Location Unknown

VALERY KONINGSBRUGGE

We trudged in silence through the mushy greens. Cicadas, Jennifer called them, filled the air with noise, constant and overwhelming. How I missed the peace of the ocean. There were small oceans, dipping into the grasslands. But they were green and black, murky with muck. Disgusting.

We reached this abandoned dock, where sea transportation for Compellers was to depart from and return to. It looked like none of the boats had returned. Only the dock remained, alone and afraid. The poor bucolic wooden construction of mankind.

The dock was covered in vines, which are...

"Valery, stop asking me questions."

"But I must know, Jennifer," I said. She stopped in her tracks and turned around to me.

"Why?" she asked. "Why must you know? We are lost in this strange place, stranger for me than you. To you, it is new. To me, it is bizarre. I will not be able to answer your questions anymore because this is outside the realm of possibility."

She continued to walk again, leaving me dumbfounded at the base of the dock.

"What am I supposed to do then? How am I supposed to learn and adapt to your world?"

"You'll figure something out." Fine, I thought. I will accept her prim outlook.

Vines look like crawling grass. And each vine was sprouting colorful... seaweed. Much softer and more delicate but they looked the same.

There was another billet-looking construction, but it was lop-sided and half of it had sunk into the green water. From the back of our tribe - I meant pack - I meant group, I had made my way to the front, in reference to the direction we had been heading in for the last few minutes.

The direction that we had thought would lead us to the exit. I suddenly grew more and more despondent. But I was interested in the settlement, let's say, shell - settlement shell - that bore no settlement. The group was more fixated on the seaweed above ground.

I wondered if I could blow a bubble big enough that it would wrap the shell with corners. Then I would fix it up for the people on boats to return to. Maybe that was the reason why no one wanted to return to this lonely dock. There was an ugly settlement shell blocking it.

The shell on the inside was flooded. The water was slanted across the settlement shell. I could see the dregs below the water and it was a black cloud of impurity. It was an ideal time to test if my water walking in this world still worked.

I threw the Compeller footwear off. They were already starting to coarsen my feet as I suspected would be the case.

I moved my foot upwards and pressed down on the water. It remained solid, the ripples carried out in small waves that lapped against the inside of the shell. I had to dig my hands and feet into the slanted water to climb it.

It felt good to feel the water underneath my feet. Once again, it moves and I move with it, even though the water was a far cry from the vast ocean back in my world, in terms of quality and quantity. My ducal world of blue and white compared to the peasants in green and black.

I looked down at my feet when I reached the peak of the water where it touched the settlement shell's interior. The sediment began to move and it lurked in its image and beneath the grimy water.

What was this? I had seen all types of animals when traveling down in the pipe to the underwater station, but this was new.

It had patterned crisscrossing skin. It was a bit pale and it looked dry, even when it was underwater. It was long because its body elongated into a tail and its snout shared this feature. It sort of resembled Xyler as a dragun, except it didn't have any wings and was plump in the middle.

I realized it had sharp teeth when it swam up to the surface and bit into my leg. My body screamed and so did my open mouth which very hastily became parched of liquid, and my leg of sensation.

I clawed at the snout of the organism, not trying to fight it but rather controlling my pain threshold. Blue blood mixed with the green to create turquoise water, but it also gave the animal some more color to its ghostly expression.

Footsteps tapped against the floor behind. I could barely concentrate or keep awake. Too much blood was being lost and spilt for a nonsensical reason. Each second the jaws of the beast were inching towards bone if it hadn't reached it already.

My knee cartilage popped out. Thank the seas my calves are so strong and big from walking, jogging and running my entire life. Walking, jogging and running with the sun on my back. On my shoulders, I carry it. At arms, I fight it. Within reason, I resent it.

Is this my life? It doesn't flash before my eyes, it comes to and goes like waves. To and fro. Backwards and forwards. I am pulled backwards by someone who has waded through the waters to reach me from up high.

But my leg does not leave the mouth of the creature. It is forward. It is in front of me. I am staring right at it and the animal paddles in the water and holds my leg up like a trophy of goodwill. He is a cheater! Cowardly bastard with no respect for knowledge.

I was only trying to study it, observe it in its natural habitat. And it wins by default because it is big and monstrous and I am a weak man for having treated knowledge as power. And I stand by that mantra.

"Oh my god!"

"What the fuck!"

"What happened?"

My friends congregated around me, having missed the abattoir completely. The animal had swum out the backdoor. I glanced at my leg for a second, and not a second longer. Or rather I glanced at my sprained and twisted, revoltingly ripped from socket and muscles and bone, hell of a stump...