Chapter Five: Clutches of Captivity
Current Location: Coral Sea
Current Depth: 300 ft.
Even with Kale's speedy swimming, it took us a long time to ascend out of the dark zone and finally climb back up to shallower waters. The darkness around us gradually brightened, little by little, until at last we returned to the sunlight zone, where the sun's warm rays beamed down on us through the churning waves. Experiencing the light and warmth of the sun again nearly brought me to tears. After all our past experiences down there in the dark, I was sure I would have been consumed by the endless void of the deep sea.
"I think it's best for us to stay here, at least until we get closer to Prince Stellaris' palace," Chrystal said. "I'm not keen on flailing around in pitch-black darkness anymore."
"Welcome to my world," Kale sighed. "If you think that's bad, you don't wanna know what it's like down on the seafloor. Even I haven't been down that far, I'm not that crazy."
"You're right, I don't want to know, and I have no plans to," Chrystal retorted. "Kurage, are you alright?"
She tugged at one of my tentacles, causing me to jolt out of my spaced-out daze. "Y-yeah, I'm fine. Just kind of tired...I don't think Niji's spell made us any more rested at all, and we've been swimming non-stop."
"Hmm...I suppose that's understandable," Chrystal said. "It's been nothing but a haul since we first set off from the coral city. I don't see anything dangerous around, so why don't we stop here for a short break to eat?"
"Food time is my favorite time," Kale chuckled.
I nodded. "Sounds like a good idea...I gave all my food to Kale before, so we can't have that much left, right?"
Chrystal rooted around in her satchel, pulling out the wrapped tuna slices. "I've still got mine. It's not that much, but if we split it between the three of us, it should give us enough energy to keep going for a while."
We broke up the rations and began eating, making sure to not waste even a crumb. With every bite I took, I could feel my energy trickling back into me, little by little.
"If this is the kind of food you get to eat at the coral city, then there's no way I'm not going," Kale grinned. "This stuff is so good...I had no idea prepared meat could be so tasty."
"Chrystal, can I ask you something?" I piped up.
She glanced up from her food. "What is it?"
I thought for a moment, wondering how to ask. "Well...why did you become a messenger anyway? It doesn't seem like you enjoy it very much. Plus you're much stronger than me, you could easily be independent from the coral city and not have to follow Princess Tamayori at all."
Chrystal looked a bit taken aback. "So that's what you think of me, huh? I guess it's a little flattering...but you'd also be wrong. I've trained a lot, but I'm not nearly as large or strong as an average member of my species.
I suppose you haven't seen any black sea nettle folk other than me. Compared to your kind, they get quite big, around the size that Niji was. For some reason, I happened to get plucked from the shallow end of the genetic pool, because I'm a runt. Compared to other black sea nettle folk, I'm utterly tiny. My colony rejected me because of that. They didn't want to have to babysit a little jellyfish girl who couldn't take care of herself, so they kicked me out and pretty much left me to get eaten by whatever bigger creature happened to come my way."
"Since then, I had to struggle to survive until I became Princess Tamayori's servant. It seemed like the safest place for me, where every day wasn't a battle to stay alive. I respect Princess Tamayori, and I have no qualms about being her servant...but I don't trust the Seafolk nobles. I don't trust anyone. I don't want to get close to anyone, because I know it's only a matter of time until they think I'm useless. The only person I can depend on is myself. So at the most basic level, I serve Princess Tamayori for my own survival, no other reason."
I was compelled to throw my arms around Chrystal and pull her into a tight embrace. "I don't think you're useless," I said. "I think you're wonderful, Chrystal. It sounds like you've been through a lot...but you don't have to hold it all in. I'm your partner, you can talk to me."
The ebony jellyfish was frozen, her icy-blue eyes wide and her face held in an expression I couldn't quite describe. "That's...very kind of you, Kurage. I appreciate it...I'll try to keep that in mind." She glanced over, noticing Kale watching intently with a toothy grin. "What are you staring at, you gross squid?!"
"You two are just so cute, how could I not admire?" Kale snickered.
"Ugh, you ruin everything," Chrystal growled. "Come on, break time's over. If you're finished eating, then let's get moving. We've already wasted enough time with pointless detours."
That was exactly what we did- we kept on swimming, trying to get back on track. As we swam, I noticed the sunny sky above us darkening. Looking up, an enormous black shadow loomed, something huge floating on the water's surface. "That looks like a ship," I said. "I wonder what it's doing all the way out here. Though if it's humans, it can't be anything good..."
"Meh, I eat humans for breakfast," Kale grumbled. "Quite literally."
Chrystal grabbed my wrist. The long tentacles on her hair stood erect in the water. "We should go. Something doesn't feel right."
We picked up our swimming speed a little faster, trying to get far away from the ship as quickly as we could. "Hey, wanna fill me in on what the big rush is?" Kale asked.
The reason soon became apparent.
Eruptions of bubbles burst in the water around the perimeter of the ship. Multiple objects plunged into the waves in a circular pattern, creating a flurry of bubbles that encircled us and obscured our vision. We were caught up in a panic with no idea of what was happening, or what to do about it.
My tentacles curled at a sharp tingle pulsing in the water. While I couldn't make out much in the storm of chaotic bubbles, I felt something spreading out over me ike a web. Then I felt a jolt. A harsh, stinging stream of energy, a shock powerful enough to fry my nerves, a sensation like a mix between intense burning and deadening numbness. The feeling was unlike anything I had ever experienced before, and it overwhelmed me. Disconnected from the world, I was cold, isolated, afraid. Chrystal and Kale weren't there to save me. I couldn't even save myself, I had no capacity to do so. The only thing I could do now was succumb to the numbness and tingling pulsing through my veins.
When I stirred back to consciousness, my eyes were blinded by the sun. I squinted to focus my vision, and there, I saw the sky. The clear, blue sky, unbound by the rippling waves of the sea. The endless azure, the wispy white clouds, all of it spread before me in an infinite expanse. The spectacle absorbed me, so much that I almost forgot what had happened to me not too long ago...that is, until I tried to take a breath- and left with shallow lungs. I could not breathe.
Raspy gasps fled my throat as I gulped mouthfuls of dry air and exhaled to no effect. Soon, the horrific realization settled in. I was no longer in the sea. I had been plucked from the water, and I was rapidly suffocating to death. I couldn't breathe the air of the outside world. My respiratory system, so adapted to absorbing oxygen from water, could not obtain it from air. I clawed at my throat, choking and sputtering. My esophagus tightened up.
The beautiful blue sky was snuffed out by the looming silhouettes of humans towering over me. They wore skin-tight black suits and gloves. The humans spoke to each other, but I could only make out their words in broken pieces.
"This is the only one we got, but it's all we need. It'll do well for the Planetary Defense Agency's research."
"It's a Seafolk. A jellyfish folk, looks like Pelagia Noctiluca. It's a female."
"It won't survive long outside the ocean. Let's get our samples and tag it quickly."
To me, human beings were enormous monsters. I didn't know much about them, but I knew one thing for certain- humans could not be trusted. Land folk and Seafolk had been at odds since earliest recorded memory, and that had never changed. Humans were creatures to be feared and avoided at all costs. But here I was, trapped in their clutches, choking on air and utterly helpless. I reached for my fishbone blade, but it was gone. It was either taken from me, or was lost when I got shocked. All I had was my little satchel, but the humans didn't seem too interested in that. I lashed out my tentacles at them, flailing in a panic as I attempted to sting my captors. One of the humans dumped water on me, which gave me a brief respite from suffocation, but the worst was yet to come. While I screamed and squirmed, one of the researchers gripped me in his gloved hand and lifted me up, unaffected by my stinging cells. The suit must have blocked the cells from injecting their venom.
Despite that, I was moved to a shallow container with clear liquid inside. At first I thought it was water, maybe a basin for me to submerge in so I could breathe. Once I was dunked in, I realized how very wrong I was. The lower half of my body was struck by a burning pain that was so terrible, I couldn't even put words to. My tentacles felt like they were being melted by acid. Though nothing happened to them, they remained attached to my body. I shrieked in pure agony, unable to cry for help or even beg for mercy, all I could do was wail, enduring that horrific stinging pain.
When I was lifted out of the vile burning liquid, I didn't even have the strength to lift my tentacles anymore. My body became so frail and weak. Whatever that fluid was, it left me incapacitated.
"Are you sure vinegar was safe to use?" one of the humans asked.
"It's fine," another one replied. "Vinegar disables the stinging cells of regular jellyfish, so it would make sense that it'd work on a jellyfish folk as well."
I was plopped down on a cold, hard table and examined with sharp, metallic objects. They poked and prodded at me, snipped and scraped, all while I was left nearly paralyzed. I watched with wide, fearful eyes, wondering what they planned to do with me. Would I be kept as a scientific curiosity to study, placed in an aquarium as a tourist attraction, or butchered to eventually be cooked and eaten? The deep sea was terrifying, no doubt...but the realm outside the water was even more frightening. The world was such a scary, enormous place, and I barely knew even a fraction of it. I dwelled in my underwater sanctuary, blissfully unaware of an entirely different dimension playing out life right above my head. In the end, I was a small, insignificant jellyfish. I was barely a speck in the grand scheme of things...and the unfathomable cared nothing for my well-being.
A human researcher reached into my slimy, sticky mess of pink tentacles. I laid there helpless as he violated me, investigating the most intimate parts of my body. I wanted to burst into tears. But he didn't know anything. To him, and all the other people studying me, I was just a curious animal. Through my dry lips, I attempted to speak. "Please...let me go..."
"It seems they can speak," one of the researchers remarked. "How fascinating."
"It's scared and it can't breathe," another one commented. "Let's finish up and release it before it dies."
The human that had been prying around in my tentacles attached an odd black ring around one of the thinner ones. It clamped around the appendage with a sharp click. "There, that should do it," he said. "This way, we'll be able to study the Seafolk's travel paths and observe their migration patterns. We could get a better look into their society with this. Looks like we got a good catch today."
"Alright, time to release!" a woman's voice called.
Almost as quickly as I had been dragged up, the torturous examination was coming to an end. To me it felt like an eternity. I was lifted back up and plopped into a cold metal tray. Gasping for breath, I gazed up at the blue sky once again, my vision blurring in and out as I clung to the last few threads of consciousness.
Without warning, the tray was tipped over the side of the ship, and I was unceremoniously dumped back into the ocean. Still largely immobile, I plunged into the depths, sinking like a rock until I finally caught hold of the water and used the few remaining drops of my strength to float. I floated like a true jellyfish, letting the waves carry me along as my tentacles undulated in the water. My life had been spared by the humans, it seemed. I knew what I needed to do. I had to find Chrystal and Kale...but right now, I couldn't think of doing anything else, other than aimlessly floating through the sea.