The Technoquatics - Chapter 21: The Hidden Threshold
They Thought It Was Just a Hidden Cove—Then the Ocean Showed Its Teeth
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Calistya jolted awake, drenched in a cold sweat. She sat upright, her hands instinctively searching for the cover that wasn’t there. The air, sharp and biting, gave her a shiver. Looking around, she saw another girl on the beach, sleeping. Slowly it all started coming back. Powering her way down here, coming to rest in this cove. Spending time with that boy. And then Khrystal coming to join them. And the fun times they’d had down here, away from it all. She never wanted to leave.
The boy had been gone for some time, but he left them with everything they’d need. Food and water, and games he was enamored with, but that she couldn’t quite puzzle out yet.
She had no idea such places even existed. There was nothing in the oceanography class about them, nor in any of the history texts. But here it was, just a few leagues away from the city, easily accessed—if one knew where to look.
Calistya lingered by the water’s edge, her legs tucked close to retain warmth. The cove encircled her like an amphitheater of chalk-white stone, its silence broken only by the rhythmic shushing of waves.
She looked around the cove. The water circulated through a vast cerulean pool, too deep for light to penetrate, suggesting a secret world waiting to be found. The rock walls were white and, she recalled from a stolen lick, salty. They curved around to match the shape of the bay, and far above was a sort of ceiling. Above that, she imagined, was the open ocean. Though she’d entered through the sand under the chasm, she hadn’t come directly down into the cove. Rather, she’d negotiated a number of slippery slopes on a downward trajectory until she ended up in the pool somehow. When she’d popped her head up and seen the cove, she went back down to confirm the exit was where she thought it was. That done, she made her way up onto the beach. Later that day, the boy had returned. And the next day or so—she couldn’t really keep track of time down here—Khrystal had shown up.
She’d been about to leave when that happened. She had explored all there was to explore in this place, and the boy wasn’t really the best company after a while. They had language barrier issues, for one thing, though from time to time she got the distinct impression he was somehow reading her mind. Though the environs were cozy enough, it was always chilly down here, and the odd natural light—the source of which appeared to be a number of shells ringing the top of the cliff—never subsided. It became rather difficult to sleep after a time, though Khrystal didn’t seem to have as hard a time with it.
At any rate, with Khrystal in the cove with her, she had a kindred spirit, someone to commiserate with. And it was more fun interacting with the boy now there were two of them. Although Khrystal would’ve stayed forever, Calistya was concerned they might be missed.
“You think they’re gonna care about a couple of orphan girls?”
True point. Still, Cali thought it unfair for them to just ghost.
“You don’t think we should at least report in? Tell them what’s going on?
Khrystal brushed off the notion with a dramatic wave, doubling over in mock laughter to drive the point home. “They’ll think you’re suicidal. Or nuts. What’ll you say, ‘A real live merboy invited me to ditch civilization and play house under the sea’?”
Cali felt her skin turn a hot blushing shade at the idea. Khrys was right.
When the boy didn’t return for nearly a day, they wondered if he was gone for good.
“Maybe he went back where he came from?” Khrystal thought aloud. “I mean he doesn’t live here does he? On a beach by himself.”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Calistya said. “I think his people live down there.”—She pointed out to sea and downward—”I mean it seems deep enough. Maybe there’s a colony or something.”
“Wanna find out?” Khrystal asked, surprising the both of them.
“Do you think it’s safe?” Calistya asked.
“Why not. We’ve still got our gear. I’d ask the boy to take us himself, but…” She waved her arms in the air, indicating the lack of a companion merboy.
“Let’s wait for him a little while longer. If he’s not back by morning, we’ll go explore.”
“Sounds good. I could use some more sleep.” And Khrystal curled up and slept. Calistya, still chilly, didn’t sleep at all. And at ‘dawn’ by her reckoning, she was ready to follow Khrystal on their next adventure. Only Khrystal slept. And slept, and slept.
Calistya had eaten breakfast and lunch by the time her friend came to. And even then, Khrystal wasn’t ready to leave. First she had to eat—fair enough—but then she had to get herself ready. Do something with her hair. Make sure her outfit looked right.
“Jeez Khrys, we’re not going on a date. We’re just going for a swim.”
“Well, you never know who’ll you’ll meet down there, so…”
When Khrystal was finally ready, then geared up and thrust fin into the cove. The moment they submerged, the water’s chill enveloped them, intensifying with every measured descent. It was just as Calistya had expected—no bottom to be found. If anything, the cove was something akin to a cave entrance, in the sense that the water seemed to open out into a vast, oceanlike body as they descended, deeper than either girl had swam before.
They felt the mounting pressure, a physical reminder of how deep they had ventured. Not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough to know they were going down in real terms. Any deeper, and they’d reach the limits of their gear—a sobering thought underscored by the relentless bite of the cold. They couldn’t stay down here for long.
In fact, Khrystal had already given the sign for them to rise when Cali made the sign for ‘just one more minute’. Khrystal reluctantly agreed, but just as even Cali was about to give up as well, they found themselves across from a crevasse-like sea-shelf. Crossing onto it, the water’s sharp bite dulled, replaced by a tepid warmth that felt almost hot against their chilled skin.
They treaded water for a minute, calming their shivering bodies, then looked around. Inside the shelf was a rock wall that recessed into what appeared to be an undersea cavern of a small sort. The further they proceeded in, the warmer it became, until it was very nearly comparable to the waters around the city. Still several degrees colder, but certainly tolerable by their standards.
“Undersea vent?” Khrystal said.
Calistya nodded. It had to be volcanic. The thought added an eerie sentience to the shelf’s warmth. Though they’d read about such things in their textbooks, and some cities boasted them as part of their getaway invitations, the girls had no idea that such phenomenon could be found practically on their doorstep.
And speaking of doorsteps, Calistya thought. Startled to think that what she was seeing was real, she swam backwards until she almost bumped into Khrystal.
“Hey, watch where you—”
And then she saw it too. Etched into the rock, the door seemed less a creation and more an inevitability, its edges glowing faintly as if awaiting a long-forgotten purpose. And beside it, an opaque substance that could almost be taken for a window, assuming such things as doors and windows existed so deep under the sea, beneath a hidden cove, near a volcanic vent that kept the water safe and comfortable.
“You think we’d better knock?” Khrystal said, her voice dripping with scared sarcasm.
“Let’s get out of here,” Calistya replied, pushing backward as hard as she could, until she bumped into some…thing that hadn’t been there before.
Turning around with great amounts of trepidation and just as much caution, she came face to face with a merboy. Another merboy, not the one that she knew from above. This one was smaller, and looked frightened. No, he didn’t just look frightened. She could feel his fright. Somehow. Knew it to be true as if it were her own.
And she, too, was afraid. There was no doubt about that. But their emotions entwined in her mind like the threads of a fishing net—his sharp and hypervigilant, hers yearning to soothe and protect.
The sensation was compelling, and she was immediately drawn to him. She wanted to calm and comfort him, elicit more pleasant emotions. Care for him. He needed care. Wanted to be cared for.
When Khrystal screamed, it was as if that emotional bubble simply popped. She could practically hear the noise of it. Like the connection was severed, cut in two. It was almost a painful thing. She looked over at her friend in disgust, thinking that she’d just ruined perhaps the most special event in her entire life.
But Khrystal didn’t care. She was still screaming, bubbles streaming from her breathing gear. And she was staring. Not at the boy, nor the door, but out towards the open water. Calistya looked, and gave a start. There, framed by the cavern walls, was an imposingly large, fully grown, fearsome-faced merman.
Author bio: David Deane Haskell is a fusion writer who’s impossible to pin down. Want new age future-vision with a deep dive into the human psyche? Nominally fictional (nom-fiction) tales that resonate somewhere between fact and fantasy? With that undeniable kind of truth we can still find, even in this messed up, post-truth world?
David’s stories drill into the lives of introspective characters (real ones, and ones who feel almost real) and illuminate the thought-provoking themes that keep us up at night. His settings range from ultra-modern A.I. life with fantastical future backdrops, to dark places in real life where he hesitated to return—but had to. David weaves personal reflections into his stories, creating a reading experience that blends relatably human reflections with deeply personal truths. Truths that you may well share.
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Parts of The Technoquatics were originally serialized on Royal Road under the title “Solaria Rising – Book I of the Technoquatics Series”. This Substack version may or may not contain revisions. The final chapters have never been published anywhere, and will debut on Substack exclusively.