Jay is a hopeful Lunarian engineer and pilot stuck in a tedious internship… but after a making the discovery of a lifetime, what will her future hold?
Characters: Jay, Ego (implied)
Warnings: N/A
Wordcount: 1,445
Vibe: what the HELL is going on!!!!!!!!!!! but even more
This story was run as a choose-your-own-adventure story on Paperdemon!
Original AN:
and another one!! this one is a bit longer than i aimed for it to be, but oh well : p
life has been crazy busy so im glad i was able to throw this together as quickly as i did
…It truly was too tempting, wasn’t it?
It was enchanting – hypnotizing, almost.
Jay finally let her breath go – and though her push of the thrusters forward was still slightly hesitant, she decided to continue deeper.
Despite pushing on deeper through the abyssal shelves, the surroundings outside of Jay’s ship remained completely clear.
She got closer and closer still, with her precision over the ship’s controls growing as she neared a shelf that had a few of the structures on it. She wanted to get as close of a look as she could, but also didn’t want to cause a disruption… after all, if there were structures, there must be inhabitants.
The buildings were undeniably man-made.
Though they appeared to look carved out of a bleached white-color sandstone, the duo of structures that Jay was closest to sported colorfully painted stairs and tiles, and doors of a shade of blue that pleasantly matched the aquatic teal around them – evidence of more intelligent interference.
They had windows, too – but they seemed to lack panes. As a result, Jay could see the pastel purple curtains of the window in front of them rustle gently from a school of small, vividly colored fish that swam through the frame.
Were… there always fish here?
It was dreamlike, to say the least. Jay found herself frozen, just staring and absorbing it all.
There was no logical explanation for this type of thing to happen, was there? For the abyssal inverted sea to suddenly be so filled with light and warmth, teeming with life and showing signs of intelligent inhabitants…
How long had it been like this? Surely… the radio survey signals from the Craterland’s aerospace equipment would have caught something.
What if there was a cover-up?
Jay went from frozen to pacing, walking in circles around her small cabin.
The director of the aerospace program was well beloved and known for her kind and honest nature – with the recent kerfluffle she was involved in being ruled to be ‘divine manipulation’… whatever that was supposed to mean.
Would she really be the type to cover up something this grand?
Jay wasn’t sure how long she was lost in thought for – only that by the time her trance was broken, her back was turned towards her ship’s viewport.
And that the shiver that ran through her body when she heard the tap was something gutterally indescribable.
She froze on the spot. Suddenly… conflicting, rapidfire thoughts were screaming at her.
To turn around, to ignore it, that it was just the ship, that is was something else…
Tap tap.
There it was again. After hearing it a second time… there was no denying it. It sounded very much like something tapping on glass, and the only glass nearby to be tapped on was…
Deep breath. Turn around, OK?
She had to do it inevitably, after all. Still, Jay’s movements were nervous and slow. She’d been waiting for a moment like this her whole life, but… now that it was actually happening, Jay couldn’t help but be consumed by her nerves.
And so…
She was like an angel.
Floating delicately in front of the ship’s glass viewing pane was… what Jay could only logically perceive as a young woman. A young humanform woman. Her dark skin was spattered with freckles, and she had furred ears and bipedal, pawed legs – not uncommon traits among the various non-human humanform species of the world.
The most odd part about her was her hair, which seemed to resemble the tentacles of the parasite that had previously been endemic to the abyss.
Otherwise… she wore a sailor-like outfit, and her expression was one of dreamlike curiosity.
Really… everything about the strange woman was dreamlike, almost ethereal – the way the gentle, slow current flowed around her ‘hair’ and capelet only reinforced the practically angelic energy of the encounter.
Slowly, Jay moved towards the viewport’s glass that divided them. Though she tried to keep her stance and calm and unassuming as possible, something about her drawing closer must’ve startled the visitor – as she effortlessly seemed to hop back and take on a more reserved stance.
Jay did feel a bit awkward about staring so much, but… she figured it truly couldn’t be helped – for no other reason than to confirm she wasn’t just hallucinating this entire situation.
There was a standstill between the two for a moment, but inevitably, the antsy feeling in Jay’s soul got the better of her. Though she tried to do so as slowly as possible, when the hum of the ship piped back up so she could inch closer to the strange woman… she bolted.
Shit…!
Such a fleeting encounter cut off so soon… but…
It didn’t have to be, did it?
The chaotic, overlapping thoughts and questions in her brain were too much to contend with. Without much thought about it, Jay put her ship’s thrust into full gear to chase after the young woman – who was propelling at quite impressive speeds, especially considering the water’s resistance and her humanform stature.
Through clusters of structures, and eventually into a coral reef… navigating the tight turns in pursuit of the woman was proving to be difficult. But Jay wasn’t just a mechanic – it was her prowess in piloting that even got her here in the first place, and she wasn’t ready to back down so easily.
The coral was bright and dense, with some polyps almost appearing crystalline. In combination with the increasing amounts of long sea grass, it felt almost like speeding through a dense forest.
Jay was far too locked in to notice as the hue of the sea grass began to shift, along with the coral’s saturation dropping into greys and whites. All she really seemed to care about was that she’d finally cornered the mysterious women into a clearing, and prepared to go full throttle… until…
Everything inside the small ship’s cabin suddenly went dark, and Jay lost her balance as the thrusters ceased operation and the ship skidded to a halt, gracelessly thunking onto the shelf it was previously hovering above.
She’d been so caught up in the thrill of the encounter and the chase that… she forgot. Her fuel was completely empty now.
The air felt as though it had fallen stagnant around her, and Jay was frozen in her keeled position. She didn’t want to pick herself back up, she wasn’t sure if she could. Her own curiosity led to foolishness which led to…
Tap tap.
It was that sound again.
Slowly, using the dim red illumination of the emergency lights to feel around for the ship’s console to help hoist herself up, Jay picked herself up off the floor.
As she’d expected, the young woman was there in front of the viewport again. This time, though, her curious expression was one Jay could only interpret as immense concern.
Jay wasn’t really sure how to feel. In a way, she felt spiteful – for it was the coy response and following chase that even got her into this mess. But… it felt almost like the young woman didn’t realize this was going to happen, either. At least, that’s how Jay saw it.
Sentiments could wait for later, though. Right now, Jay had to act, and the weight of the situation was starting to settle.
Though her movements were hesitant overall, Jay moved to activate the ship’s emergency comm system. The system, alongside the emergency lights, ran on a light-powered generator – because of the odd state the abyss was in, they were thankfully still receiving charge to remain active.
The comm system pinged once…
Twice…
Jay was fully expecting it to tone out… but by whatever miracle, it was able to connect to the radio signal of the Craterlands aerospace center!
Relief washed over Jay, and she took a deep breath in preparation to record her distress call.
Tap tap.
She was still there. Waiting, almost beckoning. Her subtle body language seemed to communicate that she was confused as to why Jay wasn’t following.
It was a no-brainer, right? The abyss was underwater, Jay would drown.
But then… the realization finally hit her.
The mysterious woman was… a humanform like herself. Normal nostrils, no gills… and after looking a bit more closely, her chest and shoulders had the appearance as though she was… breathing.
It… it made no sense. And it was tugging Jay’s curious heart in an opposite direction.
In any logical scenario… the one way she knew she could preserve her own life would be to send the distress call.
But this wasn’t logical. Nothing about this was logical. And Jay had to get to the bottom of it.
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