Feeling a little motivated to work on this just so I can procrastinate on TT XD

Little one, I suggest we stop.

What lies ahead... troubling to anyone, let alone one with suppressed memories.

It is twisted, child.

Twisted beyond anyone's comprehension.

...

If you insist, I cannot argue. It is your decision, your brain.

I can only offer caution...

Day 8

Midnight

Same underwater caves and island

Sally's in a shit mood. You can tell. The schools of salmon around the Shoal's current camp were far more agitated today, darting left and right, changing direction in the blink of an eye, whirling and clouding and flashing indecisively around.

Jimmy's gone quiet. He sits in his hammock all day, fiddling with the objects he collected and the gifts given to him on Meeting Day. The spark in his eyes is gone and his easy, confident smile has been replaced by a strained, worry frown which scares the crap out of you.

Lizzie's acting the strangest. She's always looking towards the west and then at her seablings, sighing. Your oldest sister acts like she's trapped on dry land with no water to fill her lungs. She's on edge, jumpy, skittish, distracted. You fear for her.

You're trapped in your own brain again, tracing paths into the future, trying to account for each logical variable and each make sure the Shoal ends up on the best one. You've forgotten what eating is or what laughter sounds like. Your own thoughts cycle like voices through your head, echoing warnings and sowing despair through your soul until it feels like suffocating.

On the third night, around 1:00 A.M., you start mapping out each logical next step on paper instead of in your head. Ink stains your hands and the rocks as you draw above water until you run out of air. You stay in the water for as little time as possible. It seems to make the thoughts louder until they scream at you, angry and terrified at the same time, mocking and sad.

The sun rises. You don't feel it. There's a thick silence in both air and water as the Shoal slowly disintegrates. Your rings are radio-silent like the quiet of death. No one talks.

The ink spreads. Paper is covered with sprawled maps and tables as you think of logical occurrences and variables to map everything, everything all at once. If Sally does this, things change. If you run into this rock, the threads become matted and tangled. This fish dies, the world ends. The clouds blow across the sky too fast, everyone is doomed. Cause and effect.

Around two days later, Lizzie appears with food and drink. You try to thank her, but your voice doesn't work. She disappears again, back under the water, and you consume something for the first time in what feels like forever.

Then it's back to the logic and the scrolls.

Your stomach complains as it is forced to work again. Headaches pound at your temples, but you can't slow down. Storms threaten to roll in and you can sense something wrong with the air pressure. The world feels unbalanced, as though something happened which should not have happened. The scales are tipped and the weights are falling off.

Hours later, hand grab you and pull you underwater. Above the surface, waves beat the shore and caves, lapping angrily at the sand. You squirm, trying to escape the hands and get back to the scrolls, but the arms hold you fast until your brain makes sense of what's happening.

It's Sally. She's trembling.

"Y/N, stop. Lizzie told me what happened. You can't obsess over this. Trust me, if anyone knows about obsessing and being a perfectionist, it's me. Calm down, please." Slowly, your spinning mind clears and the logical voices stop pounding at your skull.

"Where..." your voice is creaky and scratchy from days of unuse, but Sally understands.

"Lizzie and Jimmy are tying everything down. A hurricane's blowing in."

You breathe more seawater in through your mouth and gills and talking comes a little smoother this time. "How... Long?"

She sighs. "You were up there for two or three days. All of us... we've being feeling weird. Antisocial, annoyed, ticked off, snappish, forgetful, you name it. Honestly, it's a good thing the hurricane's coming or we would've never snapped out of it. Now come on, we have to hurry."

Your fins feel weak and your movements sluggish as you follow your speed-demon of a sister through the water down to the seafloor where Jimmy is packing things away and Lizzie tying them down. They both nod to you as you swim down, then return to their work.

Their bluntness is understandable, as is their barely controlled panic. Hurricanes are not a fun thing to experience, especially in the ocean. You help Jimmy with stowing away hammocks and moving rocks for Lizzie, then prepare your own seapacks and dive knife away.

Words drift though your head as you work, words from Sally and Lizzie and Jimmy.

We would've never snapped out of it.

Y/N, if something happened... ...would you follow me?

That's weird

Trace the paths.

Never snapped out of it.

It feels wrong.

Please.

Never.

It's unnatural.

Fuck... what did we get ourselves into?

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886 words

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:)