2.12: 52 Pickup

You play with fate, boy.

Charybdis.

“Titus-” Iris called faintly.

You now have my attention.

“Titus, can you breathe?”

“Yes!” I replied.

“Oh, thank goodness! I thought I almost lost you, again!”

It will soon be time to make a decision, whom you will serve. I can’t wait to see who you will choose.

I opened my eyes.

We were inside of a giant glowing bubble on the rough ocean floor. It took me a second to realize that the bubble was in fact Iris’s wings, fully extended, interlocking perfectly to form a perfect sphere around us. They were transparent at the moment and gave just enough light to show the pitch-black ocean swirling around us like a great sea monster waiting to consume us. We must have been well over a thousand meters underwater, because there was nothing but utter darkness beyond the rays of Iris's wings. We were far from the security of dry land, deep within the realm of the dead.

Iris sat across from me at the other end of the bubble, not too far away since there was just enough space inside the bubble for two to sit side-by-side. She wore a white gambeson patterned with black butterflies. The front was adorned with golden buttons, textured with raised ridges. Each of the butterflies was Seraph in kind, six-winged, no two the same.

She wore a pair of black canvas pants. Black leather boots shod her feet. A black leather belt with an ornate golden buckle wrapped around her waist. Gordon’s pocket dimension hung loosely on her back. Its straps were extended so it could be carried like a sling. Her wooden staff and her pitcher lay on the ground beside her feet. Her long, flowing hair was now tied back into a ponytail.

My Host looked exhausted, likely from healing both Priscilla and me of our critical injuries. But there was a look of immense relief on her face.

“Welcome back,” she whispered.

I looked down at my body and was glad to see that it was no longer a pile of ashes. Moreover, I felt great, as if I had finally gotten three good nights of sleep. I flexed my fingers and moved my legs to ensure they moved properly.

No aches, no pangs, no problems.

I looked at Iris in awe.

From the little I knew about healing magic, there were so many things that could go wrong with a full-body reconstruction that the fact that I was not in excruciating pain right now meant she had a darn good job, nothing short of a flawless restoration.

“Thanks-”

I began to cough violently.

Iris rose to come to my aid. Her wings shifted in position around us but remained interlocked. I raised a hand to signal that I was okay even though I wasn't.

When my coughing fit stopped after what seemed like an eternity, I wiped the saliva from my mouth and placed a hand on my forehead.

“Ugh, my lungs feel like they’ve been scrubbed with a vacuum cleaner.”

“I did just pump six liters' worth of seawater from them, maybe that’s why,” Iris said, laughing nervously.

“And my throat…”

“...laryngospasm reflex.”

“Yeah, that.”

“Water hit your vocal cords and your chords tightened up like a lockbox," she said, catching my confused look. "But I managed to get them open just in time. There should be no permanent damage. I am almost a hundred percent sure.”

I remember learning about the symptom from my medical course with Flo teacher. It was definitely life-threatening and required immediate medical attention to treat. Seeing how we were sitting on the ocean floor, Iris must have found me just in time.

It sure was nice to have Seraphs as friends.

"I couldn't help but notice we're sitting on the ocean floor," I said.

“I know!" Iris said quickly, looking very flustered. "I looked away for one second and you were gone. One of the merfolk dragged you into the ocean floor, but I managed to scare her off before she collected your organs."

Note to self, merfolk are not my friends in this nightmare.

"But by the time I found you and revived you," she continued, "the storm ate the boat. It’s gone.”

“How are we getting to the city?”

“Fear not, I’ve called a friend to pick us up.”

I nodded.

I looked up into the darkness of the water that surrounded me.

Priscilla.

She was nowhere to be seen.

“I've heard some interesting news about Priscilla,” I began.

At that very moment, what I could only describe as the sustained scream of a drowned city shook the ocean around us, making even the ocean floor beneath our feet tremble as if with an earthquake. My heartbeat skyrocketed, for a moment, every thought fled from my mind as my entire being fixated on the accursed sound.

Gordon poked his head out from the pocket dimension. He seemed frazzled but unhurt.

“She’s gone, Titus,” he said somberly.

“Where is she?” I asked slowly, dangerously.

Iris and Gordon looked at each other.

“You know the merfolk that attacked us?" Gordon said.

"What about them?" I demanded.

"They were servants of Apollo."

"They took Priscilla!" I said, nearly rising to my feet.

"She went with them," Iris said. "Willingly."

I laughed.

“The dude that almost killed both of us?" I said. "I'm sorry, but I find that hard to believe. There's no way she would work with a loser like him, and there’s definitely no way she would risk leaving me behind when we’re bound by a-”

I raised my hand and noticed that the thin silver cord of the Lifelink was gone.

I had been told for the last decade of my career that the Lifelink could not be severed once it had been forged by any means, magical or not. And yet it was gone, gone like my chances of making out of the nightmare in a timely manner, gone like the line of a spent IV bag.

The Lifelink that had nearly cost me my life to make.

The Lifelink that was meant to last a lifetime.

I looked at Iris, dumbfounded.

"How?"

"A Host can do many things in the nightmare otherwise inconceivable," she gently.

“You did this."

“I had to.”

“Why?”

The drowned chorus rose ever so slightly in pitch and intensity, overwhelming my senses. I wanted to feel angry, angry at her for deceiving me, angry at her for constantly leaving me in the dark, but the constant, all-encompassing screaming made it difficult to feel anything but fear and unease.

"Gordon, get the illusion I've prepared," Iris ordered.

"Right away," he replied, vanishing into the pocket dimension below.

As soon as Gordon was gone, Iris leaned over to me.

“Tell me the time,” she said in an urgent whisper.

“The time?"

"Esther gave you the Shi-gan."

I looked down at my wrist. Sure enough, the bizarre timepiece was there, secured around my right arm.

"Yes, right here," I replied, raising my arm. "Don't think I can read it. Esther told me to show no one but you and the cat."

Iris looked visibly relieved.

"Then we are on track," she said. "And yes, no one must find out about its existence except for Esther and the cat, just like your lord was never to speak my name."

I grimaced.

She smiled sternly.

"But in all seriousness, if someone finds out about the Shi-gan, we're not escaping the nightmare. Do you understand?"

"Understood."

Gordon returned from the depths of the pocket dimension with a small, business card tucked between his teeth. He handed it promptly to the Host, who took it and tucked it away inside of a gambeson pocket. The barrier Iris had created vanished without a trace.

"Did you tell him?" Gordon asked. "No, I'll break him the news."

“Your lord tried to kill you in your sleep, again,” Iris said, her smile widening.

“Again?”

At that every moment, the echoing screaming became too much to bear. Every question I had for Iris fled from my mind as I felt the hairs on the back of my arm stand up. At that moment, my deepest fears seemed to rise to the surface, every fear I had about this nightmare rose as one to shut down every thought I had. All I could do was clench my teeth and pray that the infernal chorus would fade.

“Iris, promise you’ll tell me the truth about what’s going on,” I begged, not wanting to speak further until silence returned.

Iris picked up her staff and touched her left wrist with it. She lifted the staff into the air, revealing a thin silver cord attached to her wrist. I followed the cord with my eyes and saw, to my dismay, that it was attached to my own left wrist.

No.

Now I realized that the magical covenant Iris had forged between us was a little more serious than I had first anticipated. I knew a magical covenant already was quite serious in the real world, just short of a Lifelink, but there was a very good chance that it entailed additional ramifications within this particular nightmare that I was not aware of.

A nagging fear whispered into my ear that the covenant that existed between Iris and me had somehow allowed for the Lifelink to be broken between Priscilla and me, perhaps even to transfer the Lifelink from Priscilla to herself.

That was her plan all along, I thought in alarm, remembering how she had hesitated to save Priscilla despite her mortal wounds, forcing me to make the Lifelink. She knew what I would do.

A chill went down my spine as I realized Iris had been manipulating me from the moment I had met her.

Fear filled my veins as I realized I may have made a fatal mistake, and Priscilla was nowhere near to help me.

"If you're going to kill me when I stop being useful, just tell me now," I said.

"Unlike your lord, I don't dispose of my servants when they stop being useful," she replied assuringly, petting Gordon's head. The cat purred in response. "I will tell you everything you desire to know once our ride arrives. You've earned that much.”

At that moment, I noticed that the waters outside our sphere had grown significantly more tumultuous as if the ocean floor itself was agitated. The ground itself began to rumble and shake like a washer entering its final minute. Yet our bubble remained locked in place, anchored to the very coordinates of the space we inhabited. Some kind of magic was holding us still, as the ocean should have been kicking us around the floor like a plastic bag far from home.

Iris suddenly increased the intensity of the light shining from her wings, revealing a vast swath of the ocean floor that surrounded us. There was no manner of life surrounding us, not a single shellfish, not a single strand of seaweed, not a grain of sand, nothing but the gray, jagged, bedrock we sat upon. Though we sat in the heart of the ocean, I felt as if we were stranded on the surface of the moon, saved from ruin only by the thin ephemeral veil of Iris's wings.

In the distance, I spotted a putrid wall of a gray, rotting substance rising in the distance. Its glazed surface was littered with all manner of sedentary sealife now deceased: colorless anemones, fossilized starfish, a shattered bed of sickly mussels, more an aquarium of death than a cobble of life.

"What is that?" I asked.

Iris calmly pointed to the very edge of the wall.

Then I saw it, the ghastly off-white pillars rimming the semi-circular wall like ivory guard towers of some demented, sideways city.

Teeth, not too different from Charybdis's own pearly whites.

"No, no, no!"

A fresh wave of panic filled my body as I turned around and saw a second wall, just as grotesque as the first, rising up to the surface, complete with its own set of pearly whites.

We were about to be eaten by the biggest sea creature I had ever seen in my life.

“Iris!”

“What?” she said with a knowing smile on her face.

“Iris!” I wheezed, not knowing what to say or to do. I feebly beat against the bubble with my fists, to no avail. I wasn't sure what I was trying to accomplish by bursting the only bubble keeping us alive.

Iris laughed as she slightly shifted her glowing wings in response, causing the bubble around us to shudder dangerously under the pressure of the ocean floor. I let out an involuntary scream.

"Please stop!" I begged.

Iris began to cackle. It took her a moment to catch her breath again before she spoke.

“Fifty-two has arrived."

At that very moment, both walls stopped moving entirely, and the drowned chorus fell completely silent. Iris stood up from the ground, picked up her staff and pitcher, and took a moment to catch her breath. Her wings adjusted the shape of the bubble, giving her just enough space to stand. When her laughing fit had passed, she looked at me with somber eyes as she rested her hands on her staff.

"Today, we travel to the heart of the ocean to bring freedom to those trapped within this nightmare," she said. "Our success will be theirs, and our triumph will aid many you have yet to meet, people you will hopefully come to cherish. Though I have bound you with a Lifelink, the choice to help is still ultimately yours. It always has been. Will you help me end this nightmare, Sir Titus, for the sake of all those unjustly imprisoned within it?"

Prisoner, I thought. All of us are prisoners within this nightmare.

"If the choice is mine, then yes, I will," I said.

The light from Iris’s wings cut out at that very moment, leaving us in thick, tangible darkness. The drowned chorus returned with gusto, its atonal screechings building on top of each others' voices to some unseen finale.

The entire world was trembling with no signs of stopping anytime soon.

I screamed as well, overwhelmed at the scope of all that was happening, but even my own voice was drowned out by the countless others that filled the ocean floor.

“Gordon, help!” I cried.

Somewhere in the dark, I thought I heard the cat cackling mercilessly.

“Who’s the scaredly-cat now?” was the last thing I heard before the creature snapped its maw shut with a deafening boom.