"Welcome to Atlantis."
I want to scream, but no sound leaves my throat. All I feel is burning pain as my body twists and ripples.
Changing. Morphing.
"You are in no danger, and your every need shall be met. Every need but one. We've injected you with a compound that is already altering your biological structure. It is a necessary safety measure to ensure you never leave."
My cells feel like they're ripping apart, my body burning. It makes every corner of my mind scream in panic, desperate to make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!
"For the rest of your lives, you will make Atlantis... your home."
I gasp as I sit up, my eyes flying open, my chest heaving as I frantically look around. I'm in a bedroom, with lights decorating the walls and ceiling, giving the room a soft, bluish hue. The room has the same brassy and pearl aesthetic of the Bellerophon. Soft sheets rub against my legs as I shift on the bed, and I see I'm no longer wearing my stoker uniform, but have been changed into a nightgown. It's plain, white, but it has the same sheen to it that the surfaces do, as if the fabric is to mimic the pearl that I see with every glance.
I run a hand through my hair, noticing it's soft, no longer rough from saltwater. I don't smell like salt either. I can only guess I was washed and dressed while I was unconscious.
Unconscious from whatever they injected me with.
I look down at my arm, and there's a small bandage covering the injection site. It doesn't hurt, and the pain that spread through my body is long gone, nothing but a dull ache that pulses through me to remind me of what happened. My hand reaches up to grasp my necklace, and for the second time today, I panic when I feel it isn't there. Scrambling out of bed, I look around the bedside table, the dresser, every piece of furniture in efforts to find it.
"Oh, no, no, no," I whisper, tears prickling my eyes. Out of everything that's happened today, this is the worst. I need that necklace! It's all I have left of Wesley! I can't be without it! Without it I'm alone.
My eyes fly to the metal door. It's an odd gray color, one I've never seen before, but I don't take time to study it. If my locket isn't in here, that must mean whoever put me in here took it. It could be the man that injected me with that compound. He was the last one near me when I slipped unconscious. He must have it.
I'll get out of this room, find my locket, and leave. Whatever was given to me may wear off or something. I'll figure it out later. Right now, all I care about is getting my locket back.
I grab at the door. It's a sliding one, but it doesn't budge as I grit my teeth and dig my bare feet into the cold, hard floor. My arms strain, and I let out a scream through clenched teeth as I pull with all my might. It doesn't budge a single inch.
"Come on!" I shout, my face growing hot as I heave. "Move already!"
It doesn't, and eventually I let go of the door, panting from the strain. With a cry of rage, I slam my hand against the door. "No!"
I grab at my head, panicked and frustrated and confused. I'm trapped in this room, I don't know where Jenny is, my locket is gone, and I don't know what the compound will do to me in the long run.
"Let me out!" I shout, hitting the door again and again. "I want out!"
This place wasn't even supposed to be real. Atlantis was supposed to be a myth, nothing to take seriously, and here I am, a prisoner, expected to never see the light of day again.
"Let me-"
The door slides open, and I shout when I see the man I saw earlier, with his black hair and glasses.
"There's no need to shout. I was coming right back," He says, sounding slightly agitated. I scramble backward, tripping over my feet and falling flat on my back. That doesn't stop me from pushing myself away from him, and the man simply watches me with wide, surprised eyes.
"Hey, hey, calm down. I'm not going to hurt you," He says, as if he hasn't already done that. I grab onto the dresser and pull myself up, grabbing a candle holder than sits upon it. If it were any other time, I'd admire how it's made of pure gold.
"You-you stay away from me," I say, holding out the candle holder threateningly. "I won't let you poke me with anything else."
"I don't need to. That one dose of the compound was enough to keep you here."
"What did you do to me?!" I ask accusingly, and he crosses his arms.
"Why don't you put that down, and I'll explain everything to you? Okay?"
He takes a step closer to me, and I tense. "I said stay away!"
He sighs, and I know I'm playing with fire by threatening someone in a place that I'm unfamiliar with. He's got the upper hand here, and I've got nothing but a candle holder to defend myself with. And considering how he opened that door when I couldn't even move it, he's much stronger than I.
I grit my teeth and will myself to stop trembling.
"Well, if you won't let me get close to you, then how will I be able to give this back to you?" He reaches into his pocket and pulls out my locket, and I gasp. "Saw you were wearing a uniform, and from what I've heard, Topsiders with the kind of job like yours don't wear jewelry unless it really means something to them. I'm sure you're eager to get this b-"
"Give it to me!" I shriek, dropping the candle holder and lunging for him.
"Woah, hey!" The man shouts, holding the locket above his head, and grabbing my arm as I reach for it.
"It's mine! Give it to me!"
"Stop acting like a child!" He hisses as I desperately claw for the locket. His grip on my arm tightens to the point that I wince. "Hey! Hey! Listen to me!"
He shakes me, and that gets me to shut up and still for just long enough for him to glare at me.
"Look, I'll give you the locket back, but you have got to calm down. You can do that for me, yeah?"
I nod, my breath stuttering, and he smiles triumphantly.
"Good. Now I'm going to let you go, and after I close the door, I'll give the locket back. I really don't want you to run because then I'll have to tackle you down and cause a scene, and I don't think you'll want that."
I think he was trying to be funny, but I don't laugh. He lets go of my arm and steps back to close the door, and once he has, he hands out the locket to me. I quickly snatch it from him, taking a cautious step away as I hold the locket close to me and open it.
"Did you touch the picture?" I ask him, and he shakes his head.
"Didn't even open it. Wasn't any of my business of what was in there. Although I can guess it's a picture of someone important to you."
"Very."
He's silent for a beat. "I'm sorry. If there's people waiting for you on the topside, they're going to have to just believe you died. You can't go back."
"There's no one waiting for me," I say bitterly. "This locket-the picture-is the last thing I have of my husband. He... took a job in New Orleans a few years ago. Contracted yellow fever."
I shake my head. Why am I even telling him this? I don't even know him.
"Oh. I'm sorry-"
"Where's Jenny? What did you do to me? Who even are you?" I spout, and the man quickly holds his hands up in surrender.
"Slow down. Slow down," He says. "One question at a time. I'll explain everything. I promise." He gestures to the bed. "Why don't you sit down? Might make you a bit more comfortable."
I doubt anything will make me feel comfortable about the current situation, but I still sit down on the bed. He sits beside me, thankfully leaving enough space that I don't have to be the one to scoot away.
"My name is Samuel. President Zala assigned me to helping you get assimilated to Atlantis and living here. I'm your... caretaker, I suppose. Um, I saw on your uniform you're Stoker Five?"
I nod. "My name's Callie."
"That's a pretty name. I'll call you whatever you want me to."
"I don't care."
"Good to know." He keeps a smile on his face despite my defensive tone, and my hands grip the sheets of the bed tightly, uncomfortably. "Jenny is with my sister, Nikita. That's her assigned caretaker. We don't like to separate you, but it's easier so we can explain things."
My features harden. "Like what you injected us with."
Samuel sighs. "Yes. I... Look, we don't like it. I didn't enjoy giving it to you and I definitely didn't enjoy hearing you in pain. I don't like hearing anyone in pain!"
"And yet you gave me the injection anyway."
"We don't have a choice." He looks away, conflicted, guilty, but with a sigh he looks back at me. "Look, that compound is exactly what President Zala said it was. It changed your biological structure and keeps you from going back to the surface."
"How?"
"Your cells now need to be in the deep, with more intense pressure. Without it, your body will start to rupture. If you go back to the surface, you'll quite literally explode."
The cry of shock that leaves my lips echoes across the room, but Samuel seems to have expected it, and he rubs my back soothingly.
"I'm sorry. I know this probably wasn't what you were hoping for when you sought out to find Atlantis-"
"But I wasn't!" I exclaim, not sure whether to scream or cry. "I didn't even want to come here! I didn't even believe this place was real! I only came because Jenny was coming here, and she saved me when the ship I was working on hit an iceberg! I was hoping she'd find nothing and then just let me go home. I-"
I clutch my chest, gasping for air. No matter how much I get in my lungs, it doesn't seem to be enough. I don't know what to do! I don't know what to say! I don't have anything waiting for me on the surface, but that doesn't mean I wanted to be trapped here without a say.
"Oh, Callie," Samuel says sympathetically. And I hate it. I hate how he has the audacity to pity me when he helped do this to me!
And yet I don't push him away when he pulls me into a hug. I can't find it in me to do so, not as the tears start pouring from my eyes and I start hiccupping on sobs. I don't know if the tears are from shock or sorrow or from honestly just feeling overwhelmed by so much happening in one day.
I was constantly working with Jenny, trying not to die, and now I'm here in this twisted version of a safe haven, but I'm nothing more than a prisoner.
"Shh," He whispers in my hair. "It's okay. It'll be okay, I promise. It's all going to be okay."
I can't say I believe him, but it's been so long since I've been comforted by someone that his words make my sobs quiet to soft hiccups. I'm not exactly calm-no, there's still a large part of me that's filled with dread and worry and fear now that I know there's no chance of me seeing the surface again. I don't even think it's due to the fact that I like the surface world. I mean, my job as a stoker would keep me in a burning furnace room shoveling coal to keep myself afloat in the world. It's not fun. I didn't even like it. But it was my choice.
Now that's been ripped away from me.
I just don't know what I'm supposed to do, how I'm supposed to just accept that.
"Hey," Samuel says after a few minutes, once I've quieted down to just a few sniffles. "If you want, I can give you some clothes beside that nightgown and I can show you around a bit, and we can find you something to eat. I'm sure you're hungry after all... this. And I'll answer any other question you may have. Does that sound alright with you?"
I sniffle and wipe at my puffy eyes. "Y-yes. That sounds... that sounds alright."
•
I've never felt so weak in my life. I've spent four years alone, working job after job to build my strength and endurance, and yet here I can't even open a simple door. Samuel has had to open every door for me. Of course, that's a very polite thing to do, but he's doing it simply because I can't, not because he wants to be nice to me. My face burns in embarrassment.
"Are you going to let me see Jenny?" I ask him, and he quirks a brow.
"Let?" He sighs. "Callie, you're not a prisoner here, even if it feels like it right now. Remember what President Zala said? Your every need will be met, except-"
"Except leaving, I know," I say. "I just thought that since you're my... caretaker, I'd need your permission..." I trail off when I see how he's smiling at me, clearly amused by this. "What?"
"Oh, nothing. It's just funny how you can switch from trying to attack me, or threatening to attack me, with a candlestick holder to being nice enough to ask for my permission to see your friend," He snickers, and I cringe.
"Friend is an overstatement."
He shrugs. "All the same, if you want to see Jenny, we can find her after you've eaten. Do you want to see Jenny?"
"I-" I go quiet as we walk down the glass tubes, nothing but ocean surrounding us. There are lights all around the tunnel floor and ceiling, allowing us to see everything outside. With Samuel's question, though, I can't focus on the beauty around me.
Do I want to see Jenny? After all, it's her fault I'm stuck here. It's her fault I'm now a prisoner in my own body, unable to go back to the surface lest I rip myself apart and explode. Why should I see her, if she's alright? She's probably doing great, finally seeing that the place she was laughed at for believing in is real. And seeing that the Atlanteans haven't killed us and are just intent on keeping us here, she must be even more grateful. Maybe Thomas is here, living his life doing... whatever is it people do down here.
"I don't know if I want to see Jenny," I admit finally, looking down, and Samuel smiles softly at me.
"That's okay. I'm not going to make you see her. I'm here just to help you get used to being here. I know you probably don't care for me since I'm the one who gave you that compound, but maybe we can eventually be friends. But if not, then you can just remember me as that one guy who showed you around and got you some of the best food here in Atlantis."
I huff out a laugh at that, and he leads me out of the tunnels and into some other part of the city. Eventually we make it to a room that's unlike anything I've ever been too. It's not exactly a restaurant, because there are no servers, and the way of payment seems to be to give what you think is worth in a jar at the front. It's all so nice, nicer than anywhere I could afford to go on the surface.
The cutlery is made of fine crystal and silver. There are tables and chairs that, just like everything else, is covered in pearl, and one of the walls is just glass to show the ocean out below. The other walls are made of gray metal and brass that gleams against the lights that are placed in crystal chandeliers. I can only wonder how they're generating the energy to keep them on.
There are people sitting around. They aren't human, of course, but they appear so. If I wasn't where I am, I'd think they were just like me.
But they seem to realize that I'm not one of them, and suddenly all of their eyes are on me, watching, studying. I swallow around the lump in my throat as Samuel places his hand on my back to push me towards an empty table.
"I'll be right back. Just sit here," He instructs, before he heads off and disappears behind another door that I couldn't open if I tried. While I sit alone, I try not to think about the multiple pairs of eyes on me. They stare as if I'm the odd one and not them, the people living in a city underneath the sea.
My anxiety fades after a few minutes, and I'm left feeling sort of... numb. I'm unsure what to feel, what to do. I've never been one to give in right away. My stubbornness to believe in Atlantis until it was right in front of my face proves that, but after everything that's happened today, I don't believe I have the strength in me to fight against the fact that I'm stuck here. I don't like it. Or at least, I don't like the fact that I didn't have a choice, but I don't really see what else I can do but accept it.
I suppose it could be worse. I could have been thrown in prison, or tortured and killed, or President Zala could have let those... anthropolyps eat us or drown us or whatever it is they were going to do to us.
Samuel arrives a few minutes later, placing down a plate and a cup for me. I don't recognize a single thing on the plate, and the liquid in my cup is clear, but it has a sweet aroma that I can't quite place.
"Is this safe for me to eat?" I ask, and he simply laughs.
"I think I'd be a pretty bad caretaker if one of the first things I did when you woke up was poison you," He chuckles. "You may be my first human, but I'm not stupid."
I flush, realizing how insulting my words may have come off as, and I sigh. "You're right. I'm sorry."
I pick up my fork that's been lain across the white meat from some type of fish on my plate. I try the leafy vegetables first, surprised to find they taste a lot like spinach on the surface, although it doesn't have such a bitter aftertaste.
Samuel's eyes are alight as he watches me eat. "Good?"
I nod. "Yes, thank you... You said I was your first human to look after?"
"We don't get humans a lot, a couple every few years at most. We're a small nation, but there's more than enough where no one will be stuck caring for a human twice. President Zala knows anyone chosen will do the job, so she doesn't really have to try too hard to find someone."
"Hmm. If I'm your first human, I suppose I must have frightened you when I acted like I did. I'm normally not so... irrational."
He shrugs. "I've heard worse stories. And you just needed to calm down. You're fine now, it seems, and I think you'll get into the rhythm of it all fairly quickly, especially once you start working."
I pause mid-bite. "Working?"
"Well, yes. You'll have to start working eventually."
"I-I know, I just... what job will I have?"
"I suppose it just depends on what skills you have. Certain jobs everyone has to do through rotation periods, like uh, maintenance and cleaning up public areas, and there are other jobs that not everyone has to do, but it's encouraged that you get the training just in case. Those would be diving to care for the anemone and piloting our submarines in order to head out into other areas in the ocean to bring in fish and such."
"And what's your job?"
"I work on the technology here. I help make sure all of our coms systems work, mostly, but I've constructed a few apparatuses before and made some of the blank disks to be engraved into personal logs." He rubs the back of his neck. "And lately I've been called out to be a diver-just a couple times a month. Nikita likes it a lot more than I do, but it's not difficult, really."
"What if I try a job and I don't like it, or I'm not good at it?"
"Then you do something else," He replies as if it's obvious, and I blink owlishly at him.
"But... what if I don't get hired?"
"It's rare that will happen. Any skill can be converted into work, and that can be in a long-time job, and you'll just do the other jobs whenever needed."
"So... So I almost certainly will have a stable job here?" I ask, eyes wide when he nods. "Oh."
Oh.
That doesn't change how I feel about having my freedoms taken away, but the perk does make staying here seem less dreadful. The idea that I'll be able to work and have something steady, reliable makes a small smile spread across my face, one that I quickly try to hide by taking a gulp of the liquid in my cup.
I nearly choke at how sweet it is-far sweeter than any drink I've ever had. Although that might be because in America, we don't drink sweet drinks as much as we do alcohol. Growing up I think I and everyone around me drank rum, whiskey and moonshine like it was water.
"What's wrong?" Samuel asks, immediately noticing the way my face twists.
"Sorry. It's just... very sweet," I say, clearing my throat and taking another bite of my leafy vegetables to help level it out.
"Oh, do you want something else?"
I quickly shake my head. "No. No need to let it go to waste. I'll just um... maybe I can add some water to it in a moment to dull down the taste a bit. So um, how long have you been working on the technology down here? It already looks so far ahead of anything I've seen in America."
"Um, I think I've had my job for about... uh, maybe twenty-eight years?" He says, flinching when my knee slams up into the bottom of the table. I ignore the pain for now, as well as the multiple eyes of those around me.
"What?" I croak. "But you-you barely look like you're older than me and I'm only twenty-six."
"Atlanteans age differently than humans do. Most of us live five times as long as you would."
"That's..." I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that. I knew, of course, that Atlanteans weren't human. Samuel's shown me that already with how much stronger he is than I. Now that I think about it, I'm truly surprised I was able to hold up that panel in Solus' quarters-
I stiffen. Solus.
"How did Solus do it?" I ask suddenly, which prompts the man in front of me to raise a brow.
"Pardon?"
"He stole one of Atlantis' ships and ran. How did he do it?"
"That doesn't sound like the kind of question I should answer, seeing that you've only just got here and had a breakdown when I told you you couldn't leave. You may be calmer, but I do need to make sure you're not going to try to run."
"That's it though. How did Solus manage to escape? He recruited Jenny as his first mate to the Bellerophon, and in one of his logs he talked about an epidemic that..." I clench my jaw and push on. "He-he knew about things on land that he couldn't have figured out unless he went on land. How would he do that if he had that compound in him that would-"
"He didn't have that compound in him," He replies. "He was born in Atlantis. We're raised up taught about why we can't leave. Most Atlanteans care about our home enough to know that we can't, unless we want to see it destroyed."
I frown. "Destroyed? What-"
"It's the Topsiders we have to worry about. No offense, but we don't have to worry about our own people stealing from us or possibly threatening to expose us to the world. That's why only Topsiders are given the compound. And usually, we have security to keep Atlanteans from running away, but Solus... he was a close friend of President Zala's. He used that to his advantage."
"Oh." I don't know what I was expecting, as if there would be some magical way for me to actually get out of here.
I feel somewhat guilty with these constant thoughts of leaving, especially since I have nowhere to go, and the opportunities here seem incredible. It's just... the idea of being here and not having that choice to leave-it burns something deep inside of me, makes me want to leave simply because I am not allowed to.
Samuel reaches over and takes my hand, causing me to flinch. I stare back and forth between his hands and his face.
"Look. I get it may take a little bit to get used to all this, but you will. You'll get to live a good life down here, I promise. You'll always have a bed and food, and any work you're willing to do will be work that is accepted and appreciated. And I'm sure you'll make many friends here as well, and maybe... maybe I can be one of them?"
His face holds a silly but hopeful smile, and I can't help but smile back at him.
"Yes. I think... maybe you can be."
A/N: Here you go, guys! I hope you are enjoying this story so far! Please be sure to vote and comment! Thank you and have a blessed day!