The Shell and the Star - Part 25

Welcome back to Part 25 of my serialized "aquatic" Science Fiction Romance story, The Shell and the Star. 

If you're just seeing this story for the first time, you can catch up on all the parts published to date by clicking this link:

The Shell and the Star

If you're reading along each week, you know that things have gone from bad to unrecoverable for Jinn. Last time, she learned Trey's fate in her absence. The Imperator -- Trey's father -- has told her that Trey has disappeared, and is believed to be dead, lost to the Deep. 

She fled the imperator's manor in dark despair, devastated at the thought that Trey is gone. 

Heartsick and lost, she piloted her bubble to the barrier at the bay entrance. Tears streamed down her face. Her body trembled uncontrollably. She was lost. Without hope. If Trey had ended his life there, why shouldn’t she follow? Would she have the courage to sacrifice herself to the Deep?

If Trey was gone, she had no future. An outcast of the Star and spurned by the Shell, she was completely and totally alone. Once her envirosphere’s power supply failed she’d have no refuge. Yes, she could breathe underwater now, but without her bubble’s protection, without food or shelter, alone and banished, she’d soon die. Better a quick death than lingering agony.

Her tears no longer fell. Jinn was numb, beyond feeling.

If Trey had truly cast himself into Deep, she wanted to be near him in death.

She skirted the edges of the city, beyond the watercourt where Trey had played his last game. The lingering memory of the Perlings' excited shouts and calls only bringing her further despair. Hearing Trey’s invitation in her head again -- “Maybe you’d like to go for a swim with me now?”  --felt like a spear through her heart.

Edging her unit closer to the eco-barrier, she stared out into the dark vastness where the ocean dropped away to unfathomable depths. The deep blue emptiness, and what it concealed, was terrifying.

Now she understood the pain of deep grief, an agony so terrible the only escape was death. She had brought Trey to this. She was responsible.

Jinn sat at the edge of the barrier for a long time, staring into the dark depths with mounting terror. Immense shadows stirred in the deep blue gloom. Circling, hunting.

Jinn recoiled within the shelter of her bubble. What had lured these monsters in? Had they recently fed here, now lingering close to the barrier, scouting for more prey? Was this where Trey had met his fate?

One of the creatures swam up from the depths, approaching her. It was dark, and monstrous and hideous, opening its gaping mouth to expose teeth the length of daggers.

Jinn spun her sphere in a circle and fled in terror.

She couldn’t do it! She was a coward and an outcast. She had no honor.

She drove her bubble mindlessly, aimlessly, until she recognized the entrance to Trey’s Garden at the edge of the Imperator’s estate. Instinctively, she’d steered through the narrow inlet into the pool where Trey told her he had once come to escape Tardem’s cruelty. Now it was her escape. No longer wanted in either realm, maybe here she could find peace with his memory—with the heartache she’d caused—before her bubble failed and left her to her doom.

Surfacing near the boulder-strewn shore, she parked in a shallow, rock-rimmed lagoon, powered her conveyance down and cast open the top seal. Throwing her head back and closing her eyes against the blazing heat of the sun, she listened to the rumble of the waterfall and pulled in deep, desperate gasps of air.

Above, foreboding black boulders rose in blocky steps that seemed bleak and unwelcoming. It reminded her of the rocky shore where Trey had carried her up when they escaped the Razortooth. Her tears came rushing again.

Her gaze traveled up and up the jumbled cliff, to a cloudless cerulean sky above that seemed to damn her.

Yes.  Up.

Up that cliff was where she’d go. Away from the sea—away from the Perling. But away from Talstar too, far beneath the sky. Somehow she’d find the strength to climb—or drag herself--up and up into the lifeless wastelands. They’d never find her body.

 Just like they’d never find Trey’s.

Sobbing, she raised her console and opened the top hatch of her bubble, working her body through the opening and sliding down the sphere onto a rocky shelf. Steadying herself with one hand on a boulder, she abandoned her bubble for the hard black stones above the water line.

Jinn struggled to stand, setting her jaw. Spying a narrow incline of sand twisting through the rocks, she willed her limbs to move under the heavy hand of gravity.

She began the impossible climb. Sometimes managing a step or two. Sometimes walking on her knees. Sometimes dropping to all fours. Her will alone kept her moving. Climbing. Crawling. Clawing.

Her muscles burned. Her mouth gaped to pull in oxygen. Time became a heavy thing on her shoulders, the slope ahead seemed an impossible task. The uncaring sun blazed on, the heat making her vision swim and her muscles seize. She sliced her knee on a sharp outcropping  and cried out in pain. Her knee bled, the rivulets of red soon caked with stinging grit. Grasping the crown of tall stone, she rose on shaking legs, forcing herself to take just one more step.

One more stagger.

One more stumble.

Then…the incline leveled out to flat, barren ground. Here she gave up the battle and surrendered. She’d slithered up the last of the slope on her belly and lay still and beaten and beyond hope on the scalding summit.

I’m so sorry, Trey. I didn’t know…

Here her life would end. It was the price she’d pay for hurting Trey. For being the reason he swam into the Deep.

Delirium brought her memories of their first and last swim together, of the joy of moving unencumbered through the water at his side and the sweet passion they’d found in each other’s arms. If only she could go back and make it right.

If only it wasn’t too late.

If only…

The black fog came for her, choking out her regrets and memories. Her skin was on fire, her mouth so parched, she couldn’t swallow. Hades was no legend, she’d found it here in this terrible, empty place.

But no. This couldn’t be hell. Because now she heard Trey’s deep voice call to her, and she knew nothing so perfect could exist in damnation. Was it just her anguished mind summoning the sweet sound of his voice, one last time?

Now she was floating, resting in a gentle hammock that lifted her from the scorching ground. Before the darkness took her, she marveled at the comfort of what was surely Death’s strong and tender hands. 

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Is Jinn about to join Trey in the great beyond?

Stop back next Monday for Part 26, and find out.

Meanwhile, have a great week!