Note from the author: the songs are free to be whatever you want, but I imagine the 1st peppy song as Walk Off The Earth's cover of Cheerleader, and the workout song as Levels by Avicii! Feel free to play them as you read. :)

Day 2:

The first few chords of a song rip through the morning air, the sheets automatically pulling back on your bed.

Your eyes fill heavy, as though filled with sand, as you blink them open in a sterile white environment. For a moment, you forget, then... The Bubble.

The beat of the song drops, and you jump out of bed, grabbing the alarm and setting it back on the desk with a clomp. You rush over to the mirror, tying your hair back into a ponytail, then pull open the sliding door to the wardrobe. Your pajamas are a white two-piece set, blending you into the environment as the peppy song plays, and you pull out a white workout set out of the closet.

Whoever chose your wardrobe must've had good taste- outside of the clothes you brought from home, most are in your personal style, even if they are as white as the Bubble's surroundings.

The song changes, and you glance in the mirror one last time. Your hair is pulled into a high ponytail, and the leggings end in a ballet-shoe-esque tie that adds a nice detail to the white set. You open the door to your room and hurry over to the TV just as the song is ending, grabbing the remote and clicking it on to reveal the cameras of an assortment of people in identical bubbles, all in different colors.

There's a black bubble with a man wearing black workout clothes, a yellow bubble with a woman in yellow, and, in the largest camera box in the front of the call, the personal trainer from the Academy appears.

"This is your workout video for the day," she says, and you hear the sound over the speaker system that played the music. She describes the equipment you need- three sets of dumbbells, a yoga mat, and the portable white punching bag tucked away in the corner- and you follow, grabbing the items as she lists them.

The peppy song fades into a high-energy song you recognize, and you start the workout, following after the familiar rhythm of the Academy trainer. You jump up and down in the motions, your body strong and responding quickly as you race through strength training, cardio, and kickboxing.

You're covered in a light sheen of sweat when the trainer waves to you and clicks the TV off, and you grab the remote, turning your screen off. You exhale, grinning and turning to the kitchen to make breakfast.

Fitness reqs were one of your favorite parts of the Academy- you love the way you feel after a hard workout, the way everything in the world seems so much sharper.

You open the mini-pantry to see what's stocked inside it, then pull what you need for breakfast from the giant storeroom: protein powder, acai powder, and granola, frozen fruit from the freezer section, and fresh fruit from the refrigerator section.

Arms full of a balancing tower of food, you turn to flick off the light at the end of the storeroom before you remember something. The Hyde likes coffee, doesn't he? He worked at a coffee shop. The Weathervane, you remember.

You stomach curls in your gut as you remember the monster, the way he tried to kill you yesterday, but you hobble over to the drinks shelf and add coffee to your swaying stack of food, anyway.

You blend up your acai bowl, humming to yourself as you drop a banana into the blender and toss the peel back into the trash can. You pour the purple liquid into two of the white, porcelain bowls- one for you and one for the monster- then top both with cut banana and mango around the rim and granola arranged in the center.

The coffee machine at the other end of the kitchen dings, and you pull the mug you'd taken for the monster- a plain white one- out from under the machine. The hot liquid steams up to your nose, filling the kitchen with a pleasant scent. You never drank coffee- too much caffeine- but you loved the smell.

You remember sitting on the dorm beds in the USOAT Academy, talking to the others. If you could smell like anything, what would you smell like? You always said coffee.

The smoke rises from the fresh mug you've made for the monster, curling through the air in graceful patterns. It smells comforting, like a cozy sleep after a long day.

You sit down at the counter and eat your breakfast, tracing patterns on the marbletop counter with your finger. The clock tells you that it's about 9:30 AM, which means you'll be docking in about an hour.

For some reason- maybe it's the energy of your first morning at sea, or the fact that you haven't seen the monster yet- this feels fresh and exciting instead of scary. You finish your bowl and hop off the barstool, sliding it over to the dishes by the sink, and then clamber up to the top of the stairs, pushing out of the Bubble and onto the raft around it.

The morning is bright around you, with the chatter of far-off seabirds and the smell of saltwater spray alighting on your skin. The sun is bright, and in all directions, there is nothing but the calm blue waves of the ocean, lapping at the edge of the Bubble's outer raft.

You take a deep breath, stretching out towards the water, then turn back to the bubble. It's almost ten by now, which means the monster must be getting hungry.

Your feet slow on the way to cross the room, picking up his bowl and coffee.

You don't know what awaits you down there. Will he be a swollen, bloodshot monster, or...

You shiver, thinking about him. He looks almost... normal, and that makes him all the more dangerous. You clip your tranquilizer gun to your leggings just in case, then resolutely pull open the door. You don't have time to waste being scared of a monster stuck behind Plexiglass.

"Hey," you call, descending into the dark. You fumble with the wall, flicking a switch, and light floods into the room. It's quiet, which is a good sign. "I have breakfast."

The room below is the exact same as yesterday, the monster laying down on the ground where he must've been sleeping. He pushes himself up with a strong hand when he sees you, glaring at the glass.

"Hey," you say, trying to avoid how your voice shakes. The image of his eyes bulging burns into your thoughts, and you try to shove it away as you set the bowl down on the tray at the other end of the room. He slowly crawls to his feet, eyes not leaving yours. "So this tray is interesting: it starts on my end, see, and I put your food into it."

You lift the coffee cup and the bowl to show him, then set them down on the tray. The glass tube that holds the tray is small, about a foot on each side, and as you set the bowl and cup down on it, the mechanism whirs.

"And then it goes over to your side," you say as the conveyor belt slowly clanks the tray over, through the thick glass, into his side.

Tyler watches it hungrily, eyes flicking between the food and back to you. "Fun get-up," he says finally, pulling the tray off the belt when it comes to a stop.

You glance down at your outfit, face flushing. "We have fitness reqs every morning." You pause, pointing to the cup. "I made you coffee. I read your file, and it said you worked at-"

Tyler ignores it, pulling the bowl off the tray instead. "It's black," he says shortly. "I take my coffee with two shots of cream and caramel."

A flare of irritation shoots through your body. "What about 'thank you for remembering?'"

He turns at that, pressing a hand to the glass and looking at me.

"I'm not falling for that aga-" you start, but then he slams his hand to the glass and you fall backwards, gripping your tranquilizer as you roll back to your feet, heart slamming against your ribcage.

"You're scared of me," he says, hot breath puffing up the glass. "I can tell. So why don't you just-"

You pick yourself up and storm over to him, and he takes a preemptive step back. You press your hand to the glass, finding his eyes and glaring into them. He meets your eyes, and you both stare at each other.

"I didn't have to feed you at all," you spit. "I didn't have to bring you coffee, and I sure as heck didn't have to turn your light on, either. So maybe you're the one that should be scared."

You storm out of the room before he can answer, your heart still slamming against your chest, not bothering to collect the dishes. You have to put up a strong front. If the monster doesn't fear you, you won't stand a chance.

At least Afua was wrong about one thing- you won't have to worry about the monster trying to manipulate you into being friends. Disgusting.

You shake your head and close the door behind you. The docking is soon, you note, and you click on your TV with a beep. A sonar map, line swishing through the ocean below, shows the docking platform approaching rapidly. You know it has to be exact: you'll need to moor the evacuation tube directly to its system, and anchor your Bubble to the ocean floor.

You trained for this in the Academy, of course. You throw on your wetsuit and scuba equipment, and, once the sonar is positioned directly over the docking site, you hurry up to the raft and position yourself for the dive.

Hands together above your head, legs in position...

You launch off, a clean dive, breaking the choppy waves and plunging beneath the foaming aqua surface.

The cold water envelops you at once, the weights attached to your suit dragging you down, down, down.

The world underneath the water seems endless, walls of black encasing you as you sink further and further from the sun. You shudder as the cold water presses into your suit. Something slithers past your armpit.

Don't be scared. Don't be scared.

You repeat the mantra over and over in your head, clipping on the light attached to your pressurized headpiece.

Fish dart in the empty wall of dark water, and your feet land heavily on the ocean's floor, sending puffs of silent sand in every direction. Up ahead a large shadow towers over a hill, and you hike up towards it, eyes flicking to your oxygen meter every minute or so. You'll have just enough, Afua said. Just enough to make the docking and get up.

The sand scatters in every direction as you walk, feet heavy and clumsy in the scuba suit's thick boots, until you crest the hill and find the monstrous growth on the ocean floor.

The docking site is made of concrete that seems to swim in the water between it and your headpiece, dark and jagged and covered in crusty barnacles. The water above you is silent as fallen rocks, the weight of cities and skyscrapers forcing you and your suit down to its eerie ground. The ground beneath you really is like a graveyard, covered in the white skeletons of fish and bleached shells as white as bone.

You pull out your locating device and place it directly on top of the docking site, watching as the tube slowly lowers down and latches onto the tube with a dark click.

It's noon, but the light down in the abyssal ocean floor is rapidly fading. Your flashlight flickers, and you stretch a hand to it, terror roiling through you. If your light died down here...

Don't think. Just do. Just go.

You send the anchor plummeting down into the ocean's floor beside the tube, and it lands with a resounding thump that shakes the floor and almost sends you toppling down.

You exhale shakily, and drop most of your weights, kicking your feet up to the first waiting point.

8...9...10.

The waiting points stop you from getting the bends. It takes almost an hour to resurface, but it ensures that you do it safely.

You drop another weight and move to the second waiting point, the water warming and growing closer to the sun. Then you drop another, and another, and then, almost an hour later, your head breaks the surface of the water, and you sprint to the raft, pulling yourself back up onto its surface. The clingy fingers of water roll off of you, and you shake yourself to get rid of the last of them.

You lay there on the raft for a minute, breathing heavily, then roll over, pulling the top of the suit off and tucking the heavy equipment back into the floorboards until you're only wearing your wetsuit.

Shivering, even though the sunlight pours down your back, you creak open the door to the Bubble and clamber inside, where you strip off the suit and take a hot shower.

The steam fills your bathroom and you inhale deeply, the heat purging away the thoughts of the cold, unfriendly depths.

You wrap yourself in one of the fuzzy, luxurious white bathrobes afterwards, spraying yourself with your peppermint perfume, the one that makes you think of home in the winter.

The door to the main living space opens easily, and a soft light on the TV informs you that your meeting with the USOAT board has been cancelled. You smile, wrapping your bathrobe tighter around yourself, and crank up the heat in the Bubble.

There's soup in the storeroom, and you help yourself to some, curling up on the couch with a steaming bowl and the world's softest blanket wrapped around you. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the waves lapping at the edges

of

the Bubble...

...

You awaken with a start, the room's lights clicking back on as you move. The thing that woke you- the gentle pinging of the TV- signals Afua's incoming call. You brush your (now-dry) hair back with your fingers. After clawing at the table for the remote, you grab it and hit the start call button.

"I'm here," you yawn, not moving from your pile of blankets. "Hey, Afua."

"Your first real day," he notes, smiling at you. "I trust the docking has been finished. How is..."

"Docking is finished and all aligned," you say, reaching over to pull the positioning device over from the coffee table to show him. "Anchor's been dropped as well. Monster..."

Your eyes dart to the clock and you curse, scrambling up from the blankets, and that's when you remember. "Shoot! I forgot to feed the monster."

You hurriedly fold the blanket, keeping Afua on the TV as you search the pantry for anything you can make quickly. You grab the container of leftover soup, popping it in the microwave and typing in the heating time as fast as your fingers will move. "I mean, I fed him breakfast, but there was the docking, and then I fell asleep, and-"

"Go now," Afua says, and there's an element of urgency in his voice. "Go now. Go feed him now. I'll see you tomorrow."

With that, the TV clicks to black, and you carry the single bowl of soup towards the door. Your courage flickers in your chest, and you feel cold claws encase around your heart.

You glance down at your sleeve as you reach to open the door, and realize you're still in the bathrobe, but there isn't time to change. He'll need to eat. You trip, catching yourself on the edge of the door as you open it, then step inside.

"Tyler?" you try hesitantly, and you enter to see him staring at you.

"You were going to starve me," he says, shaking his head and stepping back.

You close your eyes, then open them, showing him the bowl of soup. A puff of steam rises from the bowl. "I forgot to feed you," you say lamely. "I had to dock the boat, and it was so cold, so I took a shower, and then I fell asleep-"

He huffs, and you shake your head, putting the soup in the tray. You realize that it doesn't matter what you say.

You hear his stomach growl as you start back up the stairs, but when you turn the handle, it holds.

You try it again, and again, rattling the handle, but it holds fast. You push the door, throw yourself against it, but nothing happens.

The door is locked. You're locked in with Tyler.