S. Welles - To Ocean's End

I backed away a little more, tensing for a fight I couldn’t win. If she chose to attack, I was so damn screwed. Mortal versus god? Just no. No chance whatsoever.

“The fear emanating from you is delicious.” She began walking towards me, one graceful step at a time. “You genuinely regret lashing out at me in the cave. A good start.”

I resumed backing down the hall at the same pace as her approach. She showed no signs of caring, which quickened my racing pulse all the more.

“But not good enough overall. You lack remorse. Regret and remorse are two very different things.”

I reached the end of the hall and continued keeping a gap between us. She’d made my back smart while a fifth my size. I didn’t want to know how much farther and harder she could throw me now. She continued pursuing me me with no change in pace or demeanor, as if she didn’t care if I broke into a run. I probably couldn’t outrun her, much less hide. That filled me with the horrible sense of helplessness.

“You will know remorse once I’m done teaching you.”

I put out a burst of speed and whipped past her and back to the exit pool. I held out my arms and willed the water to move, yield, part—something! Anything but remain as inert as it was. The water felt like an immovable block in my mind. I had a better chance of lifting my ship with my bare human hands than I did stealing control of water held by a god’s will. Desperate, I knelt on the lip and pushed the water with both my claws and mind. I might as well have used my command over water on a mountain. I was hopelessly outmatched in this lopsided battle of wills. I kept my back to Amphitrite and waited for the punishment to begin.

I flinched hard when something small and soft hit my back, then plopped on the ground. The impact hadn’t hurt in the least. A heap of beige material lay at my feet. My trench coat. I’d left it on my chair in the cave. How… thoughtful of her. Or was this a trick? I shied away from it.

Amphitrite laughed. “A little jumpy, are we? Don’t worry, the pain will come, but not by my hand.” She stood inside arm’s reach. “Relax for now, if you can. I’ll be contemplating the details of your punishment while your crew grows old and dies. Enjoy ruminating over that and what I might come up with.” She took a step back and vanished, and I felt the pressure of her presence lift, like the atmosphere after a severe storm has blown through.

She had the remorseless regret part right on. I was regretting attacking her in the cave, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel remorse. She deserved having her ego taken down a few notches—just not by me. Not mere mortal me. A human telling a goddess her ego was too big? Yeah, that’ll never go over well. Definitely regretting the lash out.

Seeing no point in remaining in demon form, I reverted back to human. My skin tingled, the feeling of intoxicating power evaporated, and my body became drenched in sweat as I shrank. Once I was done, I took a moment to catch my breath. My brain needed a moment to orient itself as well, acclimating to human-strength senses and registering what just happened to my body. I was on my hands and knees in my own puddle of sweat, but feeling so much more human. It’s funny how, when we’re all young, we sometimes want to be something more than human—superhuman, maybe—but the price of my demon power was steep. And then there’s something about the validation of what being human means that brings a sense of peace and happiness that nothing else can. Not sure how to explain it, but knowing that I was still human brought me comfort. My demon form, while powerful, robbed me of that feeling every time.

The cave and unyielding pool looked quite large now, with dozens of feet, instead of just a few, over my head. The pool looked olympic-sized, and the hall big enough to swallow my ship. I pushed to my bare feet and reached for the glowing vein of water, praying I could grab enough to rinse off. A portion bulged towards me as old powers tugged it back. I pulled harder and put my body through a spin rinse cycle, then let the water go. It got sucked back into place with vacuum force.

Feeling more hygienic, I crossed to my coat, picked it up, and fastened it around my waist with two buttons, and let the top half drape behind me, making it look like I was wearing a kilt with sleeves. Sure, I could put it on the right way, but the hall was way too warm and humid for that. And sure I could march around in my birthday suit. No one in the palace would care, except me. They were gods, but I was human, a slightly conservative one, so I did the human thing and made a skirt out of my coat.

Just for ha-has, I tested the pool to see if it’d let me swim. Water droplets coated my foot, and the pool might as well have been a room-temperature skating rink.

I stared at the water with absolute despair. The only way I knew how to leave was blocked off. I might never get to see my current crew again. Amphitrite never made idle threats. I didn’t want to watch them grow old and die while I remained the same, but I didn’t want to avoid it like this. Not without so much as a goodbye, no closure, no nothing. This was just as cruel as when the Timor Sea swallowed my then crew the night I got cursed. Hopefully they wouldn’t come looking for me. They couldn’t find this place, unless those living here wanted you to find it.

Maybe there was more than one exit.

I took off running down the hall. I didn’t care if this was a waste of effort. I had to try. I’d never know, unless I looked. I took a right at the end. If I remembered right, the gargantuan chamber was one big square with a bunch of halls branching off. My pace faltered when I realized the chamber had to be at least a mile long. It looked longer than an air strip. The rows of glowing pillars ranged so far that I couldn’t count them. I picked my pace back up and ran the entire length anyway, desperation fueling my limbs. The pattering of bare feet on flat stone echoed, making me feel self-conscious. It felt like the sound attracted attention, letting gods watch on unseen, filled with silent laughter while mere more mortal me frantically searched for an escape. As humiliating as this was, I couldn’t bring myself to stop.

There were hallways on the other end, all as big as the first. One ran parallel to the known exit, and the rest sat at intervals along the wall I was facing. Feet sore and lungs burning from running close to two miles in maybe fifteen minutes, I squeezed out the final stretch and veered towards the parallel hall.

Mere feet before I could enter, the opening smoothed over with stone, as if I’d been looking at a water mirage and getting this close revealed the truth. I ground to a wind-sucking halt and braced my hands on the stone. Sure enough, the way was blocked. I pushed on the cool stone twice, then stood back as the truth of the matter sank in. The way was shut.

I hopped back into a jog and continued perpendicular to the suddenly walled-off hall. There were many more along this wall; however, all of them vanished like a mirage, blending in with the rest of the sculpture-covered wall as if they’d never existed. This did not help my mounting dread. Hall after hall let me get tantalizingly close before vanishing as my tender feet slapped out another two miles. Each hall, my hopes rose. Each hall, my hopes were dashed. I paused to catch my breath at the next corner, then steeled myself for one last round of disappointment and walked towards the throne, circumventing it. It felt like I was going around a mountain.

By the time I reached the corner with the hall leading to Amphitrite’s bedroom, I stopped again. It didn’t close up on me. I’d expected it to, figuring she wouldn’t want anything to do with me until I unwillingly transformed into a demon during my next lockdown period. Come to think of it, when was that?