Depths of Night

Depths of Night Tess Boegel

Lyra descended to the Depths of Night, bringing with her a faint red glow. She had left the diffused sunlight of the Twilight layers long ago, passed through Midnight and entered the Abyss. Beyond that was the Trench.

Before her lay nothingness. A darkness so deep and intense and still, unshaken by currents, more suffocating than the pressure of the waters above. No kraken nor toothed whale that made the Midnight zone its hunting-ground dared to swim this low. According to the legends of her people, even the gods feared this place.

So, why was Lyra so drawn to it?

Ever since she was a little pup, she had loved exploring. Her mother had called it stupidity; her father simply shook his head. They were hardly surprised when she first became curious about the Trench. Still, they had hoped she would eventually give up on the foolish idea to explore there. She never did and promised herself she never would. Only her little brother, Lepus, seemed to understand. When she was little, he had followed her on many a make-believe adventure. As she grew older, he had always encouraged her curiosity about the world; together, they learned how to navigate by the stars, record the different animals and plants they saw, and, most importantly, how to fight with a spear.

When she had returned from trying to explore the Trench the last time, their parents had been livid. Lepus came to her after their scolding, bringing with him a welcome silence. After a long while he simply said, “You’re going to try again, aren’t you?” He spoke calmly, with no accusation in his voice. She could tell he already knew the answer.

“Yes. And no, you can’t come, it’s...”

“Why not!” he cried suddenly. “Why could you possibly not want me! You need some help, Lyra, some backup! Be sensible!” As soon as he finished speaking, he seemed shocked by his own outburst.

She just swam away from him. The two of them didn’t talk for a long time after that.

Lyra found him again when she had an answer. “I need to do this, Lepus. I can feel it in my soul that I’m meant to go down there. It’s like it’s written in the stars, my destiny ever since I was small to discover something new and amazing. This is my fight, and I have to win it alone.”

He didn’t look at her as she spoke.

even the gods

feared this place. “ “

“So, you just want it all to yourself?” he sighed. “Figures...”

“Lepus, let me do this. I can win without you there.”

For a moment, he stared up at the surface where the sunlight danced on the waves. Finally, he spoke, “It’s not that I don’t think you’ll win, Lyra, it’s... it’s the idea that you might not come back.”

“Well, that’s just silly!” she protested. “How is that different from saying you think I’ll lose?!” Lyra turned to swim away, but he grabbed her hand before she could.

“I’ll always love you, sis, but can you please listen to...”

She twisted her arm out of his grip and swam away. He didn’t try to catch her.

That morning when she snuck off to swim down again, Lepus found her. He hugged her tight and told her, “Just keep the light at your back, sis, and don’t stop. You’ll get where you need to go.” After all he had said, it struck Lyra that he still believed in her. She hardly believed in herself now, and even as she spotted the chasm below her, she didn’t really know if she would make it inside.

She continued to swim more cautiously down. This was not the first time she had attempted to explore here; she knew it wasn’t empty. She sensed motion in the water. Gripping her spear, she spun to see only a little dragon fish following her, its red light mirroring her own. Dragon fish weren’t dangerous, despite their demonic appearance. In fact, their red glow was what inspired her to use a red light-charm while exploring the depths. Few creatures down here could see red light, so dragon fish could spot their prey without it spotting them. Using a red light like theirs, Lyra was practically invisible.

She hoped.

The dragonfish followed her into the Depths of Night, swimming patiently in her wake. Lyra wondered what it wanted. Did it think she was one of its kind? Was it hoping to scavenge off her kills the way pilot fish do off sharks? She’d have to know more about the little monster to make a guess. She hadn’t spent much time at these depths before. Only quick dives before she had to flee from the Night Serpent.

The Night Serpent was the creature that made this Trench such a fearful place. It was a monstrous leviathan who would chase and devour any fish or mermaid that gave off light. Three times Lyra had swum to this depth only to be driven off by it. Now she returned again. This time would be different. This time she would not leave without killing the monster.

She glanced behind her; the dragon fish had vanished. She wondered why. Was the pressure down here too great for...

Something was moving.

Instinct kicked in and she immediately went still just as a shimmering eye turned towards her. The light she carried reflected off an iris taller than she was long. The perfectly round and black pupil was staring right through her. It was mere inches away and she hadn’t seen it.

Slowly, lazily, the eye passed over Lyra. The Night Serpent was right in front of her, swimming by without a care. The red light must be working, then. She had never been so close to the

beast before; it was astonishing to look at, like a piece of living seafloor. She could see shellfish and tube worms that had attached themselves to the beast, almost completely covering its exterior. She even saw a strange, hairy little crab scuttling across its scales.

A piece of the skin leisurely moved up, like a tectonic plate shifting. Lyra barely had time to wonder what was happening before it slammed down again and a jet of water blasted her backward.

Lyra hit the wall of the Trench and felt something sharp dig into the back of her head. She opened her eyes to see a darker streak of red in the water in front of her. Both hands instinctively went to feel the wound. It wasn’t deep, but hitting the wall had knocked the water out of her gills and...and...

Both hands on the back of her head... where was her spear?

She looked down to see it just drifting out of the light beneath her. She scarcely stifled a panicked scream as she dove after it.

The only other weapon she had was a small knife strapped to her tail; she could never face the monster without her spear. She could see the bottom now, uneven and cracked in places, but her spear was nowhere to be seen.

A low booming sound echoed through the Trench; Lyra felt it reverberating in her chest. The Night Serpent had turned back towards her. It wasn’t looking at her this time, but as its fang-crowded jaws opened and closed she noticed another feature she hadn’t seen before: nostrils. It was sniffing the water the way sharks do when they smell an animal bleeding, using that sense to help them find prey they couldn’t see.

Which, in this case, happened to be Lyra.

The creature let out a terrible, screeching, roar. It sounded like fury and bloodlust and chaos all condensed into one horrible noise. Lyra wouldn’t have been surprised if her ears had started bleeding too...

Where the Serpent had been slow to conserve its energy before, it now turned with incredible speed and agility and flung itself full force towards Lyra.

She drew her knife (though what she was going to do with a knife just longer than her hand against a monster of literally mythic proportions, she had no idea) and managed to dodge the Serpent’s open maw at the last moment.

The Night Serpent, in turn, almost slammed full speed into the floor of the Trench but veered up just in time. Lyra wondered if that was why there were so many cracks in the seafloor here.

The gigantic head of the beast turned back and forth, sniffing. It was obviously trying to be more careful this time. She swam slowly backward as the Serpent’s head steered closer, closer, closer; its gigantic gills working up and down. As Lyra watched their rhythmic movement with fascination, she had an insane, nigh suicidal idea.

She swam toward the monster and over its head as its trap-like jaw snapped below her. She saw the Serpent’s gills move slowly up, pulling in a strong current of water, and Lyra dove inside.

Inside, the Night Serpent’s rawlooking flesh surrounded her like a living cave. There was a terrible smell of rot, undercut by the sharp, coppery scent of blood which could have been

her own. As the gill closed behind her, she drove her knife into it as deep as it could possibly go. The Serpent lurched quickly to the side; she had hurt it immensely.

Good.

The gill opened again, and she pulled the knife through the Serpent’s flesh as she darted out. She turned to see the monster writhing in agony, its gill bleeding terribly. Frantic attempts to breathe with it were widening the tear. Now, she thought, if only I could get it on the other side...

Then the Serpent once again let out its blood-curdling scream, a scream of agony this time. It slammed itself into one side of the Trench and then the other, wildly thrashing its giant fins. It was all that Lyra could do to keep out of its way; the thing was almost more dangerous now than when it was after her. Finally, it tried to swim upward out of the Trench, but now its movements were labored, lethargic. It fell back down slowly and hit the craggy floor with a muffled boom, followed shortly by a lesser crack.

The shells covering the Night Serpent’s skin broke off in pieces around it like shattered armor. The dark blood of the creature still oozed around its

head in a murky cloud. All was quiet.

The pain of her head wound hit her in the sudden stillness. She hadn’t thought about it since she dropped her spear.

Her spear. Should she look for it? How long would that take? What if it was under the Serpent? It suddenly felt very empty in the Trench. Like Lyra was the only living thing there.

Everything seemed to be swirling before her, red blood mixing with red light mixing with even more blood. She was staring into hell through a monotone kaleidoscope. The light was hurting her eyes so much she could barely keep them open. Not knowing exactly what she was doing, she pulled the vial of enchanted light from around her neck. She took one last, pained look at it before letting it fall. It floated gently down to rest in a pool of dark blood.

Lyra turned her eyes up; before her was blackness, but behind her was light. “I...I brought the light...” she mused to the nothingness.

Keep the light at your back sis, and don’t stop. You’ll get where you need to go.

Lyra ascended the same way she came, with the light at her back, unsure if she would make it, but knowing at least someone believed in her.