Page 89 of My Tiny Giant
I quickly fixed my mask over my mouth and attached the helmet before the capsule’s side collapsed. Water flooded it. Now, we had nothing but our suits to protect us from the enormous pressure of the ocean above us, from the near-freezing temperatures down here, or from simply drowning. Thankfully, unlike the capsule, our suits held.
With a glance over his shoulder at me, Agan slipped through the prolapsed side and out of the capsule. The thin, metallic-red rope started to unravel from the spool in the pouch on his thigh. The other end of the rope was attached to a loop on my belt.
I followed him out.
The shapeless forms of fescods floating around the glowing shell cast shadows, like clouds passing in front of the sun. Instead of the peacefulness of the clouds, however, some nervous energy was apparent in their moving pattern. They were on the lookout, guarding their Mind.
Agan aligned himself with a passing school of golden deep-water fish, using their paper-thin, long bodies as a cover to sneak closer to the giant shell.
The fish jolted, distorting their unified formation, as a fescod swam by. His large body stretched and constricted, propelling him through the water with the speed unexpected for his size. Neither the cold nor the enormous pressure of the ocean seemed to bother him or the other fescods who guarded the Mind.
“I bet they’re like cockroaches ,” a sudden thought flashed through my brain. “They would survive a nuclear blast, too.”
Agan ducked behind the nearest boulder on the bottom, yanking with his hand at the red metallic rope that connected us. I dropped to the ground, too, and made it to the boulder a moment before the school of fish completely disappeared into the darkness beyond the glow.
A tentacle covered in long filaments suddenly lashed out of one of the many round openings on the surface of “the boulder.” It slapped me across the front of my helmet. I jerked back in shock, yanking at the red string that Agan still held in his hand.
He gave me a questioning glance over his shoulder, and I shook my head, gesturing to him I was fine.
He nodded and pointed at the next round “boulder” a few feet away from us. As soon as the fescod closest to us changed direction, swimming away from us, Agan shoved away from “the boulder” with both feet, propelling himself toward the next one.
I followed, shadowing his movements.
The scattering of the “boulders” stopped about a hundred feet before the giant shell that housed the Mind. Partially buried in the red sand on the bottom, it rose above us, larger than the biggest glass dome in Voran.
Rays of white-pink light beamed from the uneven, rounded openings, piercing the dark water. Brief pulses of red and orange shot up the beams. I wondered if those were caused by the signals that carried murderous instructions to the soldiers of the fescod army on the surface.
Awe momentarily overtook me at the sight of the ominous light show.
Agan slapped me on the arm, snapping me out of it. He gestured at the shell, indicating the open area we needed to cross in order to get to it, in plain view of the fescod guards.
I took a note of their movements around us. As soon as the closest one appeared to be far enough, I nodded to Agan, and he tipped his head to confirm. Shoving away from the “boulder”, we both dashed through the open water toward the shell.
Its beams of light illuminated us brightly like a stage light. I could clearly see every single detail on Agan’s suit as he swam less than a foot ahead of me.
Two of the fescods jerked, sharply changing their trajectories to head in our direction—we’d been spotted.
Rowing with his arms and kicking his legs, Agan propelled himself through the water across the open space. I did my best to keep up, swimming faster than I’d ever had before.
We swam through the nearest opening in the shell but didn’t slow down. The uneven, round hole was roughly the size of a double garage door—definitely large enough for a fescod to get through, too.
From the corner of my eye, I caught a dark shape sliding in after us. Without stopping, Agan shot a quick focused look at me then at the fescod behind us, gesturing for me to keep going. I kept swimming, afraid to spare another glance at what was coming after us.
Inside, the shell looked like a hardened sponge. The tunnels and openings varied in diameter, from the large ones like the one we were in to the ones less than a foot in diameter.
Agan veered off into one of the narrower openings, large enough for either of us, but too small for a fescod . The red string stretched between us for a moment then slackened as I hurried after him.
I’d almost made it through the narrower passage when a hard yank on my leg tossed me back out. Twisting around, I came face to face with a gray muddy eyeball of the fescod. It wobbled on top of one of the many thin protrusions sticking out of the blob of his body.
Patting around my belt, I quickly pulled a steel utility knife out of its holster and sank its blade into a spot right below the protrusion with the eyeball.
Water slowed down my movements. The fescod yanked me closer, more feelers sprouting from his body. Some were topped with pincers that clasped on to my arms and shoulders. Others unfurled like long, snake-like tentacles and wrapped themselves around my wrists and ankles.
Holding on to the knife handle with all my might, I dragged the blade down, making a gash as long as my forearm. The strain against the feelers prying my arm aside wore out my strength. My hand shook, my fingers slipping off the knife handle.
The dark cloud of fescod’s blood flowed from his wound, spreading through the water between us like gossamer silk. Through it, like through a veil, I saw the ends of the cut I’d made begin to quiver and press together. The fescod started the tissue regeneration process that would soon eliminate any trace of the wound.
I’d never got to witness this before. Up on the surface, I killed fescods quickly, before the regeneration had a chance to happen.