Fight for him
You struggled and strained to get him back up the narrow tunnel and it was even harder when the water would gush through and push him back some inches. Still, you fought and fought, thinking back to everything you had gone through with the pack so far and at this point, you were completely determined to rescue the young seal calf. He wiggled and squirmed against you as you pushed and before long you found yourself back out in the open water.
By the way the little thing floated in the water, you realized that he was completely exhausted. The young seal had no more energy left and you figured at this point you would have had to lug him out of the water.
You grasped his arms as hard as you could and started working your way back up to the surface but his heavy blubbery body added extra weight to you- it slowed you down.
Quickly, you caught the attention of another passing member of your pack and they started helping you bring the young calf back up to the surface. Suddenly, you felt some ominous presence in the water with you. It felt as though you were getting stalked by something far larger, far more powerful, and far more illusive in the water than you. It took every ounce of willpower for you to get your body to keep moving, but before long, you could see the others darting about frantically on the surface.
When you were close enough, you witnessed their faces, completely stricken with horror. Still, they were frozen with fear and hesitated when they saw something coming up underneath you. Suddenly, you felt a rush of water pressure building up around you as something so large and creepy underneath came up with large snapping fangs.
You quickly darted out of the way- lucky you were fast enough with those extra flippers. The other seal had veered off with the young pup and when you looked down again, you saw an enormous Orca chasing them down. You saw the seal struggling to carry the weight of the small one and up above you watched everyone else watching you back as though they expected you to do something.
In that moment, you did. You started charging towards the helpless seal as they fought their way back up to the surface and you could feel the presence of the others swimming down to follow. Still, you were too late. The orca had taken the other seal and the pup along with them. Soon, all you could see was a slick black outline fading into the darkness below.
The other seals called for you to start coming back up and you did so promptly. When your head burst from the water, you saw the others around you with a horrified look. Everyone was in a panic, it was common knowledge that Orcas like this would hunt in packs around this area of the ocean.
“These waters are infested!”
“They were just taken like that.” tears filled your eyes and the others wailed out in a panic.
“We are in a graveyard right now aren’t we!” One of them cried out.
“We need to get out of here.” before long, you started to hear them bantering, arguing about whether or not they should continue south or if they should go back north to their original home. The arguing started to crescendo until the two largest male seals were losing their cool as well.
For a moment, you tried to step in to get everyone to chill out for a moment, but the air was absolutely tense, and with an unseen lurker among you, everyone knew the time to make a decision was now.
Soon, you started to notice two factions breaking between the group. Some of them wanted to go back, others wanted to press on. At that time, you had no say and whenever you tried speaking up, everyone else just kept talking over you. It was no use, you couldn’t calm them all down.
After a while, you started to see them swimming away as they all made their final decision and at that time you didn’t know what you were supposed to do. You couldn’t decide which party to go with, so you just sat there in the middle.
Once again, you started to feel that presence around you once more. This time, you were completely exhausted. You couldn’t see any of the ice shelves around you and by that time there were no other seals in sight. You sighed deeply and started swimming in a direction. You didn’t know which direction you were going but you just kept swimming. You kept swimming and swimming, the presence never seeming to leave your side and before long you started to fade off. Your muscles burned with exhaustion and every moment you went on for longer felt like your last.
At some point, you didn’t even realize it was your last when you had finally faded away. You couldn’t have been able to tell when your game had reset but when it did, you couldn’t have been able to tell the difference.
Written by Drifting Dragon on 07 December 2023
The end (for now)