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She has been alone for a long, long time. There had been other things before, a life in the light she could hardly remember, but the longer she spent in the thick, dark, ocean, the more all of that became like a dream. Her days are broken up by short, fitful half-sleep on the ocean floor, nestled protectively around the skeletons that she feeds upon. Not many things give her satisfaction anymore, but cracking open bones with her powerful jaws and scooping out the marrow with her long tongue is one of them.
Sometimes, she feels a disturbance in the water, and she hurries away, not wanting to run into the other. The other might be able to teach her things, like where to find the freshest whale falls or how to speak into another's mind, but the other will also teach her things she does not want to know, and the burning light of it will hurt her eyes more than breaching the surface ever could.
One day, though, she feels something different cutting through the lifeblood of the ocean. It is bumbling and small, not like the other at all, on a course just above the ocean floor. Her curiosity overcomes her caution, and she swims toward, thrashing her powerful tail, one of the other things that makes her rib cage sing brightly with joy.
The something smells of the ocean around them both, metallic, but different, too. It doesn't have the notes of something once living. If she remembered what burnt was, she would have said it had a burnt smell to it. She follows along, keeping up with it not by sight but by its movements across the ocean. Suddenly, it stops, and she moves closer, slowly creeping up on it.
Maybe it knows her language. Maybe she doesn't need to know how to speak into its head. She warbles, trying to say hello, and the something sends out a wave that makes her scales itch and the blood all the way to the end of her tail get hotter. It startles her, and she darts back, jostling the something backwards.
It makes a loud clanging noise, like something is in it and her curiosity is piqued again, fear forgotten. Is the something a shell? She edges closer again, not wanting to send it flying, and taps on the outside with her claws, sending the creature inside scurrying to the other side of the shell.
Without her realizing it, she's curled up her body around the shell, holding onto it. This means, that as the shell jerks upward with a terrible groan, she is going up with it, too. She clings tighter, flicking her fins. It gets lonely here, and this is the first new thing that she can remember happening. She isn't going to let it go. Her claws cut gouges in the metal from how forceful her grip is, and she bares her teeth against the shuddery feeling that slips down her spine.
The closer they get to the surface, the more afraid she gets, but she keeps holding on. If that's where her new friend is going, that's where she'll have to go.
"Everyone that doesn't have to be in this room right now, OUT!" Ava yells, pointing at the exit doors to the submarine bay. If the convict really is bringing up something dangerous, someone needs to be left alive to send the report to the COI.
Speaking of, he's still babbling over the radio, alternating between begging and threatening. Several times, he peaks the microphone, and she grimaces. "We're bringing you up as fast as we can without damaging the sub any further, you'll be out of there in just a few minutes. Just— just calm down." She mutes herself and gestures David over. "Deal with him, I'm going to head the security detail." David looks like he wants to tell her that isn't a good idea, and then he looks like he'd rather not have that fight. Smart.
She grabs a standard issue rifle and stun gun from the supply box at the back of the room and takes her position amongst her troops, at what should be a safe distance from the sub as it surfaces. She can hear the nervous shuffling of their feet as the blood of the ocean becomes more troubled. It's close now, and with the choppiness of the waves slapping against the catwalk she doesn't doubt that the convict is bringing up something with him.
"Sub is 10 seconds out!" David shouts from behind them over the convict's hysteria.
The SM-13 pops up out of the water, and the creature on top of it wails, covering its eyes with huge, almost human arms as the blood of the ocean runs back down into itself. A few of her soldiers flee. Ava herself is too shocked to do anything but stare at the shrieking thing. It's hard to tell what with all the blood covering it, but it reminds her of stories her mother told her when she was growing up, of magical half-human sea creatures.
This one is a lot bigger than Ava imagined them as a kid.
Simon is screaming some variation of "get me the fuck out of here" that's muffled by the walls of the sub, and the creature is screaming louder than any sound she's ever heard before, but she still catches the loud click beside her as one of her soldiers, Padmana readies her rifle.
"Wait!" Ava cries out, and doesn't even know why. "Don't shoot!" Padmana looks at her incredulously but does as she's told, a quality Ava has always appreciated in her. She has to shout to be heard over the din of everything going on. "We don't know if it's hostile. I think the light might just be hurting its eyes. Maybe we could shut them off and see if it makes its way back into the ocean."
"I'll go tell David," Padmana says eagerly and takes the steps up to the control center two at a time.
Its hands are still over its face, its long lower half writhing around in pain. Ava can't stop looking at it. It's enrapturing, beautiful in a dangerous sort of way with its long claws and sharp fins.
She doesn't plan for the convict to fuck things up again, though. She thought she'd learned her lesson with the last time they surfaced, thought he had too, but apparently, he's more of a selfish Eden cultist than she accounted for.
With a nauseating pulse of heat, the convict slams on the camera button again, causing the creature to fall off the sub in surprise and back into the water and dart away. As it does, Ava's eyes widen in shock, and she falls to her knees.
Someone runs up to her, starts shaking her shoulder, asking her questions, but she can't hear any of it over the ringing in her ears.
That copper red hair, those blue green eyes turned milky gray, that creature it's— "Beth?" she asks to the ripples in the water, and there is no answer.