I go into dark places. It's not like I can turn it off. Believe me, it's not like I want to look like a swimming buffet."
I would never get any kind words from Chrystal. I shook it off and tried to ignore her, instead focusing on my swimming and keeping an eye out for any nearby creatures, Seafolk or otherwise. I caught sight of something rising up in the distance. It was hard to make out at first, but as we swam closer, it became apparent that they weren't natural. These were human-made structures. Enormous pillars came down from the surface, piercing all the way down into the pitch-black to the seafloor. The monolithic pillar-like structures weren't like anything I had ever seen during my travels in the Sea of Japan. There had to be at least a dozen of them scattered throughout the area. "Wow...they're so huge. What are these?"
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"I've seen them before," Chrystal replied. "A fellow Seafolk once told me that these pillars belong to a gigantic floating oil rig on the surface. They drill down into the seafloor to extract oil that humans use to create energy. It's very important to them. But it isn't of any bother to us, so we should keep moving."
Chrystal swam ahead, as I felt her propulsion through the water brush past me. I inspected one of the pillars, pressing my hands against the cold metal surface. I could feel something moving inside of it. Up above, or down below, the enormous structures seemed to stretch on for infinity. Just how big were they? This world...not just the ocean, but even the creations of humans...were so massive. I pulled myself away and started to move on, but I quickly froze.
