rapture of the deep ; seodo

✯ chapter 15 ✯

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The faintest of gasps caused stray bubbles to erupt from his mouth before Geonhak regained his composure.

It was made up of gigantic arcs and pillars and situated so deep down, surrounded by walls, that the turbid water was merely illuminated by scattered beacons implemented in its stone.

Geonhak guessed that the labyrinth of supernatural sea life expanded beyond the ravine where the castle laid, guessed that if he traversed the ghostly chasm, he would reach upper floors of this place where more light would shine through and more mermaids would tarry.

Seoho was right, this place emitted nothing but a nightmarish apprehensiveness, and suddenly, a part of Geonhak awoke that wished that Seoho wasn’t down there, that he was chatting with his mermaid friends higher up and simply forged his innocent profile before he would come back to Geonhak on his own.

Vacuum, hollowness.

It hit him like a truck; the realisation that the pulling in his chest had ceased all of a sudden and that whatever magic had stood by him had spurted from his veins and left him empty and suffering.

Without his internal compass, Geonhak was lost and so small.

If Seoho truly was to be imprisoned and sentenced to worse, then down there. Geonhak felt like he was losing half of his courage to that thought alone, and the fact that he still hadn’t made up his mind about how he would face any encounter other than with Seoho wasn’t making it any better.

(If by any means Keonhee had already found out about his sneaking departure, Geonhak was sure he was currently cursing the living wits out of him for being impatient, reckless, and stupid – and Geonhak couldn’t agree more.)

Geonhak had no idea how he was supposed to find Seoho in this labyrinthine fortress, and still less was he eager to figure out a plan how to stay under the radar along the way.

Because he was no thief, no strategic criminal who had memorised every inch and hidden corner of the place’s site plan and worked out plans over plans over back-up plans on how to get his desired target out of captivity – as recently as five minutes ago, Geonhak hadn’t even known what he would find; part of him had half expected not to find anything at all.

And whether he liked it or not, Geonhak would have to search this palace for Seoho without a clue where left and right was.

Geonhak swam down to the bottom of the wide canyon, still ducking out of sight behind as many cracks, corals, and wreckages as possible even though he hadn’t seen a single soul straying around this deep down.

From close up, the palace appeared intimidating before it did majestic, and Geonhak couldn’t decide what it was that aroused the daunting clawing around his chest – the murkiness of the water, the lack of light, the frigidness of the deep, the dull colours, the lack of life.

Geonhak had reckoned with the difficulty of having to break gates and doors open, but the complex arrangement of pillars and arcs offered entry by slipping through the open spaces until the room widened and revealed what Geonhak guessed had once been the heart of Atlantis and that its original unifying and warm prospect was also why it didn’t resemble the high-security wing that Geonhak had expected.

Geonhak spotted dusted and faded tiles on the floor, a mosaic of sea foam green and grey, and engraved pictures that told a story along the stone of the pillars.

A throne towered between two columns on the verge of the mosaic’s radius, and Geonhak could tell by the traces of disuse that a ruler who hadn’t crusaded for a chair in the centre of force and oppression had last used it.