The deeper they sank, the darker it grew.
Sunlight no longer reached them—just flickers of green and blue that trembled above, like a memory fading from the sky. The pressure curled in around Allen's bones, heavy but distant, like a thought trying to drown itself.
Still, he didn't feel pain. The mermaid pill worked. He could breathe, move, see… but the darkness swallowed his sense of up and down, until he wasn't sure if they were falling or floating or being slowly swallowed.
Lunari drifted beside him like a dream.
Her tail shimmered softly, golden scales rippling in the abyss. Her silver-white hair billowed in long, elegant tendrils, glowing faintly in the deep, like strands of starlight caught in the tide.
But it wasn't the dark that unnerved him.
It was the whispering.
At first, just a murmur. Like seafoam brushing against coral.
Then louder. Like voices trapped behind glass.
"...bring her back... you... why?"
Allen's brows knitted.
