Lawrence University Creative Writing Club Spring Serial Story
Lennerd hadn’t thought this could get much worse. Sure, he was trapped beneath the ocean, and sure, he was granted naught but a week of oxygen to live on, but there ought to be limits to these sorts of things.
But whatever god might have been out there to hear his pleas was off on some quest meant for a man half his age, leashed by a length of rope to a small fish glowing steadily brighter as they descended into the depths.
Lumen had initially insisted that they weren’t meant for this sort of task, swimming through the depths, let alone pulling another person along for it, but Morga had groaned something loud and unintelligible, and that had seemed to be that.
With Lumen having to focus on navigating, the journey had lapsed into merciful silence. If things had not been the way they were, it could have almost been peaceful. The sand at the bottom of the ocean was soft, seemingly stretching on in an endless beige expanse.
Until it very suddenly wasn’t.
Instead of continuing on forever, the sea floor dropped off, opening up to a deep-blue abyss.
“Alright,” Lumen said, and Lennerd had the distinct sense that if the fish had hands to clap together, it would have. “Down there is the Hadal Zone. It’s bound to be the fastest way to reach Davy Jones, though it’s not so pleasant to wander about without a guide! Reaching the bottom isn’t too hard, and there should be someone down there who can help you out. Her name is–”
Lennerd waved his hands, interrupting Lumen’s flurry of instructions. “You can’t be sending me down there on my own. I can’t even see, let alone find my way all the way through.”
“You aren’t going all on your own, that’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Lumen was hardly convincing. Lennerd had never considered himself a coward, but he was heavily weighing the idea of swimming off in any direction but the one in front of him. “You go down, and then right at the bottom, there’s a little grotto. Stand outside and call for Granny C. Or Granny Coelacanth. She’ll respond to both, though she’s gone a little hard of hearing as of late.”
The instructions washed over Lennerd, try as he did to pay attention to them. Any time he stopped to think for more than a moment, the surrealness of his situation struck him and he found it difficult to believe he was alive and not in some sort of ocean purgatory.
“You’ve got it, Lennerd! Though I can’t go myself, it shouldn’t be too hard!” The encouragement was hollow, and it did absolutely nothing to convince Lennerd of the necessity of his mission. But then Lumen was pulling the rope off of him and swimming off into the distance with a wave of their fin, and there was nothing around but him and the abyss.
What else was there to do? Lennerd took one step over the edge of the cliff, bracing his foot against the rocky wall behind him to send himself hurtling down, deep into the depths of the Hadal Zone.
It was easy, but that did not mean that it was pleasant. The light grew dimmer and dimmer until Lennerd was sinking through the void, all his senses dulled or lost entirely, with only the occasional brush of something slimy against his skin to remind him that he had not yet been cast into purgatory.
Down through the depths, through the dark, through endless ink and void until his shoulder collided with sand and his elbow found a patch of rocks. He’d reached the end of the fall, but he couldn’t see how he was supposed to carry on from here. He couldn’t see his own hand half an inch off his nose.
What was it he was supposed to be doing again? Calling for a fish?
“Coelacanth,” he bellowed, hands cupped around his mouth, “Are you out there? Coelacanth! I am in need of a guide!”
There was no response, not even an echo. He hadn’t followed Lumen’s instructions to the letter, but he’d thought the instructions silly. His grandmother had been beneath the dirt for decades now; he wasn’t going to dishonor her name by replacing her with a fish.
But what else was he to do? It was dark and he was lost; there was no escape unless he asked for it.
He sighed, frustration escaping in a bubble of his limited air.
“Granny Coelacanth! Are you out there?”
A light twinkled a few yards ahead, hardly visible behind what must have been a pile of rocks. It twisted around their edges, then hit him full force as the barrier toppled over.
“Y’can stop yellin! The lord below knows I ain’t deaf yet, but you’re bound t’get me halfway there! Who sentcha? Whaddaya want? Who’m I speakin’ to?”
Despite his desperation, he hadn’t expected a response. Lennerd scrambled to find his voice again, shielding his eyes against the light as he spoke.
“Lennerd van Der Veen, ma’am. I need to speak with Davy Jones himself, and I need to do it quickly. I was told you’d be able to get me there?”
The light began to creep towards him, eventually revealing the form of a withered old fish, dark blue and covered in glowing white spots. Its yellow eyes flashed in its own light, too cunning for the ancient frame they were embedded in.
“Well why didn’t y’say so, Lester? If you’re short on time, Granny C knows more shortcuts ‘n any fish out there! I swear it on my four last fins, I do.”
He’d been shuffled from one fish to another, though he was almost starting to miss Lumen’s company. Granny Coelacanth had offered aid, though the price he was paying for it was near unpayable–he had to listen to her as she swam alongside him, and Granny Coelacanth never needed to breathe between sentences.
“…so I says to him, I says that if he wants t’go searchin’ for bigfins, then he can go searchin’ for bigfins all on his lonesome, ‘cuz I’m not draggin’ myself anywhere near those abominable things, real or not. I’m only one fish, and I’ve only got two-thirds the fins I should have anyways, I’m not achin’ to lose another, that’s for damn sure. Losin’ the first two was inconvenience enough! Not so bad learnin’ to swim without ‘em, ‘course, but the back and forth and back and forth to Morga’s and mine and Morga’s and…”
It was difficult to keep his eyes from glazing over, kept open only to spot the steadily increasing number of flickering lamps posted on the path they were taking. Though they turned out to be clusters of glowing kelp, Lennerd found himself somewhat thankful to have something to look at.
Eventually, the dark path widened, leading down into a brightly lit–
“A city?”
“‘Course it’s a city, Leslie. Whaddaya take us for? Animals?” The irony was lost to the currents, as Lennerd had begun to swim ahead, following the shining road in the only direction it led.
Straight ahead into a glimmering spire of rock.