Dive into the enchanting depths of Ocean's Temptation, where Princess Nereida, shackled to her royal duties in the mystical kingdom of Triteria, seeks to solve the crisis of mysterious vanishings and deaths. But when rebels shatter her world, she fi...
Deze afbeelding leeft onze inhoudsrichtlijnen niet na. Verwijder de afbeelding of upload een andere om verder te gaan met publiceren.
The world had been split in two for as long as I could remember, the above and the below, always aware of one another but never intermingling. I belonged to the below, beneath the waves where the sun's rays could not reach. We lived amongst the sea creatures from grandiose to small, in the depths. But in the above, I existed only in the stories the people would tell their children, the ones that began with "Once upon a time..." We were used for entertainment; seen as a mythical creature or monster depending on the storyteller. But in my world, the monsters that haunted those stories have always been humans.
Since before I was born my people remained hidden from humans, it was part of the treaty that saved us. We turned our backs on them after they tried to enslave and subjugate us, so for thousands of years we remained separated. But things were changing and war was looming despite what others and my father believed. I could feel it. It was an unnerving knowing. I've always had that gift, that ability to 'know' without understanding, and as I stared out of the window looking up into the endless blue haze, I knew it.
We were no longer safe.
I gently floated over towards the table made from coral, reading over the stone tablets that held our history, at least what was left of it. Most of it had been taken or destroyed by humans, and what remained gave us little information about the old days. But I had become possessed in the last couple of months, trying my best to piece together clues, anything that would bring forth an answer. Better yet, a solution. We were being wiped out, and there was no time to waste.
Over the last year, a plague had come upon us.
It started slowly, with a few of us passing in unexplainable ways– one minute they were healthy and the next they were gone. Their pearls, that adorned about their necks as all of us have, had blackened and at the slightest touch crumbled in your hand. We had never seen anything like this, and there was no stopping it. King Arran was burying his head to the problems, denying their existence, for he had grown preoccupied with the recent vanishings. He could not see that both of these were related to one another, instead was too busy sending out my brothers along with the other army men to fight back.
But who was the enemy?
"Nereida, shouldn't you be in bed?" My mother, Queen Gaylene, asked as she glided effortlessly through the water into my bedroom.
"I will, soon. I just, I know that there's something here that can help us." I didn't look up, but I felt her presence beside me as she came closer.
"You shouldn't be touching the stone tablets, you know better than that. They are the only things that remain of the origins of us, and they're fragile," she reprimanded.
"I know Mother, but I keep having these dreams and they feel like a warning. These tablets could help." My dreams terrified me. I saw people screaming, dying, and the destruction of our kingdom but I couldn't let her know just how scared I was for another fear of mine was being seen as crazy.
