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Chapter I
A small, skinny boy raced across the pavement to somewhere, anywhere, that would provide shelter from the horrible, lashing, PETRIFYING,
rain.
“Aaaahhh!” Screamed the small, skinny boy.
The small boy’s name was Peter, and he suffered from full-blown aquaphobia, a morbid fear of water.
Like rain.
“Help!”
He was seen as a complete misfit in the school playground, which was also why he wasn’t stopping to shelter under a tree or his raincoat, as he had a gang of school bullies hot on his tail.
Peter was puffing like a steam train, and the bullies were catching up.
Peter saw an open door up ahead, so he turned sharply into the doorway, slammed the door behind him and barricaded it with a heavy armchair.
Peter held his breath as he heard the stomping footsteps grow louder and louder… then softer and softer.
He then exhaled so much air he could have blown out all the candles on an immortal jellyfish’s birthday cake.
He looked out a window. The dreaded rain was still bucketing down, so Peter decided to explore. The room was one big library, with seemingly endless rows of shelves.
It looked quite old fashioned, and was dimly lit by a small chandelier hanging from the roof, and a few scattered candles.
Even though the rain was still lashing outside, everything seemed eerily quiet.
After his eyes adjusted to the low light, Peter saw that there were little white specks rising out from the books, and drifting slowly along the shelves.
On closer inspection, they were actually letters and numbers and symbols, in random orders, floating gently. He decided to follow them.
They seemed to be moving towards a strange pulsating glow of golden light. The light was coming from a large, leatherback book with a title written in golden, classical letters: The Time Book. The letters and numbers flowed into it, seemingly being absorbed by it. The book made a strange rifling sound, like an indoor fan being turned on.
As Peter edged closer, the book opened and flicked its pages gently. He picked up the book, which seemed to warm the air around it, and flicked over to the contents page. He skimmed over it, looking for something interesting.
It seemed to start at the origins of the Earth to what was happening right that second. At the end of all of that, there was a chapter entitled “Alternate Realities”. “Cool!” Thought Peter. He traced the dotted line over to the page number. Page 912! Peter huffed in amazement as he flipped over to page 912. The first part of the chapter was, “A world without land” And had a picture of these strange, amphibian-like beings that seemed perfectly adapted for life in an ocean.
They seemed to be hanging out in this high-tech looking underwater lab, that had a few of the tallest bits poking out. The only thing that abnormal was that it seemed so realistic, so vivid, so real; that Peter couldn’t help but reach out a hand and touch the beautiful drawing. Suddenly, and invisible force clamped onto his arm and yanked him into the picture, slamming the book shut in the process, leaving no trace that Peter had ever stumbled upon the strange library, and changing his life forever.
Peter yelled louder than he ever had. He felt like he was being thrusted backwards, through time and space. He didn’t know for sure, but he felt like he was being squashed and stretched in all the wrong directions, images flashing before his eyes, the G-force rippling his cheeks. Peter felt like he wasn’t going forwards and backwards. He felt like he was going… sideways, almost. Suddenly, he felt himself stop. He was in outer space, looking down on the Earth. “Alternate Realities” He whispered breathlessly as he was yanked back down to Earth.
Suddenly, his vision faded into black and white. His ears popped and he saw himself in an ocean. He couldn’t hear or feel anything except the sound of a soft wind. He dived down, deep into the depths, until he came across a large undersea trench. He dived down at remarkable speed. He came to the bottom of the trench, and on the side of the rock face, there was a cragged hole, and in that cragged hole, there were shelves of books. It looked exactly like Peter’s library. There was also a blurry, humanoid figure silhouetted by a glowing, lemon yellow light. He heard a faint, crackly record playing. It sounded familiar-like a lullaby. But this one was out of tune and insanely creepy. He couldn’t hear it at first, but it increased in volume. There was a glowing yellow orb before him. It looked exactly like the light from the hole. Without thinking, he reached out and touched it. It suddenly seemed to get sucked into his arm, making him twitch and convulse. Just as his vision seemed to focus on the figure, he was yanked backwards, out of the hole and out of the ocean, stopping just above the surface. Then his vision focused, his senses came back, and then, he started falling.
Chapter II
Peter yelled in fright as he fell, down, down, down, until he landed SPLASH! Into the ocean. The water seemed to be rising and falling, dunking him under the water with every fall. Water filled his lungs, making him cough and splutter until he felt like throwing up his internal organs. Needless to say, this was not helping his Aquaphobia. He screamed and kicked and thrashed, his heart clawing his way up his throat. He was sinking like a stone. The corners of his eyes were fading. Then he felt something like a hand grab his leg. A spark jolted down Peter’s spine and everything faded to black.
Chapter III
Peter woke with a jolt. He was in a white room, like a laboratory. Everything looked extremely blurry. Eventually, his eyesight focused and the room he was in was indeed a laboratory, but with giant windows on each side, looking slightly blacked out. But Peter was paying zero attention to the windows.
His attention was focused on the strange, fish-human creatures that were leaning over him.
Peter screamed the loudest scream he had ever done. He started desperately kicking and thrashing. Then he heard slightly disoriented voices in his head, a human voice riddled with gurgles. But they didn’t sound like actual noises. They sounded more internal, like thoughts.
“Why are you screaming? Why are you screaming? We aren’t going to hurt you. Calm down.”
The creatures were talking to him, without moving their mouths or any sort of facial movement. Their faces weren’t busy talking. They were frowning. But not an angry sort of frown.
A concerned one.
“You’re safe. Don’t worry.”
Peter sat up, still hyperventilating. He opened his mouth to talk, then shut it. Then opened and shut it. He tried to speak, but the words came out mangled.
“Wha… Nun… Nuhuh?” He babbled.
“Num nums?” Asked one of the creatures.
“Are you hungry?“
The other creatures behind it sniggered.
“Are… Who are you? What am I doing here?” Stammered Peter, finding his voice at last.
“My name is Finn.” The alien answered. “You are here, well, becuase we saw you pop up out of nowhere, and then started screaming and thrashing about. We swam over to you, and when we reached you, you were just floating on your back, eyes closed, unresponsive. We thought you were dead.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Wh-what are you?” asked Peter.
“Well, we were just about to ask you that.” Replied Finn flatly.
“Are you an alien?” Asked Peter and Finn simultaneously.
*No.” They both responded.
“Okay, okay.” Said Peter breathlessly. “What species do you belong to?”
“Aqua Rambiotistrique.” replied Finn.
Peter looked frightened.
Finn sighed. “The water people.”
Peter nodded uneasily. “I am a Homo Sapiens.”
Finn stared at Peter blankly.
Peter sighed. “Humans.”
“OK. You ah… want me to show you around?”
Peter nodded. It was the only thing he felt sure about.
Finn walked Peter around the amazing lab. It was amazingly high-tech, and the doors just opened as soon as you got close to them. Finn also gave a quick summary of the anatomy of “The Water People”.
Their skin is a shiny, sky blue colour and it dries out in a few hours, so they have to keep it wet. They have long tails that ended in a fork with a large, fin-like red fluke that was extremely strong, and was the main motor for swimming.
Peter went white. Swimming?
“Are you ok?” Asked Finn.
“Yeah. I’m… fine.”
Finn then proceeded to explain The Water People’s remarkable telepathic abilities. They could transmit their thoughts to another member of their species within any distance as long as they could see eachother. But with members of a different species, they could only transmit thoughts within a 10-meter radius.
“But some of us, with enough training, become exceptional, and transmit thoughts to any species within a 30 metre radius.”
Finn seemed to glow with pomposity.
“Like me.”
Peter rolled his eyes.
Suddenly, a question popped into his head.
“Finn…?”
“Yes?”
“Well, you know how you said you have to keep your skin wet? Well, why not build this place near water then?”
Finn smiled. “But boy, we are.”
He pressed a button on the wall, and suddenly, the walls retracted down. Behind it was a thick sheet of glass. And behind that sheet of glass was one of the most amazing, beautiful… and frightening, sights Peter had ever seen. The building seemed to be completely submerged in water, and outside was the most amazing marine life you could possibly imagine. Creatures with extremely long and bendy necks, leading down to a body with four flippers, like a school of Loch Ness monsters. There were these fish with beaks like a parrot, and glowing stripes down their body.
“Woah…” Whispered Peter, his eyes wide.
Suddenly, he started shaking uncontrollably. He broke out in a cold sweat.
He turned and bolted down the hallway as fast as he could, barging past other water creatures like Finn, setting bemused looks on their faces. He couldn’t get away from the sight of all that water… every time he looked, he felt more and more scared, fuelling his urge to run further. Eventually, the windows ended and he came to a door. He crashed through the door into a smart, futuristic office and dived under a desk.
He collided with some boots, and he heard somebody make a very surprised noise and then slumped in their chair. Peter waited for his heart to stop pumping in his mouth and slip back down his throat, and then got up to apologise. “I-i’m sorry I crashed into you. You see-“
Peter realised that the other water creature was unconscious. “Oh no.” He breathed.
Peter began to hear Finn’s voice slip back into his mind.
“Peter? Peter! Why’d you run away? What’s wrong?”
“Finn? Finn! Come quick! I think I hurt someone!” Finn burst into the room. “What? Where? Who’s dead?”
The water creature in the chair lifted his head and opened his eyes. He seemed stockier and older than Finn. As soon as he saw Peter he frowned. He clicked his fingers at him. “Finn? Who is this? He doesn’t look like anybody i’ve seen before.” His voice was quite deep and gravelly.
“Erm, sorry sir. Apparently he’s a… uh… Pogo… Japiens?”Peter rolled his eyes. “Homo. Sapiens.”
The other guy frowned again. “Are you an alien? Where did you come from?” He asked. So I told him the whole story. About aquaphobia, finding the library and then the book. When I finished he looked throughly shocked.
“Are you… alright?” Asked Peter.
He got up and took Peter by the arm.
“Follow me.” He said.
Chapter IV
The other guy lead Peter into a room, with a long table lined with some spongey looking chairs. They felt really soft and seemed to absorb water. The other water creature began to speak. “My name is Commander Sean. What is yours?” He asked. Peter paused for a moment, unsure of what to say. “His name is Peter.” Answered Finn for him.
Commander Sean nodded and wrote something down on a waterproof notebook. “Did any other Pogo Japiens come here with you?” Peter sighed. Was anyone going to get his species name right? “No. Nobody came down here with me.” The Commander nodded again and wrote another thing down. “Nobody would actually come with me.” Peter muttered. Commander Sean looked back up at me sharply. “What was that?” He growled. “Um, *splutter* nothing.” He replied shakily. Commander Sean got up and marched towards him and grabbed my collar. “You said something.” He growled. “What was it?”
Finn stepped in between them. “Hey, hey, Commander. Calm down. Peter’s just a kid.” The Commander’s expression turned from angry to surprised, and then his eyes flickered and he was asleep again. As Finn went to nurse his fallen commander, Peter had to ask him. “What’s… wrong with… Sean?” Before Finn could answer, the Commanders eyes flickered open and rolled around lazily. “Pass the beer, grandma.” He mumbled. His eyes then focused. “What did you say my problem was?”
“Well…” Peter hesitated, not wanting to offend him.
“Why do you keep falling asleep?” The commander rolled his eyes.
“Everyone asks me that.” He said, standing up.
“I have a condition called narcolepsy. It means I fall asleep when I have a strong emotion or strain too hard.” He thought for a moment. “Why did I faint again?“
“Finn just told you that I am a child.”
The commander’s eyes rolled back and he fell backwards once more.
Chapter V
“So let me get this straight.” Said Commander Sean. “You, a homo sapiens child, just happened to stumble across the one thing that we have been looking for for years and years and years, and you had no intention of activating any of this time travel magic.” Peter sat there, gathering his thoughts. “Um… Yeah, I guess so.” The commander threw a fax machine at the wall. He looked at Finn. “And you KNEW about this?” Finn gulped. “Uhh, yes, sir.”
Commander Sean blinked at Finn.
“Finn, you’re fired.”
“Crap.”
Peter jumped to his friend’s rescue. “But Finn was the one who saved me from drowning.” Sean looked back at Finn.
“Finn, you’re hired.”
“Yay!”
Sean looked back at Peter. “Okay, young… uh… Romeo Blatantiens…” Peter groaned. “Homo. Sapiens.” “Fine, young homo sapiens, the magic of that Time Library is… just…” The commander sighed and put his head in his hands. “Pure evil.”
A shiver shot down Peter’s spine like an electric charge.
“What do you mean, pure evil?” He said.
“Ok, let me explain.” Began Commander Sean.
“Oh no. Peter, i’m very sorry about this. Sit tight. This’ll take a while.” Said Finn wearily.
“Shut up Finn! Ok. Right. So, the magic library you ran into is the birthplace of probably the Universe’s most evil magic. One day, a few decades ago, I was just cruising around in my submersible and-“
“Hang on, sorry to interrupt,” Began Peter, “but why would you be in a submersible if you can swim so well?”
The commander grunted.
“We can swim really well at the surface, but we can’t go below 200 meters because of the water pressure. And the cold.” Peter nodded and gestured to the commander to go on. “40 years ago or so I was cruising around the deep ocean, and then my radar picked up a large energy source. I came to it, and it was just floating around.
The radar showed it was extremely powerful, so I absorbed it into my ship.
Suddenly, I could go really super fast, so I turned on my radio to tell everyone, but then I heard this voice come out of it. It sounded raspy at first, and hissed and spat, and then it sounded really calm and friendly.”
The commander seemed to grip his chair tight.
“It told us all about itself, about how the library was its birthplace, blblblah blblblah blblblah. Then it somehow persuaded me to make it our primary energy source, but then our race became corrupted.”
The commander grit his teeth.
“It then took control of our weapons, and all hell broke loose. It blew up almost all of Atlantis-“
“What’s Atlantis?” Asked Peter.
“The underwater city we all live in.” Said Finn and Sean simultaneously.
“And we tried everything to make it stop, but it wouldn’t. But then, Mr. Finn here had the bright idea to simply switch everything off. And it worked.”
Finn glowed like an overexcited light bulb.
“We didn’t manage to get it out of our systems though. We had to build a new Atlantis and circuit system practically from scratch. The evil power is simply disconnected, but it’s still there. If anyone was to reconnect it, all hell would break loose.”
There was silence for a moment.
“How could you get rid of it?” Asked Peter.
Commander Sean blew out his mouth. “Well, nobody knows, really. But a lot of people think that if you can destroy the library, you can destroy the… thing.”
Commander Sean snapped his fingers and turned to Peter. “Have you had any visions?”
Chapter VI
Peter considered the Commander’s question. He thought back to when he first fell into the alien ocean. The figure he saw… could it be?
No, that would be impossible.
“Well, er, no, i don’t think so.” He said, finally.
“You think so?” Asked the Commander.
“Well, yes and no.” Began Peter. “I’m not too sure. Everything was black and white, and there was this undersea trench, and there was this hole in the wall, and the yellow light, and the person, and the voice. And then it was gone. I don’t know.” He spluttered.
The commander waved his arms like a penguin trying to take off. “What trench? What Hole? What Wall? What Light? What Person? What Voice? Slow down and use detail!”
Finn made a cuckoo signal behind the Commander’s back. Peter tried not to smile and explained his vision in detail.
By the time he was finished, Commander Sean was fast asleep and Finn was just standing next to him, looking frazzled.
Commander Sean stirred. “Shut up mummy. I like ketchup on my ice cream.” He muttered before waking up properly. He groaned and put his head in his hands. “I know where you’re talking about.
We have done a million radar searches but found nothing. It isn’t there. Please don’t let it be there. Anywhere but there.”
Peter was confused.
“Anywhere but there? Where? Why?”
“What?”
Peter sighed. “Where is “there”? Why is it so bad?”
Finn groaned.
“But Peter, that’s… that’s where… it’s…”
“It’s what?” Asked Peter, getting impatient.
Commander Sean jumped in.
“It’s in the Deep.”
Chapter VII
“What’s the Deep?” Asked Peter.
“Only the most dangerous place to ever exist.”
Peter shivered. “Why? Why is it so dangerous?”
Finn sighed. “Because the water is poison, there is no light, and, most of all, the creatures that live down there.”
“Which creatures live down there?”
Commander Sean sighed. “You don’t wanna know.”
There was a long pause.
“Okay. Commander… are we…”
“If you are even thinking about that, Finn, I will hijack your shuttle and drop you over a desert.”
Finn took out a post-it-note, wrote something on it and stuck it on the back of the Commander’s chair.
“So we’re not going anywhere.”
“No.”
“We just made the discovery of the century, and we’re doing nothing.”
“Yes.”
“We’re just going to sit here and do nothing.’
Commander Sean gripped his chair tightly.
“Obviously not. We’re gonna do something.”
“What?”
“I dunno.”
Finn rolled his eyes in exasperation and smashed his head on the desk. It hurt, so he rubbed his head and muttered curses under his breath.
“For Big Blue’s sake Mudskipper. We can’t just sit here and do nothing. We have to destroy it!”
Commander Mudskipper Sean’s face darkened. He jumped up out of his chair and grabbed Finn by the collar. “It’s Commander Sean to you, Mister Fatty Fish Lips!!” He thundered. Finn turned up his nose and screwed up his face, like Commander Sean’s breath smelt like dog poo. He slapped the Commander lightly on the cheek. The Commander’s expression turned from mad to furious and his eyes flickered and he slumped onto the floor.
Finn peered down at the fallen commander.
“Huh. Wow. I must be stronger than I think.” He flexed one of his arms and examined it. He grinned and flexed both arms.
“I’m a strongman, baby!
Chapter VIII
After several minutes of bickering, Finn finally won the argument and the trio found themselves in the Commander’s submersible.
“SYSTEM GO FOR DESCENT.” Said an automated voice. The commander flicked a button and the ship started. The bubble jets started and the submersible was propelled forward, into the deep blue depths of the alien ocean.
Finn looked back over to Peter and saw him huddling under a chair, shivering and sweating.
Finn considered what to say.
“Are you… alright?”
Peter was so frightened that he could only shake his head. But it was already shaking, so it was hard to tell.
“Aquaphobia attack, right?” He asked.
Peter nodded slightly.
Finn called over to the commander.
“Hey, Commander. Can we have the views blocked? Peter’s having a bit of an aquaphobia attack.”
The commander flicked a button and the walls extended and covered the view of the beautiful but terrifying ocean view. Peter crawled out from underneath the chair.
“Shame though. I thought I saw a school of Angler Parakeet Fish.” The shuttle descended and, even though the windows were up, Peter could tell it was getting darker.
Peter began to feel uneasy, but this time, not from the aquaphobia. “Hey, uh, Commander Sean?” Commander Sean grunted with an upwards inflection at the end. “Remember how you said this place was dangerous because of the creatures that live here?” Commander Sean nodded but didn’t answer. “Well, what creatures live here?” Asked Peter wearily. Commander Sean opened his mouth to talk, but Peter’s question was answered when something bumped into the submersible with such force that the lights flickered and everyone and everything was thrown to the left side of the ship.
The Commander swore loudly as an echoing moan rattled the ship, and its three occupants.
“What is it? What is it?! Get rid of it! Please, make it stop!” Wailed Peter as the submersible was thumped again. The commander hauled himself onto the dashboard and poked some buttons on a mini screen. An automated voice blared out of the speakers.
“Munda.” The voice said. “Known Characteristics: Extremely aggressive, sea snake like creatures. They are very aggressive towards boats, and some of the larger specimens are 50 meters long and weigh around 120 tons. When prey first comes into their sights, they will circle around, and bump into it, testing its prey. Then, they wrap their snakelike, flexible bodies around their prey and squeeze. They may squeeze to a pressure of 330 tons. Extremely Dangerous. Do not approach.” Just as the voice stopped, a blood-chilling hiss echoed through the submersible. Commander Sean looked at the radar, which, unlike human radars, showed a detailed and 200 FPS view of the world outside the ship. Right now, there was the green and red Munda, curling around the ship. There were a few other Mundas with it, circling around the ship hissing excitedly. Suddenly, all the other Mundas hissed and bolted away from the submersible. The one still coiled around the ship didn’t notice. Then, a massive, unidentified shape appeared on the radar. It was indescribably ginormous. It latched its powerful jaws onto the helpless Munda and sucked it into its mouth like a tiny noodle. The size difference between the Munda and the giant creature was equal to that of an earthworm and a great white shark. The submersible was probably no bigger than one of the creature’s teeth.
The commander gasped, and all colour drained from his face. His eyes flickered and then shut. But not before his fingers had wormed their way towards a button.
An automated voice crackled over the speakers.
“The Great Unknown. Known Characteristics: None.”
Chapter IX
The Great Unknown swallowed the Munda whole and swam past the ship. The three occupants inside the ship breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Thank the tsunamis that that episode is over.” He said, crawling out from a pile of furniture. “Me too.” Peter muttered. Suddenly, there was a long moan, something between a whale song and the metallic grind of steel. The Great Unknown had circled back around and was examining the submersible. Peter could feel its powerful flippers churning and beating the water around it. The whole submersible rattled and quaked, along with its occupants. Then Peter felt a stomach churning Bump! of The Great Unknown’s nose bumping the tiny pea-sized submersible that had recently invaded its territory. Finally, the giant creature lost interest, turned around and swam away.
Peter and Finn breathed such a sigh of relief they could have blown up ten balloons in one breath. The commander, who had just woken up from his narcoleptic nap burst through the doors to the lobby with a loud BANG, making Peter jump and dive for safety under an upturned table and Finn squark like a parrot.
“Where? What happened? Is everyone ok? Are the Mundas gone? Is The Great U-
Finn interrupted his babbling commander.
“Yes, yes. Everything’s alright. Calm down.” The truth of this sentence was short-lived as The Great Unknown’s tail whipped around and whacked the submersible all the way to next Monday.
The submersible corkscrewed through the water, occasionally bumping into marine life as it went.
Needless to say, the effect on the inside was catastrophic. The furniture, chairs, gadgets, Peter, Commander Sean and Finn, not to mention lots of other debris, were sent flying around the shuttle. Peter was smacked in the face by someone’s tail and thrown into a battered chair, colliding midair, whereas the Commander latched on to Finn’s arm, refusing to let go until eventually Peter’s shoe was flung into the air and hit the commander on the chin, and there was a earsplitting din of tables and chairs and furniture and even food banging in to the walls, eachother or one of the three living occupants. Finn flapped his arms around, as if trying to fly away from it all, and the Commander got tangled in his own tail. Peter was slapped by one of Finn’s flailing arms and flew into the commander, who was now in yet another narcoleptic nap. Suddenly, there was a loud BUMP and everything was flung down to the floor, either shattering or breaking.
Peter’s head smashed into a table leg and everything went black.
Peter’s eyes slowly flickered open amongst a sea of broken furniture. His ears were ringing, and he had a migraine headache. He slowly lifted his head. His whole body protested with a shock of pain that burned through all his joints. He massaged his temples, and eventually his ears stopped ringing and his eyesight focused.
He could see Finn lying on the ground, underneath a pile of junk, still unconscious, and the commander in the corner, leaning against the wall, clutching his leg and swearing like there was no tomorrow. Peter drowsily got up and crawled over on his hands and knees to the commander.
“What’s wrong? Are you ok?” He asked.
The commander swore again, several times. “Yea, nope. No. I think I broke me leg.” He ground his teeth. “Yep. Broken leg.” A few meters away, Finn began to stir. Then he moaned. “Ugh. Ohhhh. I’ve got such a jiffing headache. Does anyone have any headache pills?” He looked over to his swearing commander. “Hey, commander. Your leg alright?”
The commander swore one last time for good measure and then passed out. Finn sat up. “I guess not.” He scrambled over to Peter. “What happened?” He asked. Peter pursed his lips. “I think he broke his leg.”
“Oh no.” He groaned. He dashed around the submersible, turning over all the broken stuff to find a first aid kit. Suddenly, the lights on the submersible failed and flickered to red and an automated voice crackled onto the speakers. “Warning! You have 30 minutes of air left! Air will run out in 30 minutes! Warning!”
Peter sighed. “Great.” He said.
Chapter X
Finn had wrapped a glowing, metal-like cast over the commander’s leg. He was still semi-conscious, and mumbling in his dreams. “Hello, Bubbles. Do you wanna go on a swim? Do you wanna go on swim? Yes you do! Yes you do!” He mumbled.
Finn was desperately trying to get the engine started again. One of the joysticks leered at him. “Heh heh! Stupid fish. Can’t get the submarine up and running. Mister Fatty Fish Lips is a noob.”
Finn was about to thump the joystick with all his might when he remembered. “It’s just oxygen deprivation. Nothing else. Just that.”
The other buttons and joysticks began laughing at him. The oxygen deprivation was making him irritable, and see and hear things. There was a dull thump from the other room. “Shut up you stupid couch! I’m not soft! Look at me! Now look at you! You got a million rips and cuts in you! Do I? No!”
Finn sighed. Looks like it was getting to Peter too.
Suddenly somebody swore loudly from the next room. “Oh hello, Commander. Your leg ok?” Enquired Peter.
Finn heard a pause.
“Why are you punching the couch?”
Finn called for help from the pilot’s cockpit. After even more cursing and and cringing, the commander picked himself up and limped over to Finn.
“Right, okay.” He began.
“Engine’s out, jets are out, and lights are out.”
The automated voice crackled back on the speakers.
“Warning! You have 15 minutes of air left. Warning.”
The commander sighed. “And we’re running out of air.”
Commander Sean shoved Finn out of the way and sat in the pilot’s chair.
He swatted Finn away from him. “Go fix the lights.”
While the commander worked on the engine and Finn worked on the lights, Peter was sitting amongst a pile of stuff, not sure what to do. But what could he do? He was just a kid. Finn and Sean were experienced professionals.
“Hey Peter! Could really use a hand here!”
Or maybe he could do something.
Peter rushed over to Finn. He had the top half of his body shoved up the ceiling and was surrounded by wires. “I need you to do something really important.”
Peter straightened. “Yes?”
“Tell the commander that if we make it through this ordeal, I want a raise.”
Peter sighed. Suddenly, the lights flickered back on and Finn crawled out of the ceiling. He winked at Peter. “You’re welcome.” He said.
Just then, the engine and the jets spluttered back into life.
Peter’s eyebrows perked up.
“Things are looking good.”
The submersible’s jets spluttered and shook and they propelled the submersible across the ocean floor.
Finn bounced into the pilot’s cockpit. “Hey hey hey! We got the submersible going, commander! Way to go!” Finn paused. “Commander?”
Finn spun the chair around, and the commander was lying there, fast asleep in a narcoleptic state, with a big fat smile spread across his face.
Chapter XI
The small, battered submersible dragged itself slowly forward on the seafloor. It moved towards a massive gouge in the earth’s crust. This was the deepest point in the alien ocean. The submersible floated down the side lazily.
The trio inside were completely on edge. “I reckon in the next few minutes,” Predicted Finn, “That this whole submersible will be slowly making its way down something’s gullet.” Peter shivered. He wasn’t sure if he was cold, or frightened. It didn’t matter. Cold or scared was a much better alternative than death.
They descended down into the depths of the trench.
Eventually, they came to the bottom.
The commander gestured around them.
“Do you… recognise this place?” He asked Peter.
“Yes. I’m pretty sure it was around here somewhere… Oh!”
Something began building in volume. It sounded like a lullaby. But this lullaby was out of tune and insanely creepy. It was obvious that the others could hear it too, as Finn’s eyes were bulging out of his head and the commander was frantically swivelling around on his chair to try and discover the source.
“What’s that noise?” He asked, flabbergasted.
“I heard the song in my vision. We should be close now…” He stopped, seeing a faint splodge of yellow light.
“There!” He exclaimed. The submersible turned and propelled towards the light. The yellow light was coming from a hole in the wall. In the hole, there was a library. The exact same one that Peter had gone into several hours ago. A figure emerged from the light. Peter couldn’t see him vey clearly, but he could make out that he had a blood red, scaly body, but still humanoid, with a black cloak around him. His voice was normal and even.
“Greetings, searchers. You have come, at last.”
The commander grit his teeth.
“So you were the one who destroyed half of Atlantis. You have a lot to answer for.”
The figure smiled and turned at the commander.
“Hello, Mudskipper. You look older. And rounder, I must say.”
The commander went purple. He clenched his fists and quaked with rage. He obviously did not like being addressed by his first name. Nor being accused of being round.
He slumped back in his chair.
“Hmm. I guess your narcolepsy hasn’t improved either.”
Finally, Peter spoke up.
“Who are you?”
The creature smiled again.
“I a-“ He stopped mid sentence and did a double take.
“Are you… is that… a human?”
Finn stepped protectively in front of Peter.
“Yes. Why does that concern you?”
The creature shifted on his feet. He opened his mouth but before he could answer, he was interrupted by a loud noise.
“ZAP!” Yelled Peter as he suddenly pointed his finger sharply at the creature. The creature did something extremely quickly with his hands, and he seemed to shudder violently for a moment. Peter stared at his finger expectantly, like he expected a bolt of lighting to come out and fry the creature.
Peter shrugged. I guess humans aren’t magical then.” He said, sounding slightly disappointed.
Finn stared a him.
“What?”
“Well, because the creature there was shifting on his feet when he found out I was human, I guessed that humans had an edge over him or something. So I did that to test my theory. I expected a bolt of lighting to come out and fry the creature. But apparently not.”
Suddenly, the creature quickly leapt away and a bolt of lightning appeared right where Peter’s fingers had been a few seconds earlier. The bolt vaporised a nearby rock.
Peter examined his fingers for a few seconds in amazement.
His frown turned into a smile as he began shooting lightning bolts in rapid fire.
“How are you doing it?” Gasped Finn.
The creature had to jump out of the light, and now he was no longer silhouetted. He could hear a rifling sound, like a noisy indoor fan. It was the sound he had heard in the vision, and it was louder than ever now.
“When the little rat time travelled through my library, he was touched by my powers. He seems to have stolen some, and now he’s using it against meeoooof!” The creature’s sentence was cut short by one of Peter’s thunderbolt’s finding its mark. The creature was catapulted backwards, head over heels, and slammed into the rock face.
The creature obviously did not appreciate this and shouted at Peter angrily. “Right. Thunderbolt this, you stupid little ant!” He then clicked his claws.
Suddenly, The Great Unknown, still shrouded in its black cape of mystery, appeared. Peter immediately focused on The Great Unknown, desperately trying to drive it back. The creature had now retreated further into the library, and was now generating some sort of glowing orb. It was spinning extremely fast, getting bigger as the creature opened its arms more. It was a dark blue with a dark yellow centre, and seemed to glow with a black aurora. Suddenly, the creature fully widened its arms, shooting the orb out with alarming speed. It surged towards Peter. He quickly shot a bolt of lightning at the it. It repelled the orb and sent it hurtling back towards the creature. The creature’s eyes widened as the orb exploded against his face.
KABOOM!!!
The explosion spread to the Great Unknown, the trench, and finally, the submersible. Peter was catapulted across the ocean floor. Finally, he stopped. He was lying on his back, and even though he was slowly dying, he felt somewhat… peaceful. He saw the The Great Unknown, swimming around, free of the horrible shroud of darkness of the creature’s mind control. His skin was a dreamy blue colour, and he looked a bit like a mosasaur, a marine reptile from the cretaceous period. In turned around, and Peter could have sworn on his life that it smiled at him. It swam away, humming out a mournful but happy song. Peter could hear his heart slowly stopping.
Buh dup, buh dup, buh dup, went his heart.
Buh dup… buh dup… … buh… dup.
Chapter XII
Then, Peter felt something on his body. It seemed to be crawling up. It was a strange, yellow glowing goo. His heart started pumping healthily again.
Then…
He gasped in a huge gulp of air, probably the biggest in his life. He was just outside where he had found the library in the first place. Where he had escaped the bullies. It was raining. Specks of water riddled his face. But he didn’t feel afraid. He slowly sat up and rose to his feet. He looked around himself and smiled. But his brief moment of mirth was shattered by the sound of heavy shoes on pavement. Peter sighed and turned around, already knowing what he was going to see. A small gang of teenage bullies. The biggest, pimpliest looking one stepped forward and drew his fist back. Peter raised an arm to protect himself, and an extremely powerful gust of wind flew out of his hand and knocked the bully over. The bully got up and, along with his friends, began a barrage of punching and kicking. But they were all simply blown back by the wind. Eventually, Peter got bored of watching the bullies get knocked over like skittles, and decided to lightly fry them with a thunderbolt. Not enough to really hurt them, but enough to send them scampering across the road. Peter smiled and walked away.
The bullies couldn’t hurt him. Nothing could hurt him. Not even the absence of friends could hurt him. Because he did have friends. Three very special ones. Two friends that were in a critical but stable condition at the Atlantis Hospital, and one quite new one.
One that was ginormous, had lots of teeth, and could sing the most beautiful, tuneful songs.
But he could never see those three friends again.
But he could.
But how could he?
Because he had a magical library that he could summon with a snap of his fingers.
The End.
(∩🌔 ͜ʖ🌔)⊃━☆ﾟ.*
A small, skinny boy raced across the pavement to somewhere, anywhere, that would provide shelter from the horrible, lashing, PETRIFYING,
rain.
“Aaaahhh!” Screamed the small, skinny boy.
The small boy’s name was Peter, and he suffered from full-blown aquaphobia, a morbid fear of water.
Like rain.
“Help!”
He was seen as a complete misfit in the school playground, which was also why he wasn’t stopping to shelter under a tree or his raincoat, as he had a gang of school bullies hot on his tail.
Peter was puffing like a steam train, and the bullies were catching up.
Peter saw an open door up ahead, so he turned sharply into the doorway, slammed the door behind him and barricaded it with a heavy armchair.
Peter held his breath as he heard the stomping footsteps grow louder and louder… then softer and softer.
He then exhaled so much air he could have blown out all the candles on an immortal jellyfish’s birthday cake.
He looked out a window. The dreaded rain was still bucketing down, so Peter decided to explore. The room was one big library, with seemingly endless rows of shelves.
It looked quite old fashioned, and was dimly lit by a small chandelier hanging from the roof, and a few scattered candles.
Even though the rain was still lashing outside, everything seemed eerily quiet.
After his eyes adjusted to the low light, Peter saw that there were little white specks rising out from the books, and drifting slowly along the shelves.
On closer inspection, they were actually letters and numbers and symbols, in random orders, floating gently. He decided to follow them.
They seemed to be moving towards a strange pulsating glow of golden light. The light was coming from a large, leatherback book with a title written in golden, classical letters: The Time Book. The letters and numbers flowed into it, seemingly being absorbed by it. The book made a strange rifling sound, like an indoor fan being turned on.
As Peter edged closer, the book opened and flicked its pages gently. He picked up the book, which seemed to warm the air around it, and flicked over to the contents page. He skimmed over it, looking for something interesting.
It seemed to start at the origins of the Earth to what was happening right that second. At the end of all of that, there was a chapter entitled “Alternate Realities”. “Cool!” Thought Peter. He traced the dotted line over to the page number. Page 912! Peter huffed in amazement as he flipped over to page 912. The first part of the chapter was, “A world without land” And had a picture of these strange, amphibian-like beings that seemed perfectly adapted for life in an ocean.
They seemed to be hanging out in this high-tech looking underwater lab, that had a few of the tallest bits poking out. The only thing that abnormal was that it seemed so realistic, so vivid, so real; that Peter couldn’t help but reach out a hand and touch the beautiful drawing. Suddenly, and invisible force clamped onto his arm and yanked him into the picture, slamming the book shut in the process, leaving no trace that Peter had ever stumbled upon the strange library, and changing his life forever.
Peter yelled louder than he ever had. He felt like he was being thrusted backwards, through time and space. He didn’t know for sure, but he felt like he was being squashed and stretched in all the wrong directions, images flashing before his eyes, the G-force rippling his cheeks. Peter felt like he wasn’t going forwards and backwards. He felt like he was going… sideways, almost. Suddenly, he felt himself stop. He was in outer space, looking down on the Earth. “Alternate Realities” He whispered breathlessly as he was yanked back down to Earth.
Suddenly, his vision faded into black and white. His ears popped and he saw himself in an ocean. He couldn’t hear or feel anything except the sound of a soft wind. He dived down, deep into the depths, until he came across a large undersea trench. He dived down at remarkable speed. He came to the bottom of the trench, and on the side of the rock face, there was a cragged hole, and in that cragged hole, there were shelves of books. It looked exactly like Peter’s library. There was also a blurry, humanoid figure silhouetted by a glowing, lemon yellow light. He heard a faint, crackly record playing. It sounded familiar-like a lullaby. But this one was out of tune and insanely creepy. He couldn’t hear it at first, but it increased in volume. There was a glowing yellow orb before him. It looked exactly like the light from the hole. Without thinking, he reached out and touched it. It suddenly seemed to get sucked into his arm, making him twitch and convulse. Just as his vision seemed to focus on the figure, he was yanked backwards, out of the hole and out of the ocean, stopping just above the surface. Then his vision focused, his senses came back, and then, he started falling.
Chapter II
Peter yelled in fright as he fell, down, down, down, until he landed SPLASH! Into the ocean. The water seemed to be rising and falling, dunking him under the water with every fall. Water filled his lungs, making him cough and splutter until he felt like throwing up his internal organs. Needless to say, this was not helping his Aquaphobia. He screamed and kicked and thrashed, his heart clawing his way up his throat. He was sinking like a stone. The corners of his eyes were fading. Then he felt something like a hand grab his leg. A spark jolted down Peter’s spine and everything faded to black.
Chapter III
Peter woke with a jolt. He was in a white room, like a laboratory. Everything looked extremely blurry. Eventually, his eyesight focused and the room he was in was indeed a laboratory, but with giant windows on each side, looking slightly blacked out. But Peter was paying zero attention to the windows.
His attention was focused on the strange, fish-human creatures that were leaning over him.
Peter screamed the loudest scream he had ever done. He started desperately kicking and thrashing. Then he heard slightly disoriented voices in his head, a human voice riddled with gurgles. But they didn’t sound like actual noises. They sounded more internal, like thoughts.
“Why are you screaming? Why are you screaming? We aren’t going to hurt you. Calm down.”
The creatures were talking to him, without moving their mouths or any sort of facial movement. Their faces weren’t busy talking. They were frowning. But not an angry sort of frown.
A concerned one.
“You’re safe. Don’t worry.”
Peter sat up, still hyperventilating. He opened his mouth to talk, then shut it. Then opened and shut it. He tried to speak, but the words came out mangled.
“Wha… Nun… Nuhuh?” He babbled.
“Num nums?” Asked one of the creatures.
“Are you hungry?“
The other creatures behind it sniggered.
“Are… Who are you? What am I doing here?” Stammered Peter, finding his voice at last.
“My name is Finn.” The alien answered. “You are here, well, becuase we saw you pop up out of nowhere, and then started screaming and thrashing about. We swam over to you, and when we reached you, you were just floating on your back, eyes closed, unresponsive. We thought you were dead.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Wh-what are you?” asked Peter.
“Well, we were just about to ask you that.” Replied Finn flatly.
“Are you an alien?” Asked Peter and Finn simultaneously.
*No.” They both responded.
“Okay, okay.” Said Peter breathlessly. “What species do you belong to?”
“Aqua Rambiotistrique.” replied Finn.
Peter looked frightened.
Finn sighed. “The water people.”
Peter nodded uneasily. “I am a Homo Sapiens.”
Finn stared at Peter blankly.
Peter sighed. “Humans.”
“OK. You ah… want me to show you around?”
Peter nodded. It was the only thing he felt sure about.
Finn walked Peter around the amazing lab. It was amazingly high-tech, and the doors just opened as soon as you got close to them. Finn also gave a quick summary of the anatomy of “The Water People”.
Their skin is a shiny, sky blue colour and it dries out in a few hours, so they have to keep it wet. They have long tails that ended in a fork with a large, fin-like red fluke that was extremely strong, and was the main motor for swimming.
Peter went white. Swimming?
“Are you ok?” Asked Finn.
“Yeah. I’m… fine.”
Finn then proceeded to explain The Water People’s remarkable telepathic abilities. They could transmit their thoughts to another member of their species within any distance as long as they could see eachother. But with members of a different species, they could only transmit thoughts within a 10-meter radius.
“But some of us, with enough training, become exceptional, and transmit thoughts to any species within a 30 metre radius.”
Finn seemed to glow with pomposity.
“Like me.”
Peter rolled his eyes.
Suddenly, a question popped into his head.
“Finn…?”
“Yes?”
“Well, you know how you said you have to keep your skin wet? Well, why not build this place near water then?”
Finn smiled. “But boy, we are.”
He pressed a button on the wall, and suddenly, the walls retracted down. Behind it was a thick sheet of glass. And behind that sheet of glass was one of the most amazing, beautiful… and frightening, sights Peter had ever seen. The building seemed to be completely submerged in water, and outside was the most amazing marine life you could possibly imagine. Creatures with extremely long and bendy necks, leading down to a body with four flippers, like a school of Loch Ness monsters. There were these fish with beaks like a parrot, and glowing stripes down their body.
“Woah…” Whispered Peter, his eyes wide.
Suddenly, he started shaking uncontrollably. He broke out in a cold sweat.
He turned and bolted down the hallway as fast as he could, barging past other water creatures like Finn, setting bemused looks on their faces. He couldn’t get away from the sight of all that water… every time he looked, he felt more and more scared, fuelling his urge to run further. Eventually, the windows ended and he came to a door. He crashed through the door into a smart, futuristic office and dived under a desk.
He collided with some boots, and he heard somebody make a very surprised noise and then slumped in their chair. Peter waited for his heart to stop pumping in his mouth and slip back down his throat, and then got up to apologise. “I-i’m sorry I crashed into you. You see-“
Peter realised that the other water creature was unconscious. “Oh no.” He breathed.
Peter began to hear Finn’s voice slip back into his mind.
“Peter? Peter! Why’d you run away? What’s wrong?”
“Finn? Finn! Come quick! I think I hurt someone!” Finn burst into the room. “What? Where? Who’s dead?”
The water creature in the chair lifted his head and opened his eyes. He seemed stockier and older than Finn. As soon as he saw Peter he frowned. He clicked his fingers at him. “Finn? Who is this? He doesn’t look like anybody i’ve seen before.” His voice was quite deep and gravelly.
“Erm, sorry sir. Apparently he’s a… uh… Pogo… Japiens?”Peter rolled his eyes. “Homo. Sapiens.”
The other guy frowned again. “Are you an alien? Where did you come from?” He asked. So I told him the whole story. About aquaphobia, finding the library and then the book. When I finished he looked throughly shocked.
“Are you… alright?” Asked Peter.
He got up and took Peter by the arm.
“Follow me.” He said.
Chapter IV
The other guy lead Peter into a room, with a long table lined with some spongey looking chairs. They felt really soft and seemed to absorb water. The other water creature began to speak. “My name is Commander Sean. What is yours?” He asked. Peter paused for a moment, unsure of what to say. “His name is Peter.” Answered Finn for him.
Commander Sean nodded and wrote something down on a waterproof notebook. “Did any other Pogo Japiens come here with you?” Peter sighed. Was anyone going to get his species name right? “No. Nobody came down here with me.” The Commander nodded again and wrote another thing down. “Nobody would actually come with me.” Peter muttered. Commander Sean looked back up at me sharply. “What was that?” He growled. “Um, *splutter* nothing.” He replied shakily. Commander Sean got up and marched towards him and grabbed my collar. “You said something.” He growled. “What was it?”
Finn stepped in between them. “Hey, hey, Commander. Calm down. Peter’s just a kid.” The Commander’s expression turned from angry to surprised, and then his eyes flickered and he was asleep again. As Finn went to nurse his fallen commander, Peter had to ask him. “What’s… wrong with… Sean?” Before Finn could answer, the Commanders eyes flickered open and rolled around lazily. “Pass the beer, grandma.” He mumbled. His eyes then focused. “What did you say my problem was?”
“Well…” Peter hesitated, not wanting to offend him.
“Why do you keep falling asleep?” The commander rolled his eyes.
“Everyone asks me that.” He said, standing up.
“I have a condition called narcolepsy. It means I fall asleep when I have a strong emotion or strain too hard.” He thought for a moment. “Why did I faint again?“
“Finn just told you that I am a child.”
The commander’s eyes rolled back and he fell backwards once more.
Chapter V
“So let me get this straight.” Said Commander Sean. “You, a homo sapiens child, just happened to stumble across the one thing that we have been looking for for years and years and years, and you had no intention of activating any of this time travel magic.” Peter sat there, gathering his thoughts. “Um… Yeah, I guess so.” The commander threw a fax machine at the wall. He looked at Finn. “And you KNEW about this?” Finn gulped. “Uhh, yes, sir.”
Commander Sean blinked at Finn.
“Finn, you’re fired.”
“Crap.”
Peter jumped to his friend’s rescue. “But Finn was the one who saved me from drowning.” Sean looked back at Finn.
“Finn, you’re hired.”
“Yay!”
Sean looked back at Peter. “Okay, young… uh… Romeo Blatantiens…” Peter groaned. “Homo. Sapiens.” “Fine, young homo sapiens, the magic of that Time Library is… just…” The commander sighed and put his head in his hands. “Pure evil.”
A shiver shot down Peter’s spine like an electric charge.
“What do you mean, pure evil?” He said.
“Ok, let me explain.” Began Commander Sean.
“Oh no. Peter, i’m very sorry about this. Sit tight. This’ll take a while.” Said Finn wearily.
“Shut up Finn! Ok. Right. So, the magic library you ran into is the birthplace of probably the Universe’s most evil magic. One day, a few decades ago, I was just cruising around in my submersible and-“
“Hang on, sorry to interrupt,” Began Peter, “but why would you be in a submersible if you can swim so well?”
The commander grunted.
“We can swim really well at the surface, but we can’t go below 200 meters because of the water pressure. And the cold.” Peter nodded and gestured to the commander to go on. “40 years ago or so I was cruising around the deep ocean, and then my radar picked up a large energy source. I came to it, and it was just floating around.
The radar showed it was extremely powerful, so I absorbed it into my ship.
Suddenly, I could go really super fast, so I turned on my radio to tell everyone, but then I heard this voice come out of it. It sounded raspy at first, and hissed and spat, and then it sounded really calm and friendly.”
The commander seemed to grip his chair tight.
“It told us all about itself, about how the library was its birthplace, blblblah blblblah blblblah. Then it somehow persuaded me to make it our primary energy source, but then our race became corrupted.”
The commander grit his teeth.
“It then took control of our weapons, and all hell broke loose. It blew up almost all of Atlantis-“
“What’s Atlantis?” Asked Peter.
“The underwater city we all live in.” Said Finn and Sean simultaneously.
“And we tried everything to make it stop, but it wouldn’t. But then, Mr. Finn here had the bright idea to simply switch everything off. And it worked.”
Finn glowed like an overexcited light bulb.
“We didn’t manage to get it out of our systems though. We had to build a new Atlantis and circuit system practically from scratch. The evil power is simply disconnected, but it’s still there. If anyone was to reconnect it, all hell would break loose.”
There was silence for a moment.
“How could you get rid of it?” Asked Peter.
Commander Sean blew out his mouth. “Well, nobody knows, really. But a lot of people think that if you can destroy the library, you can destroy the… thing.”
Commander Sean snapped his fingers and turned to Peter. “Have you had any visions?”
Chapter VI
Peter considered the Commander’s question. He thought back to when he first fell into the alien ocean. The figure he saw… could it be?
No, that would be impossible.
“Well, er, no, i don’t think so.” He said, finally.
“You think so?” Asked the Commander.
“Well, yes and no.” Began Peter. “I’m not too sure. Everything was black and white, and there was this undersea trench, and there was this hole in the wall, and the yellow light, and the person, and the voice. And then it was gone. I don’t know.” He spluttered.
The commander waved his arms like a penguin trying to take off. “What trench? What Hole? What Wall? What Light? What Person? What Voice? Slow down and use detail!”
Finn made a cuckoo signal behind the Commander’s back. Peter tried not to smile and explained his vision in detail.
By the time he was finished, Commander Sean was fast asleep and Finn was just standing next to him, looking frazzled.
Commander Sean stirred. “Shut up mummy. I like ketchup on my ice cream.” He muttered before waking up properly. He groaned and put his head in his hands. “I know where you’re talking about.
We have done a million radar searches but found nothing. It isn’t there. Please don’t let it be there. Anywhere but there.”
Peter was confused.
“Anywhere but there? Where? Why?”
“What?”
Peter sighed. “Where is “there”? Why is it so bad?”
Finn groaned.
“But Peter, that’s… that’s where… it’s…”
“It’s what?” Asked Peter, getting impatient.
Commander Sean jumped in.
“It’s in the Deep.”
Chapter VII
“What’s the Deep?” Asked Peter.
“Only the most dangerous place to ever exist.”
Peter shivered. “Why? Why is it so dangerous?”
Finn sighed. “Because the water is poison, there is no light, and, most of all, the creatures that live down there.”
“Which creatures live down there?”
Commander Sean sighed. “You don’t wanna know.”
There was a long pause.
“Okay. Commander… are we…”
“If you are even thinking about that, Finn, I will hijack your shuttle and drop you over a desert.”
Finn took out a post-it-note, wrote something on it and stuck it on the back of the Commander’s chair.
“So we’re not going anywhere.”
“No.”
“We just made the discovery of the century, and we’re doing nothing.”
“Yes.”
“We’re just going to sit here and do nothing.’
Commander Sean gripped his chair tightly.
“Obviously not. We’re gonna do something.”
“What?”
“I dunno.”
Finn rolled his eyes in exasperation and smashed his head on the desk. It hurt, so he rubbed his head and muttered curses under his breath.
“For Big Blue’s sake Mudskipper. We can’t just sit here and do nothing. We have to destroy it!”
Commander Mudskipper Sean’s face darkened. He jumped up out of his chair and grabbed Finn by the collar. “It’s Commander Sean to you, Mister Fatty Fish Lips!!” He thundered. Finn turned up his nose and screwed up his face, like Commander Sean’s breath smelt like dog poo. He slapped the Commander lightly on the cheek. The Commander’s expression turned from mad to furious and his eyes flickered and he slumped onto the floor.
Finn peered down at the fallen commander.
“Huh. Wow. I must be stronger than I think.” He flexed one of his arms and examined it. He grinned and flexed both arms.
“I’m a strongman, baby!
Chapter VIII
After several minutes of bickering, Finn finally won the argument and the trio found themselves in the Commander’s submersible.
“SYSTEM GO FOR DESCENT.” Said an automated voice. The commander flicked a button and the ship started. The bubble jets started and the submersible was propelled forward, into the deep blue depths of the alien ocean.
Finn looked back over to Peter and saw him huddling under a chair, shivering and sweating.
Finn considered what to say.
“Are you… alright?”
Peter was so frightened that he could only shake his head. But it was already shaking, so it was hard to tell.
“Aquaphobia attack, right?” He asked.
Peter nodded slightly.
Finn called over to the commander.
“Hey, Commander. Can we have the views blocked? Peter’s having a bit of an aquaphobia attack.”
The commander flicked a button and the walls extended and covered the view of the beautiful but terrifying ocean view. Peter crawled out from underneath the chair.
“Shame though. I thought I saw a school of Angler Parakeet Fish.” The shuttle descended and, even though the windows were up, Peter could tell it was getting darker.
Peter began to feel uneasy, but this time, not from the aquaphobia. “Hey, uh, Commander Sean?” Commander Sean grunted with an upwards inflection at the end. “Remember how you said this place was dangerous because of the creatures that live here?” Commander Sean nodded but didn’t answer. “Well, what creatures live here?” Asked Peter wearily. Commander Sean opened his mouth to talk, but Peter’s question was answered when something bumped into the submersible with such force that the lights flickered and everyone and everything was thrown to the left side of the ship.
The Commander swore loudly as an echoing moan rattled the ship, and its three occupants.
“What is it? What is it?! Get rid of it! Please, make it stop!” Wailed Peter as the submersible was thumped again. The commander hauled himself onto the dashboard and poked some buttons on a mini screen. An automated voice blared out of the speakers.
“Munda.” The voice said. “Known Characteristics: Extremely aggressive, sea snake like creatures. They are very aggressive towards boats, and some of the larger specimens are 50 meters long and weigh around 120 tons. When prey first comes into their sights, they will circle around, and bump into it, testing its prey. Then, they wrap their snakelike, flexible bodies around their prey and squeeze. They may squeeze to a pressure of 330 tons. Extremely Dangerous. Do not approach.” Just as the voice stopped, a blood-chilling hiss echoed through the submersible. Commander Sean looked at the radar, which, unlike human radars, showed a detailed and 200 FPS view of the world outside the ship. Right now, there was the green and red Munda, curling around the ship. There were a few other Mundas with it, circling around the ship hissing excitedly. Suddenly, all the other Mundas hissed and bolted away from the submersible. The one still coiled around the ship didn’t notice. Then, a massive, unidentified shape appeared on the radar. It was indescribably ginormous. It latched its powerful jaws onto the helpless Munda and sucked it into its mouth like a tiny noodle. The size difference between the Munda and the giant creature was equal to that of an earthworm and a great white shark. The submersible was probably no bigger than one of the creature’s teeth.
The commander gasped, and all colour drained from his face. His eyes flickered and then shut. But not before his fingers had wormed their way towards a button.
An automated voice crackled over the speakers.
“The Great Unknown. Known Characteristics: None.”
Chapter IX
The Great Unknown swallowed the Munda whole and swam past the ship. The three occupants inside the ship breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Thank the tsunamis that that episode is over.” He said, crawling out from a pile of furniture. “Me too.” Peter muttered. Suddenly, there was a long moan, something between a whale song and the metallic grind of steel. The Great Unknown had circled back around and was examining the submersible. Peter could feel its powerful flippers churning and beating the water around it. The whole submersible rattled and quaked, along with its occupants. Then Peter felt a stomach churning Bump! of The Great Unknown’s nose bumping the tiny pea-sized submersible that had recently invaded its territory. Finally, the giant creature lost interest, turned around and swam away.
Peter and Finn breathed such a sigh of relief they could have blown up ten balloons in one breath. The commander, who had just woken up from his narcoleptic nap burst through the doors to the lobby with a loud BANG, making Peter jump and dive for safety under an upturned table and Finn squark like a parrot.
“Where? What happened? Is everyone ok? Are the Mundas gone? Is The Great U-
Finn interrupted his babbling commander.
“Yes, yes. Everything’s alright. Calm down.” The truth of this sentence was short-lived as The Great Unknown’s tail whipped around and whacked the submersible all the way to next Monday.
The submersible corkscrewed through the water, occasionally bumping into marine life as it went.
Needless to say, the effect on the inside was catastrophic. The furniture, chairs, gadgets, Peter, Commander Sean and Finn, not to mention lots of other debris, were sent flying around the shuttle. Peter was smacked in the face by someone’s tail and thrown into a battered chair, colliding midair, whereas the Commander latched on to Finn’s arm, refusing to let go until eventually Peter’s shoe was flung into the air and hit the commander on the chin, and there was a earsplitting din of tables and chairs and furniture and even food banging in to the walls, eachother or one of the three living occupants. Finn flapped his arms around, as if trying to fly away from it all, and the Commander got tangled in his own tail. Peter was slapped by one of Finn’s flailing arms and flew into the commander, who was now in yet another narcoleptic nap. Suddenly, there was a loud BUMP and everything was flung down to the floor, either shattering or breaking.
Peter’s head smashed into a table leg and everything went black.
Peter’s eyes slowly flickered open amongst a sea of broken furniture. His ears were ringing, and he had a migraine headache. He slowly lifted his head. His whole body protested with a shock of pain that burned through all his joints. He massaged his temples, and eventually his ears stopped ringing and his eyesight focused.
He could see Finn lying on the ground, underneath a pile of junk, still unconscious, and the commander in the corner, leaning against the wall, clutching his leg and swearing like there was no tomorrow. Peter drowsily got up and crawled over on his hands and knees to the commander.
“What’s wrong? Are you ok?” He asked.
The commander swore again, several times. “Yea, nope. No. I think I broke me leg.” He ground his teeth. “Yep. Broken leg.” A few meters away, Finn began to stir. Then he moaned. “Ugh. Ohhhh. I’ve got such a jiffing headache. Does anyone have any headache pills?” He looked over to his swearing commander. “Hey, commander. Your leg alright?”
The commander swore one last time for good measure and then passed out. Finn sat up. “I guess not.” He scrambled over to Peter. “What happened?” He asked. Peter pursed his lips. “I think he broke his leg.”
“Oh no.” He groaned. He dashed around the submersible, turning over all the broken stuff to find a first aid kit. Suddenly, the lights on the submersible failed and flickered to red and an automated voice crackled onto the speakers. “Warning! You have 30 minutes of air left! Air will run out in 30 minutes! Warning!”
Peter sighed. “Great.” He said.
Chapter X
Finn had wrapped a glowing, metal-like cast over the commander’s leg. He was still semi-conscious, and mumbling in his dreams. “Hello, Bubbles. Do you wanna go on a swim? Do you wanna go on swim? Yes you do! Yes you do!” He mumbled.
Finn was desperately trying to get the engine started again. One of the joysticks leered at him. “Heh heh! Stupid fish. Can’t get the submarine up and running. Mister Fatty Fish Lips is a noob.”
Finn was about to thump the joystick with all his might when he remembered. “It’s just oxygen deprivation. Nothing else. Just that.”
The other buttons and joysticks began laughing at him. The oxygen deprivation was making him irritable, and see and hear things. There was a dull thump from the other room. “Shut up you stupid couch! I’m not soft! Look at me! Now look at you! You got a million rips and cuts in you! Do I? No!”
Finn sighed. Looks like it was getting to Peter too.
Suddenly somebody swore loudly from the next room. “Oh hello, Commander. Your leg ok?” Enquired Peter.
Finn heard a pause.
“Why are you punching the couch?”
Finn called for help from the pilot’s cockpit. After even more cursing and and cringing, the commander picked himself up and limped over to Finn.
“Right, okay.” He began.
“Engine’s out, jets are out, and lights are out.”
The automated voice crackled back on the speakers.
“Warning! You have 15 minutes of air left. Warning.”
The commander sighed. “And we’re running out of air.”
Commander Sean shoved Finn out of the way and sat in the pilot’s chair.
He swatted Finn away from him. “Go fix the lights.”
While the commander worked on the engine and Finn worked on the lights, Peter was sitting amongst a pile of stuff, not sure what to do. But what could he do? He was just a kid. Finn and Sean were experienced professionals.
“Hey Peter! Could really use a hand here!”
Or maybe he could do something.
Peter rushed over to Finn. He had the top half of his body shoved up the ceiling and was surrounded by wires. “I need you to do something really important.”
Peter straightened. “Yes?”
“Tell the commander that if we make it through this ordeal, I want a raise.”
Peter sighed. Suddenly, the lights flickered back on and Finn crawled out of the ceiling. He winked at Peter. “You’re welcome.” He said.
Just then, the engine and the jets spluttered back into life.
Peter’s eyebrows perked up.
“Things are looking good.”
The submersible’s jets spluttered and shook and they propelled the submersible across the ocean floor.
Finn bounced into the pilot’s cockpit. “Hey hey hey! We got the submersible going, commander! Way to go!” Finn paused. “Commander?”
Finn spun the chair around, and the commander was lying there, fast asleep in a narcoleptic state, with a big fat smile spread across his face.
Chapter XI
The small, battered submersible dragged itself slowly forward on the seafloor. It moved towards a massive gouge in the earth’s crust. This was the deepest point in the alien ocean. The submersible floated down the side lazily.
The trio inside were completely on edge. “I reckon in the next few minutes,” Predicted Finn, “That this whole submersible will be slowly making its way down something’s gullet.” Peter shivered. He wasn’t sure if he was cold, or frightened. It didn’t matter. Cold or scared was a much better alternative than death.
They descended down into the depths of the trench.
Eventually, they came to the bottom.
The commander gestured around them.
“Do you… recognise this place?” He asked Peter.
“Yes. I’m pretty sure it was around here somewhere… Oh!”
Something began building in volume. It sounded like a lullaby. But this lullaby was out of tune and insanely creepy. It was obvious that the others could hear it too, as Finn’s eyes were bulging out of his head and the commander was frantically swivelling around on his chair to try and discover the source.
“What’s that noise?” He asked, flabbergasted.
“I heard the song in my vision. We should be close now…” He stopped, seeing a faint splodge of yellow light.
“There!” He exclaimed. The submersible turned and propelled towards the light. The yellow light was coming from a hole in the wall. In the hole, there was a library. The exact same one that Peter had gone into several hours ago. A figure emerged from the light. Peter couldn’t see him vey clearly, but he could make out that he had a blood red, scaly body, but still humanoid, with a black cloak around him. His voice was normal and even.
“Greetings, searchers. You have come, at last.”
The commander grit his teeth.
“So you were the one who destroyed half of Atlantis. You have a lot to answer for.”
The figure smiled and turned at the commander.
“Hello, Mudskipper. You look older. And rounder, I must say.”
The commander went purple. He clenched his fists and quaked with rage. He obviously did not like being addressed by his first name. Nor being accused of being round.
He slumped back in his chair.
“Hmm. I guess your narcolepsy hasn’t improved either.”
Finally, Peter spoke up.
“Who are you?”
The creature smiled again.
“I a-“ He stopped mid sentence and did a double take.
“Are you… is that… a human?”
Finn stepped protectively in front of Peter.
“Yes. Why does that concern you?”
The creature shifted on his feet. He opened his mouth but before he could answer, he was interrupted by a loud noise.
“ZAP!” Yelled Peter as he suddenly pointed his finger sharply at the creature. The creature did something extremely quickly with his hands, and he seemed to shudder violently for a moment. Peter stared at his finger expectantly, like he expected a bolt of lighting to come out and fry the creature.
Peter shrugged. I guess humans aren’t magical then.” He said, sounding slightly disappointed.
Finn stared a him.
“What?”
“Well, because the creature there was shifting on his feet when he found out I was human, I guessed that humans had an edge over him or something. So I did that to test my theory. I expected a bolt of lighting to come out and fry the creature. But apparently not.”
Suddenly, the creature quickly leapt away and a bolt of lightning appeared right where Peter’s fingers had been a few seconds earlier. The bolt vaporised a nearby rock.
Peter examined his fingers for a few seconds in amazement.
His frown turned into a smile as he began shooting lightning bolts in rapid fire.
“How are you doing it?” Gasped Finn.
The creature had to jump out of the light, and now he was no longer silhouetted. He could hear a rifling sound, like a noisy indoor fan. It was the sound he had heard in the vision, and it was louder than ever now.
“When the little rat time travelled through my library, he was touched by my powers. He seems to have stolen some, and now he’s using it against meeoooof!” The creature’s sentence was cut short by one of Peter’s thunderbolt’s finding its mark. The creature was catapulted backwards, head over heels, and slammed into the rock face.
The creature obviously did not appreciate this and shouted at Peter angrily. “Right. Thunderbolt this, you stupid little ant!” He then clicked his claws.
Suddenly, The Great Unknown, still shrouded in its black cape of mystery, appeared. Peter immediately focused on The Great Unknown, desperately trying to drive it back. The creature had now retreated further into the library, and was now generating some sort of glowing orb. It was spinning extremely fast, getting bigger as the creature opened its arms more. It was a dark blue with a dark yellow centre, and seemed to glow with a black aurora. Suddenly, the creature fully widened its arms, shooting the orb out with alarming speed. It surged towards Peter. He quickly shot a bolt of lightning at the it. It repelled the orb and sent it hurtling back towards the creature. The creature’s eyes widened as the orb exploded against his face.
KABOOM!!!
The explosion spread to the Great Unknown, the trench, and finally, the submersible. Peter was catapulted across the ocean floor. Finally, he stopped. He was lying on his back, and even though he was slowly dying, he felt somewhat… peaceful. He saw the The Great Unknown, swimming around, free of the horrible shroud of darkness of the creature’s mind control. His skin was a dreamy blue colour, and he looked a bit like a mosasaur, a marine reptile from the cretaceous period. In turned around, and Peter could have sworn on his life that it smiled at him. It swam away, humming out a mournful but happy song. Peter could hear his heart slowly stopping.
Buh dup, buh dup, buh dup, went his heart.
Buh dup… buh dup… … buh… dup.
Chapter XII
Then, Peter felt something on his body. It seemed to be crawling up. It was a strange, yellow glowing goo. His heart started pumping healthily again.
Then…
He gasped in a huge gulp of air, probably the biggest in his life. He was just outside where he had found the library in the first place. Where he had escaped the bullies. It was raining. Specks of water riddled his face. But he didn’t feel afraid. He slowly sat up and rose to his feet. He looked around himself and smiled. But his brief moment of mirth was shattered by the sound of heavy shoes on pavement. Peter sighed and turned around, already knowing what he was going to see. A small gang of teenage bullies. The biggest, pimpliest looking one stepped forward and drew his fist back. Peter raised an arm to protect himself, and an extremely powerful gust of wind flew out of his hand and knocked the bully over. The bully got up and, along with his friends, began a barrage of punching and kicking. But they were all simply blown back by the wind. Eventually, Peter got bored of watching the bullies get knocked over like skittles, and decided to lightly fry them with a thunderbolt. Not enough to really hurt them, but enough to send them scampering across the road. Peter smiled and walked away.
The bullies couldn’t hurt him. Nothing could hurt him. Not even the absence of friends could hurt him. Because he did have friends. Three very special ones. Two friends that were in a critical but stable condition at the Atlantis Hospital, and one quite new one.
One that was ginormous, had lots of teeth, and could sing the most beautiful, tuneful songs.
But he could never see those three friends again.
But he could.
But how could he?
Because he had a magical library that he could summon with a snap of his fingers.
The End.
(∩🌔 ͜ʖ🌔)⊃━☆ﾟ.*