There was more motion in the water tonight; dark and gloomy water, regardless. For a long moment in his peripheral, a fiery beacon glew. Its light scattering through the water, announcing its direction with an absurd presentation… no doubt, some sort of awful fight, several of which he had seen. He was silently glad, though, that they could still put up a fight. Perhaps a distress signal.
It came from the direction of Mount Othrys; a smart elevated location. Were people attempting to enter through the Titan Caverns? If so, gods forbid any Atlantean finds the entrance.
Maybe there was something he could do to help, but he doubted it.
Lynn was obscenely hungry; he didn’t think it would be much longer before he snapped again, and thus, had moved away from the Estamine. It plagued him at every moment that he could not always follow it around and make sure that no monsters would gain ground on it; the house-ship had sailed in dire straits before, and he could not bear to think what would become of it if those things found them… his family.
But, for now, he would have to leave them. He himself was a monster, and an unstable one at that, and Lynn knew this well… Lovine was the only one aware of his state, while all others who had once knew him assumed him dead. After that journey into the Dark Sea, nothing had been the same. And then, those beasts. They all started pouring out…
Him among these monsters, how could Lynn see the rest of his family within his right mind? Though he did as much as he could to keep his family’s lives off of the tightrope that the Bronze Sea (and what he assumed was every other sea as well, though he hadn’t strayed far enough to confirm his assumption) now balanced on, what was an Atlantean like him supposed to do? Convince his slimy “friends” to stay away from the last anchor he had on humanity?
Would his family even recognize them? He was infinitely grateful that at least one person understood him. But if Lynn failed, what would become of Lovine then? He had been haunted by this question for weeks, or however long it had been.
He didn’t always look up at the surface of the water, and when he did, it was usually night. It was clear he had become nocturnal, in some shape or form. The few times he had looked up from the water, his eel-like body stiff, scared out of his wits, it had seemed ghastly. Places like Sailor’s Lodge, where he had once sat down and had a drink, were charred skeletons both of humans and their structures, completely abandoned. The waves devoured whatever was left.
Mossy ships full of the beasts had sailed everywhere, and posed a threat to the Estamine multiple times. At first, he had attacked the creatures, but they were much stronger than him… Lynn’s mutations had turned him into some sort of sickening ambush predator. He could feel, with his huge, veil-like frills, every vibration in the water, as if it was his second sense of sight.
Numerous times had he felt a fishing bobber fall into the water. Just how desperate were they, to face the ocean and cast a line in a situation like this? And his sense of smell was more than intact; he could detect practically anything that entered the water, such as the human corpse he had devoured not even half an hour earlier. What had happened to them?
It didn’t matter, since their journal’s ink had spread through the water like a cloud. Just how many people had died? What was of his family at the moment? And why had this happened to him? Why did he have to keep his intelligence even slightly intact to watch the world end? Perhaps it was worth it all, though, just to help people from the sidelines, just as he always had. But doing it, he was scared, and stressed. To everyone else, he was just another monster. And he was.
He didn’t know what to make of himself, or if he was even worthy of trying to lend a hand; if they shook it, would they feel his long, nearly-human fingers, or the slimy webbing connecting them? He was a monster, but did he still have the guts to make a difference anymore? His family posed enough stress, but what of everyone else?
And he couldn’t talk, either: only some sort of primal voice came out. This made communicating initially with Lovine extremely convoluted and prolonged his stress greatly. He had almost been killed that day; maybe he wished that he had. He was miserable. Unable to talk or walk like a human, sometimes showing that same savagery that they did, a beast who ate the flesh of man with remorse only arriving minutes after his deeds. Why did this happen? He didn’t understand. How would he stop it? Was there any way to reverse this? He didn’t want to be part of the horde that had destroyed everything he loved. He would rather die with them.
With his mind and memories, the affiliation was aggressively tortorous. He had once been a hero, but now he could barely face his family. He couldn’t help anyone. They couldn’t know what he had been reduced to. It’s not like he could really help, them anyways. And he had no excuses for what he had already done. Lynn, in his mind, was a real disgrace.
Lovine should have killed him, but instead suggested that he should do all he could to help the survivors, no matter the personal cost. Since Atlanteans didnt go after him but he remained occasionally moral, he could make a difference. But he had just eaten a corpse! This was bullshit. How was yet another Atlantean supposed to help anyone? He was less than worthless; an unstable threat who scared everyone.
All he could even do was pathetically try and topple Atlantean Ships; he was bound to the water and shores. Perhaps Silverhold had had a fragile morale boost by shooting cannonballs at him. He didn’t know why he had avoided them, or how; they were grimly determined, each chunk of iron creating an explosion in the water. This wasn’t a cheesy story where he could make a difference… what good was his limited sanity if in every other way, he was one of them?
He had once got fed up and decided to make an attempt in traversing the water canals of Palo Town. Maybe, somehow, he would find a way to get help, or to communicate to people. To tell them that the Atlanteans were coming faster than they had expected. He could have done something. But when he arrived, all he found were dark, scaly, slimy monsters and shells. They had never stood a chance.
He rapidly scavenged through a few slowly plummeting ships, painted with the colors of the crumbling Navy. Tears and gashes ran through their wooden hulls, and Atlantean vessels sailing adjacent created threatening ripples in the water. But even in this most desperate situation, he had thought there was something that he could do. He wish had hadn’t tried.
Even with his most acute senses, he found it difficult to discern human movement among the rushing water. He could feel furniture clatter about in the chaos, more and more cannonballs land in the water. The town had looked so overrun that Lynn wasn’t sure if these were initial escapees or leftovers for the monsters.
He had found the first man with their irregular splashing and rapid heartbeat, which got more and more obvious as he got closer. Navigating to the Captain’s Quarters which were rapidly flooding was painful: the splintered wood tore at his immensely sensitive frills, but he decided that there had to be something that he could do. In all their pathetic thrashing, he had reached him before the Atlanteans.
He was thankful at the time. Lynn hadn’t even realized it at this point, but could sense electrical fields as well; a sort of tingling at the base of his neck, drawn out to his nose in strange, symmetrical patterns. The man in question, with his close proximity, was overwhelmingly desperate, rightfully so. His heart beat rapidly, with some sort of grim and utmost resolve that almost, in a futile doubt, made Lynn think he could have gotten out of the room without him.
He immediately scooped the man up and tried to go back the way he came, more difficult with his long body in the way, but an attempt nonetheless. The man screamed and thrashed, and tore at him, which scared and hurt Lynn. He knew that he was a monster, but he was just trying to help… he supposed he would have to deal with this, but for how long?
With his great senses and long fingers, it was less of a struggle to keep him in place than it would have been with perhaps another Atlantean, but the man flailed with a determination that could only blossom in the face of death itself. Much to Lynn’s surprise, already feeling sick from this man’s awful fear, he had wriggled free.
There was a short consideration whether he should go after him. Should he keep away from the man, feeling like that was something they both desired deeply? Or should he aid him against his will? but when he reached the man, he seemed to be already unconscious, and slowly descending. A bit of blood from particularly brutal splinters and cuts polluted the water and made it easier to track him than it already was in the murky depths.
But by the time he reached him, bringing him to the surface with almost a reluctant demeanor, his heart was no longer beating. He tried shaking the water out of his lungs, but there was no use; the man had passed. Watching this man die before his eyes was significant to him, for that kind of a death, just how much terror must Lynn have propagated in him? Maybe he truly would have had a better chance by himself. Perhaps he had a better chance dealing with the panic of the ocean instead of the panic of the ocean plus a, deeming by his reaction, an indomitable monster. Where would he have gone? Would the Atlanteans have found him, anyways? Just how overrun was Palo Town?
Could this monster really make any sort of difference? He thought this and more, gritting his teeth, as the body floated besides him, smothered in the glorious moonlight that Lynn was now blinded by. He dived back down, no longer deafened by the white-caps of the rough waters tossing around his veil-like skin. He sensed a second person swimming on the surface. Their presence was so obvious that he felt nearly intimidated by his own biological aptitude, but he would have to bite the bullet and take this second chance.
As he approached them, the person was entirely calm, nearly freezing in the water, though their heartbeat provided a wild contrast; did she think that just by staying still, she would survive him? No, what was he even thinking? Maybe this person would be more reasonable than the last. He could swim her, somewhere. Somewhere with other humans, and he would get at least something out of all this.
Somehow, it played out exactly as he had wanted. She was entirely fine with all of this. How? She was clearly scared, but after a few minutes, she had calmed down slightly. What was she thinking, after how the man had dealed with him? Maybe she was simply just accepting her death… one that Lynn wouldn’t be providing. He probed his mind for intrusive thoughts and warded them off, though he was totally a mess at this point. That must be it. He would take advantage of this misunderstanding and… help her.
Or, maybe there were others like him, other Atlanteans who had a shred of intelligence, empathy. Who were willing to help. In the back of his mind, he had doubted it. Not after what he had witnessed at Palo Town… it haunted him for the next few minutes, as he had located the Estamine by its slow bobbing a few miles away, anchored cautiously at Limestone Key. Having only recently met and convened with Lovine, he nearly screamed inside his head. There were ships barely a minute of sailing away. Who were they to be so estranged from the situation, and so careless?
This stressed him greatly, and he trembled a bit. He could hear the woman saying something, but it was difficult to interpret with his strange sense of hearing, not that it mattered at all. No Atlanteans, somehow, had taken notice of his and her leave. He would dump her off at the Estamine, she would miraculously survive, and he would have done something.
Everything would be fine, he thought, though, nevertheless, he imagined grimly what those woman must really be thinking. She was likely scared stiff. An Atlantean helping her would just be deemed as selfishly dragging her off to its own den to devour. He closed his eyes for a moment and paused before continuing to slither just under the water surface awkwardly in making sure she could breathe.
He could see the bronze framing, of the ship, not too far away! Despite his doubts, he still had hope. After all, he had done this to save people, not to worry. To be just as he once had been, even if it wasn’t as glorious, or if people weren’t as grateful or understanding. Those things didn’t matter. He would help them just the same. But underlying, he hated himself. How people had acted around him for weeks. The fear in Lovine’s eyes. Could they even feed another person? He hoped the rest of the crew wouldn’t see him like this.
And this woman, she hated him… they all hated him, why would he save them if- what? Why was he thinking this? It wasn’t like him. He was scared and lonely in the middle of an apocalypse. One of the common enemy. A murderer. His head hurt… How was he even going to help them if it would be like this every time? And he had gotten lucky! He didn’t understand his thoughts, and they swirled around in his his mind as if caught in a whirlpool while he moped. Why was he so scared? Everything was going fine. He could save someone, so why did swimming seem so hard? The ship wasn’t getting any closer.
Lynn’s mind raced more, despite his half-conscious attempts to calm himself down. He felt almost sick again. The woman squirmed a bit. Why now? WHY NOW??? She was being SAVED! Why wasn’t she grateful? This was so much harder than it needed to be? But why, just because he looked like this? It wasn’t fair! Why did any of this happen? Pent-up stress started to break through his eyes, but the tears dissolved instantly in the water while he shuddered.
Lynn hated everything just then. He hated just how calm this woman was, for a moment, with a monster like him. He was just another one of them, the implications of which had been sharply reinforced on this day. Though, as the blackness of the water below ate him up, this message would not have been clear if he did not wake up nearly half an hour later at the ocean floor, clutching at her half-devoured body.
And, for every reason, he followed that beacon of fire. If it represented the shred of humanity and heroism left in him, or if it was his instincts telling him that food lie there, a deep hunger he would have to outpace, he didn’t know. With how long he had lied here, thinking, crying, the two sides were indistinguishable, and each seemed to tug on his soul in opposite directions. He hoped, sadly, it would at least split after he got there… whatever he was going to do.
He hoped, too, that before that, he could see his family at The Anglerfish Estamine. He hoped it would occur after these things, so his wretched curse could end on a more bright note. A hero greater than him could slay him and save the people of the Bronze Sea. But that was then. Now, he would do anything he could to stop it. To hang on. It was inevitable, but there had to be something, something that he could figure out, something he could help with. Anything. And here was his beacon.
And he knew, somewhere in the back of his conscience, that he wouldn’t be tell when it happened, there would be no glorified tipping point. He was going to lose his mind here with an agonizing, creeping pace, and worse, slowly forget the things that made him who he was.
There was nothing he could do to save the people who could salvage him. But why would they? He had fallen to the monsters just the same as everyone else. People, no doubt, had to kill their own family members who succumbed to the infection, no matter how much their brain had decayed. Lynn struggled to come up for excuses why he was any different.
One day, Lovine would die, and there was nothing he could do. And after that, maybe, he wouldn’t flinch at corpses. But, maybe before he lost himself to his new, unbearable reality, the people he loved would be safe. Safe from him and his new, monstrous companions.
He wormed towards the pulses of this conflict. What did all of this mean to him?
(if you want)
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