Subrift Tales/Chapter 3

The year is 1807. The country is Siltera.
The motorboat charged across the deep blue waves of Siltera's coastline, cutting open the water's surface with its knifelike speed. The fish towards the surface of the sea darted away in terror as it charged over their heads. A wave swept down from starboard, pushing it up into the air with momentum-powered force.
Jurica Tempesan, the captain of the motorboat, felt the boat rock as he kept his tight grip on the steering wheel. With the blazing Silteran summer beaming down over the ocean, he was dressed lightly in a shirt and swimming trunks, cloud-white with a navy trim that fit his status well. He held his favourite sailor's cap over his greenish-blue hair, its long black visor shielding his eyes from the gleaming mid-morning sun.
“Keeping hold of the rails, Hildre?” The captain called out behind him.
“Yes, captain!” The voice at the stern came from Hildre Seylina, a thirteen-year-old learning diver who he was taking to her lesson on the far coast. Her wavy turquoise hair, the colour of an empty morning sky, had swung into her lilac eyes from the momentum of the speedboat. She'd already stepped on board in her diver's wetsuit, with goggles hung around her neck. Her air tank, propped up on an upturned crate, had a shoulder strap looped around her arm so that she could pull it over right away.
As Jurica's motorboat swerved away from the coast, Hildre turned her gaze to face the fast-departing beaches. There had to have been dozens of people in that crowd on the golden sand, but as they shrunk away into the distance she barely had time to count them. Facing starboard, she had nothing to see - a few clouds in the air, maybe, or the motionless rocks on the horizon. She didn't mind waiting, though. The feeling of speed on that boat made up most of her action on her diving lessons, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
“Alright, we're at the dive spot!” As Jurica gave the signal, the boat decelerated until it was completely motionless in the middle of the vast blue. Hildre took her buoyancy jacket from the side and slipped it on. She pulled the air tank off its stand, struggling with its weight, and slung the straps over her shoulders. She lifted the goggles up over her eyes and took a look at her watch, which the depth gauge was built into.
Jurica had come over to greet her, still wearing his white clothes minus the cap, with a full set of diving gear over the top. Hildre had always been impressed with how quickly he set up his equipment. The main rule of diving was to never go alone - if Hildre's air tank failed, she'd need someone there to come to her rescue.
Without a word, they looked over each other's equipments. Everything was as it should be. Jurica carried 4350psi of air, while Hildre, with the smaller tank, was holding 3000psi. Usually, though, she'd only need half of that. They both moved to sitting position on the edge of the boat, set their regulators into their mouths so that the air could flow, and fell back into the water.
The sea felt warm, baked under the summer light, which gave them ideal conditions - cold waters were extremely dangerous for divers, draining their strength and concentration. Hildre turned to Jurica with a hand signal - “all clear”. He returned with a signal of his own - “descend”. Jurica released the air from his buoyancy jacket, letting the weights drag him down into the depths. Immediately, she did the same. She pinched her nose and blew hard - a method of equalising, to stop the pain in her ears as they hit the sea.
They were descending now, Jurica with his eye on their target, and Hildre with hers following the schools of fish that filled the ocean around her. A streak of silver and gold came rushing around in a loop, and as it drew close she could just make out some of the individual fish. Another fish came by, a solitary one, with greenish fins that spread like wings. Then she saw the thin blue shimmer of the Silteran Tetra, her favourite in all of the ocean. There was a small shoal of them ready to sweep through the sea above her, but with how fast she was sinking she wouldn't be able to watch much longer.
Hildre turned down to see where they were heading too - a chasm of blue basalt, somewhere inside it a pearl that she had to carry to the surface. Before she had time to get a proper view of the cave, she'd already sunk to a matching level. Jurica turned to her with another signal - “you lead, I'll follow”. She started to propel herself forward, into the mouth of rock. Crabs were scuttling upside-down on the ceiling amid the stalactites, turtles were drifting peacefully through the dark, and Hildre could have sworn that a few eels brushed past her hair. She didn't want to think too much about the life around her, though - completing her lesson was more important.
As she continued to push forwards, her eyes caught a slight glitter in the distance. She couldn't make it out from this distance, but concluded what the shine was in seconds - the pearl she was sent to find. Between Hildre and her target, however, was a maze of crags and stalagmites. She weaved through like a serpent in the undergrowth - a left turn, a right soon after. The path forked, but the left seemed blocked off in the distance, so she chose the right instead. Between this length of obstacles, however, she kept being dragged towards her right, away from the pearl that was now in plain sight. I must have missed a turn, she told herself, and she turned to look back.
She couldn't go back. Her left leg had anchored in place to a suction just behind her. It was some kind of whirlpool pulling her in. She tried forcing herself into the still water just ahead, but the suction was far stronger. Thrown back by the vortex, she was expecting to be spun in a cyclonic fashion, but she simply fell straight down. A wild bubbling foam came in front of her eyes, making it impossible to see her surroundings. Though by the time it faded, her sights were completely unfamiliar - there was no stone, the waters were paler, and Jurica was nowhere to be found. She glanced at her watch - the depth gauge said 1800psi, but it was draining much faster than she was used to.
Hildre quickly figured it out. She'd fallen into a Subrift. So many people spoke about them in her hometown, but she always brushed the idea off as an urban legend, meant to scare children away from going where they shouldn't. Now that the “legend” had become a reality, she was truly terrified, shuddering as she hovered in place in the blue expanse. If she weren't in such panic, she could have enjoyed the sights, more beautiful than anything the Silteran seas had to offer. It was a beauty more of life than of nature, with a full curriculum of fish of every kind she could name in perfect harmony. Rather than admire this spotless scene, however, she took the fish as an annoyance. Her eyes were frantically darting, hoping to find an exit.
There it was - above her and some sixty metres away, it was a spiral of black and silver that shone as bright as a solitary star. She doubted she had enough air to make it in time, but nonetheless made her effort. For some reason, her fins had less force to push in this bizarre Subrift water, and it instantly propelled her faster than she'd ever swum before. Hildre was like a bird soaring in this cloudless blue expanse. A river of Silteran Tetra rushed rapidly through the air in front of her, but with her speed she brushed through them effortlessly. Within a minute or two she was so close to the starry spiral that she could just make out the way the black and the silver flowed. At her speed, another ten seconds was all she needed.
But then, something struck her, a kind of hammer smash on her right leg. She turned her eyes back for a moment, and there was an aqua-skinned figure behind her. At first glance he seemed human, but his torso was coated in slate-blue kelp, loops of steely coral came down from around the waist, and below was a fish's tail. His arms were cobalt and lobster-like, his hair was silver and teal, and from his sharklike back protruded two long dolphin fins tipped in black.
Hildre was barely able to control herself after the strike - she tried to move forwards, but with one leg barely moving she was swerving away. She expected her attacker to take her out while he had the chance, but nothing followed. As her imbalanced struggling made her face tilt away from the portal, she took a good look at the fish-man who struck her. He didn't have a weapon - the only way he could have hit her was with his pincers. She thought, for a moment, that he had a torn, longing gaze in those foamy blue eyes. It was as if he was begging her to stay in the Subrift. She frustratedly pointed to her watch's rapidly draining depth gauge - only 50psi were left. But even in her desperation, she knew it was foolish - how would they know about diving or needing air in a Subrift?
The gauge tipped to 10psi. Hildre mustered her strength to twist her body so that it faced up. She pointed a finger weakly towards the void, and just barely noticed that an arm was reaching through. It could only belong to Jurica. She tried kicking closer with her one good leg - it was far from perfect, but it was all she needed to get closer. She reached out, grabbed the captain's hand, and let her drained body be pulled back through.
Hildre's eyes were closed, her right leg still stiff, her air completely gone. She began another diver's signal, slashing an arm in front of her neck - “out of air, help!”. Immediately gauging the problem, Jurica tugged out the girl's regulator, and drew a second from his own air tank into her mouth. The sudden re-ability to breathe was blissful, and for a moment she was thinking of nothing except the joy of being able to survive. Jurica was beginning to hastily swim towards the cavern exit, and for a moment Hildre couldn't understand his briskness. The problem was quick to gauge, however - with two people using the same air tank, their air would go down much more quickly. Thankfully she was a lighter breather than the captain, though time was nonetheless against them, only 1800 of his 4350psi remaining.
Beginning to open her eyes, she felt a refreshing familiarity to see the deeper colour of her homeland's water. The fish were all the same, perhaps even less noticeable as their vibrant bodies stood out more in the Subrift's paler sea. She watched her back as Jurica filled their buoyancy jackets, allowing them to float away to the surface. The cavern began to shrink away in the distance, and the seas grew brighter as they were drawn closer to the sun. The captain's motorboat was soon in sight, its shadow facing away from the divers as a bleak mark of inky darkness in the water. When a moment passed, however, the two had burst above the surface of the ocean. They were blinded for a few seconds, with the towering splash that encircled them and the dripping water that hung over their goggles. Hildre pulled the mask off of her eyes, and soon found herself gazing at the boat still floating idly among the gentle waves. She was so close that she could make out the blue imprints on the hull.
Jurica swam with Hildre onto the boat's side-ladder, and let her be the first to climb on. With her bad leg she found it difficult, but it only took her two rungs before she could haul herself onto the deck. The captain soon followed, swift as ever.
“Hildre, what happened in that Subrift?” He asked as he knelt down at her side.
“My leg was broken, captain,” she explained, somewhat weakly in tone. “that's why I couldn't just swim out. There was this... lobster-armed fish-person who attacked me.”
“That must have been a resident. They don't take kindly to us intruding their Subrifts.”
“He stopped after the first strike, though. He looked distraught, or something. Like he wanted me to stay in the Subrift.”
“That's strange. Was he the only living being in the rift?”
“Besides four reef's worth of fish, yes.”
“Hmm.” Jurica began pulling off his equipment as he waded into thought. “I can't think of any other reason. We'll just have to believe your theory.” The captain, now free of diving apparatus, took up his cap and stood by the wheel. “We'd better get that leg checked. Get as much equipment off as you can and grab hold of something.”
Three days later...
Hildre was on a quiet walk on the sandy roads in her neighbourhood, late enough for the sun to have risen, but too early to be seeing any people. Without the usual crowd populating the beach, her starboard was an empty desert, and on port side the sea seemed almost angry, with light gleaming off madly and the waves sweeping by at surprising speed. She felt the water splash by her legs, giving two consecutive feelings - one familiar for her good left leg, and another, much less felt on the right leg covered in a waterproof cast. Following the injury, she was walking awkwardly with a pair of wrist-attached canes as two extra legs.
It felt like such a nuisance to travel this way - a step on her good leg, followed by digging her canes in and using them to lift her forward. It was a simple enough process, especially walking on sand where she could dig the canes in for support, but this soaked tiled road made it much harder through the slippery surface. Hildre was annoyed, though she knew that this was necessary for her recovery. She carried on, and before long noticed someone else walking by the tide in the distance, sure to cross paths with her.
Hildre was for a moment shocked, and just then she could have sworn there was a splash in the waters. At first she thought it was something the distant figure had done, but the sound was too loud, too distant. She kept walking, only to feel her right cane pressing into something soft. She lifted it up and gazed down - there were Silteran Tetra lying on the sand. Maybe they were just washed up on the shore, she told herself. But there was something else, drops of water on her bare left foot. The tide was too low down, so only a splash could have caused this.
She kept on struggling with her canes to push forward, and began to make out who the person in the distance was. He was older than her, perhaps fifteen at the most, his hair a vibrant colour as blue as she could imagine. He walked barefoot in the damp sands, a sensible decision as to avoid ruining any footwear, wearing capri-blue trunks and a mint-green jacket opened up to show the pearl pendant over his chest. The sun's glare was off to his right, though he nonetheless had a pair of sunglasses propped on the top of his head to shield those warm brown eyes.
“Hey, how's it going?” He asked in a tone that was almost too friendly. Hildre panicked as she heard his conversational shot, and might have fallen back if the canes weren't keeping her stuck in the ground. She heard that splash again, and this time glanced to the sea to try and spot it - there was nothing, though her arms felt soaked as if by a drizzle. This time, she noticed that another batch of fish had been flung high into the air, perhaps starting from where her hands had been a split-second ago. It now made perfect sense to her what that Subrift had done to her.
“H-Hi!” She responded at last. “I'm just trying to get used to these stupid canes. I broke my leg, you see.”
“Let me guess, Subrift?” The boy's friendly side had vanished, he was now adopting a deductive demeanour. “Given those fish you threw out...”
“Yeah, it was in a Subrift. This weird merman with lobster-arms attacked me.”
“Hey, the same thing happened in the Subrift I fell into! I can call the sealife too, actually!” Hildre was surprised to hear this, but took it in calmly. “My name's Luka, Luka Catheris. Nice to meet you.”
“I'm Hildre. Seylina.” Luka was in position for a handshake, but with her arms stuck in position to support the canes, she wasn't able to accept it. Before long, Luka realised and withdrew.
“So...” Hildre went on, reaching for a response, “what's it like to be able to throw out fish?”
“It's so much fun, honest.” Luka swung an arm up as if he was throwing a ball, and from his palm a tower of aqua shot up, a wave of Silteran Blue Ghosts shooting out. They were middling-body fish with sharp-ended tails and teeth, known for generating electricity. He caught two in his left hand as they fell, plled his sunglasses down, and thrust the arm out towards the horizon - as he did, blue-and-green sparks shot out, sending a beam of thunderous light out to the sea.
“...and that's not all. Not only can I summon fish, I can enhance their abilities. Some fish have powers you'd never think of until I threw them out. Like how swordfish can shoot blades of wind-“
“Hey, Luka?” Hildre asked, interrupting but bearing no ill intent. “How do I do all this? How can I just choose what fish I want, how do I tell them to use their powers, all that?”
“I could teach you.” He replied with more of his former cheerful air. “But you'll need to ditch that cast first.”
Hildre sighed as she gazed down to the soggy cover around her damaged leg. “Definitely. We should keep in touch first, though. What school do you go to?”
“Tidal Blue High.”
“Silver Scale High.” The two paused, miffed that this plan hadn't worked, but nonetheless recovered.
“I could come round to your house,” Luka suggested.
“No way! My parents are too skeptical. What about yours?”
“They'd be fine with it. So, it's settled?”
“Yeah. You can lead the way.” Luka turned and began to run back the way he came, almost out of impulse. He completely forgot the injuries of the girl he was leading, but stopped himself just before she wouldn't be able to see her guide. Hildre kept on trail, swimming in a whirl of amazement - what were the odds that she'd meet another victim of the same Subrift so soon?
Category:Subrift Tales
Category:Stories
Category:Chapters