My Last Dive [Made in Abyss Fanfiction]

26| Wrath of the Abyss

Everything seemed to slow to a crawl as my vision was engulfed by the water. My mind refused to process what I'd just witnessed because it couldn't have been true, it just couldn't. Vio couldn't be dead.

But then it all started up again.

I burst to the surface, sitting up and breaking down into a hacking cough as I tore my goggles away to release the water that had been trapped in them. Even with my blurred vision, I could see that the Orb Piercer had gone. It'd run into the fray, where screams of horror and terror from both sides began to erupt. But all I could focus on then was the bloody body lying half-submerged in the water.

I scrambled through the water, desperate to reach him. When I did, I could tell in seconds he was already gone. Though from how the quills had stabbed through so much of him, it would have been worse if he was still alive. Still, it didn't stop me from screaming his name, from trying to shake him.

Tears sprung to my eyes, washing down my face as I let out an anguished cry. Blood filled the water, the scent thick and nauseating. Gore never bothered me, but the sight of the man who I'd come to see as my second father, brutally impaled and discarded like a broken doll, made me violently empty my stomach. I continued to retch into the water as I sobbed, the sounds ugly and gut-wrenching. I couldn't believe it. He was gone, he was actually gone.

I eventually managed to tear myself from my sickness and misery for long enough to do something I should have done when I first came upon him. With a shaking hand, I closed his eyes, unable to bear their dead stare, their lively gold hue having become dull. How was I going to tell Melva, Lissy, Syele? But then my heart wrenched. Melva. I stared down at Vio, wanting to sob yet again. I couldn't leave him like this, but I had to find Melva. With the heaviest weight in my chest, I tore his whistle away from his neck before bolting. I couldn't look back. If I did, I would want to return to him.

Goodbye, Vio. And thank you.

The fight had been broken up since, the few survivors frantically running as the Piercer pursued them. There were so many bodies, killed by the Piercer or each other. I'd never been so horrified by a sight the Abyss had to offer, but here it was, displaying itself in all its brutal glory.

I then spotted Melva, trying to run but tripping into the water. I heard her curse loudly, and I was about to run for her when the roar of the Piercer rang out again. The creature had given up on chasing the other survivors and had instead turned its attention to... Melva. I could see her going stiff when she saw the Piercer face her, surely gripped with the same terror that had gripped Vio.

No... No, no, no, no! Not Melva, I couldn't lose her either! I grabbed my whistle and blew it with all the air in my lungs. Both my mentor and the Piercer looked in my direction, and I screamed out, "Run, Melva!" as the Piercer charged at me.

Through my terror, an odd focus had come to settle over me. I shouldn't run, because it would chase me. I again had to do what I'd done six years ago.