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IF - Chapter 18
🕑 Added 2024-12-23 23:24:46 +0000 UTCAuthor Note: One last chapter to go before the end. How has the novella been?
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The soft hum of the research room’s fluorescent lights blended with the gentle bubbling of water from Isla’s new tank. The world had become a shimmering, fluid prism, every ripple of water casting faint rainbows across the sterile white walls.
Isla floated in the center of the tank, her tiny fish body suspended in weightless grace, her view encompassing every angle of the room at once. Three hours had passed since they left the island, the shadow below the vessel settling into a sort of slumber.
Her body lay on a medical table nearby, restrained with thick straps at her wrists, ankles, and across her chest to prevent any unconscious spasms. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths, her face slack and expressionless. The sight was surreal. She was outside herself, a quiet observer looking in.
Brigid stood at the far side of the room, her posture tense, her hands constantly moving between tools. She should have been driving the boat; instead, she had it on a set course in the still ocean, leaving James to inform her if the compass went off needle.
Take a break, Isla thought, having observed her occasional frustrated slams against the desk as she worked between the alien devices she’d brought back from the plane. Talk to someone… Even a fish, or my body.
The alien phones and tablets were arranged like a dissected puzzle. Brigid’s lips pressed into a hard line, jaw tight, while her fingers typed furiously at a console she’d connected them to. Her eyes darted between multiple screens filled with flickering, unintelligible data. A faint sheen of sweat lined her brow, but she didn’t stop. Occasionally, her gaze would flick toward Isla’s prone body for only a moment before snapping back to her work.
It’s not your fault, you stupid redhead… Don’t be a brunette, like me.
Kael walked into the research room after checking on James, who was on deck, keeping watch on the ocean and needle to be sure they were heading on the right path to the base. The engineer watched the technician for a bit in quiet concern. His foot bounced with nervous energy, fingers tapping lightly against his side.
Every so often, his eyes drifted toward the medical table, his gaze distant, thoughts spiraling somewhere unreachable. Unlike everyone else, the two didn’t have any supernatural aspect to them… The only ones on their crew in the end.
He’d glance at the medical table, eyebrows pulling into a hard, guilty furrow. “C’mon, Brigid,” Kael muttered, eyes following her every move. “You don’t have to push yourself like this. Don’t be like James and just push through the pain. Rest a little… Wouldn’t the Cap want you to?”
Yes! Good job, Brigid’s future husband. Tell her to get her ass in bed.
“I can’t do nothing, Kael,” she snapped, her voice quaking as she slammed a small metallic disc onto the table with a clatter, making Isla internally wince. Kael didn’t, though, letting her vent.
She wiped her eyes roughly with her sleeve, turning away from him, hiding her face. “I can’t just sit here waiting for everything else to fall apart… These things Isla brought back from the plane might be the only way we know what the aliens do to people… What might happen to her. I need answers! Aren’t you terrified… What if she turns out like—like…”
“Yeah…” he mumbled, moving closer to pull her against his body from behind. “Of course, I’m terrified… I’m here with you. What can I do?”
That’s better…
“It’s just,” Brigid’s voice cracked as she turned to cry into his chest. “If I do nothing, she stays like this. I don’t know what to do. Maeva was the doctor… Hell, Isla was the biologist. I’m just…a tech girl. This is all I can do to get answers.”
Tender arms pulling her in, Isla almost felt a little jealous as he whispered, “Then let me help you… I’m not about to watch everyone I care about get ripped apart by this nightmare. Not you.”
Her breathing came out hard and fast, and she gripped him closer as her gentle cries filled the space. Isla watched with a quiet ache in her chest—not physical pain, but something far more profound.
She had no voice to tell Brigid to rest. Swimming in letters to spell things out didn’t work because, obviously, no one was really focused on the fish right now—they had bigger problems. Without a voice to reassure them, all she could do was watch and have faith that all of this would turn out well in the end.
I put in all the effort I could. I just have to have faith… Like the farmer who planted his garden and tended to it…but can do nothing but believe the relieving rain will come.
Her vision flicked to her unconscious body, strapped to the table. You’re still fighting, Brigid… I’m still here. I’m still here… The words echoed in her mind like a prayer cast into a storm. Be careful…because this isn’t over. I have to do something. But She’s hibernating due to how much energy She used to keep me safe. I guess…all I really can do is have faith in the end.
Her gaze shifted downward, toward the base of the ship.
There. It was there.
A presence. It wasn’t just a sense of awareness—it was a weight, a pressure that coiled beneath the hull like a colossal serpent, its unseen eyes fixed on them. It had been there since they’d first ventured into The Fog, its malevolence so subtle, so still, patiently waiting for their return. One thing she knew for sure, it was neither with the aliens, sky entity, or the island itself… It was worse than all of them combined.
Isla felt it slither in the shadows, following the crew from time-to-time, like a patient hunter trailing wounded prey or studying their patterns. It wasn’t a mindless beast. It had intent. It had a target… Only, who that was, she didn’t know.
Her fish body darted suddenly, instinct taking over for a heartbeat before she forced herself to calm. The water rippled. Her vision flickered, and for a moment, she saw it—long, shifting tendrils just at the edge of perception. A dark silhouette against the endless blue-black of the ocean, watching her.
What’s your game? A rogue splinter piece of The Fog that managed to break away… To do what?
Her gills fluttered in a frantic burst as she swam in slow circles, her mind spiraling. The figure-eight, she realized, was more of a calming motion that helped her focus, spreading out her senses. She saw Brigid, Kael, and her own body—so fragile, so vulnerable compared to her new, immortal body.
Yet, despite her sight—her Truth—she couldn’t warn them. Couldn’t scream, couldn’t shout, couldn’t tell them what she saw. All she could do was watch as the shadow beneath the boat coiled tighter, growing stronger, drawing in power from unseen dimensions, gathering its strength. Its presence was a low, steady thrum beneath her awareness.
Brigid let out a soft gasp, pulling away from Kael and yanking Isla’s focus back to them. She’d frozen mid-motion, her eyes shifting to one of the consoles.
“Brigid?” Kael drew back a little, following her gaze. “What is it?”
“What if we’ve been looking at this all wrong?” She pulled away, but not before kissing him on the cheek. “Thanks, Kael!”
“Sure?”
Dropping into her chair with renewed vigor, Brigid’s fingers hovered above the keyboard, lips parting in concentration as she mouthed soundless words. She didn’t respond right away to his inquiries, eyes locked on the screen. Her fingers suddenly slowed, moving deliberately, as if afraid that moving too fast might shatter whatever realization had just struck her.
“What if…they’ve always looked like that—the aliens,” she muttered, staring at a side-by-side display of two images. “What if their technology isn’t that different from ours?”
Isla ceased her figure-eight to float up and stare at the image Brigid managed to bring up on the screen—a background of one of the tablets. The image? One of the orange-skinned aliens, standing beside another one, a smaller alien held in what she assumed was the alien’s wife or husband’s arms.
“They were always like this…” Brigid repeated, activating the pictures to show a whole world, exactly like theirs, only with orange aliens, and various other types of odd wildlife. “They’re running off an older operating system than AEGIS uses… I just had to run it in compatibility mode.
“They’re not mutations,” she said, swallowing and looking up at Kael as he pieced it all together. “This isn’t some infection.” She swallowed hard, focus returning to the screen as it showed their society. “They’re from somewhere else. Not here. Not Earth. Well, not our Earth.”
Kael leaned forward, confusion clear on his face. “Wait… You can’t mean…”
Her eyes slowly shifted to his. “They’re from another world, Kael. A parallel Earth.” Her voice cracked as she turned back to the screen, her fingers flying across the keys.
“The Bermuda Triangle isn’t just some freak magnetic anomaly that only affects our world—it’s a transdimensional rift. That’s where they came from. That’s why we keep seeing things that don’t belong… The Endless Sea is like this in-between space that connects countless other dimensions.”
Kael stared at her for a moment, his face going blank before he let out a breathy, disbelieving laugh. “Parallel Earths. Aliens from another world? Yeah, okay,” he muttered, running a hand down his face. “Where’s Hollow when you need him to explain what all this means on the grand scale of things? Shit… Then, the slugs?”
The ship groaned beneath them, the distant metal creak echoing like a long, slow exhale.
Brigid’s eyes flicked downward, her face pale as she clenched her jaw. “What was that?!”
She slowly turned back to Kael as he shook his head. “I don’t know. I can check it out.”
“No!” She latched onto him, holding the man close as if he’d slip away, trembling again. “Don’t go!”
“I won’t…”
Isla’s whole being hurt while watching the mix of emotions swirling through the technician. Say it… Tell him.
“I’m… I’m done with AEGIS,” she quietly mumbled, her hands tightening into fists while holding Kael close. “I’m done. I’m not going back. I know that’s selfish… I know Maeva may need us… James may need us. But…I’m not doing this anymore. This isn’t like the fun and interesting stuff at Site-E0… This is scary…really scary.”
Before Kael could respond, heavy footsteps thudded down the hall. They turned to see James leaning heavily against the doorframe, one arm braced against the wall for support. His face was still pale, his lips pressed into a hard line, sweat dripping down his temple, but his eyes burned with stubborn resolve.
“We passed through the wall… Not a moment too soon. The Fog was rolling in, but it’s gone now. We should see the base in the next hour or so,” James rasped, his voice hoarse but unyielding. His gaze locked onto Kael and Brigid, flicking briefly toward Isla’s tank before refocusing. “You two should stay behind. I’m going back for Maeva, though.”
“James,” Brigid’s voice cracked with raw emotion, and she stepped forward, her hands raised in a helpless gesture. “You’re barely standing as it is… Even if your injury wasn’t as bad as we thought, you’re still hurt.”
He pushed himself off the wall, his steps slow but steady. Every movement looked like it cost him more than it should have. Isla’s enhanced vision could see into his body, identify the broken ribs that had been mended into mere fractures.
We do need to go back for Maeva… But this time, Eve’s going to come with us! No… Maybe I shouldn’t tell her about the truth. Who knows what she’d do if she found out Maeva is actually a cursed siren, losing her powers to look like a human, and, somehow, the insect poison is disrupting the witch’s curse… Doesn’t that make it more of a blessing? Weird.
“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered, breathing heavily. “She still needs saving. She’s still there. I owe her.” He raised his hand to his collarbone, his fingers brushing the faint bite mark Maeva had left, no doubt burning. “I’m not sure why, but I know one thing—” His gaze locked onto Brigid. “We wouldn’t have survived without her. She would do the same for me.”
Way to talk, big guy, Isla internally cheered. I think you’ve spoken more recently than the entire trip! I guess that just means Maeva is a special kind of woman…
“James,” Kael sighed, shaking his head. “You’ve probably got a fractured rib—at least. Maybe more. You saw and experienced everything we did there… Humans were never meant to survive in that kind of place. What do you think you’re going to do?”
The soldier’s eyes hardened, filled with grim determination. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice colder now, sharper. “I’m going, even if it’s alone. But I am going.”
Kael breathed out a long breath, looked down at Brigid, smiled, and pulled her against his side. “I get it, man. You have to do what you have to do. I’m taking Brigid out of here the moment we finish talking to Director Evelyn… We’re quitting AEGIS.”
Instead of anger or frustration, a tight smile lifted James’ mouth. “I see… Good luck, then.”
Good for you two, Isla cooed, feeling the shiver run down her spine. Get away from this death trap dimension. Sadly…I don’t think I’ll be leaving any time soon.
“Oh!” Brigid motioned for him to come inside. “I have some things to show you. Kael, can you—”
“Be the lookout? Sure thing, Babe.” He leaned in and kissed her on the lips, making her already flushed face turn into a full-blown tomato and glance toward James, clearly not expecting such ‘public’ displays of affection so soon. “We’ll figure things out as we go.”
“R-Right! Umm, James, I just needed to, uh, to—don’t look at me like that Kael! Shoo! Shoo!” He laughed on his exit, blowing her a kiss. “So… I have some things to show you. Videos of the plane aliens. Let’s go through the footage… We should at least know what Isla risked her life to get for us,” she mumbled, glancing toward her body.
James gingerly took the seat Kael had been using, a gentle smile on his face. “I get the feeling you’re half doing this to get me to sit down and rest…but go on.”
“Well, I’m not being super subtle about it. So, yeah!” she laughed, pointing him to the screen. “Let’s get researching!”
Isla hovered in the cool currents as she passively listened and drew her own conclusions. Her new reality was still an alien one—a body that moved with subtle flicks of her tail, vision that spanned all directions, and a deep, thrumming awareness of everything in the room.
She watched Brigid pace like a caged lion, muttering under her breath as she tapped away at the screen of the tablet she’d salvaged from the wreckage with James. Her red hair was tied back in a loose, messy knot, but strands stuck to her sweat-slicked face.
The screen flickered as Brigid tapped at the console, biting her lip in focus. Lines of code danced in hypnotic flashes of white and green as she worked to synchronize the alien devices with AEGIS’s system. Isla watched her with quiet admiration—Brigid’s frustration was as raw as ever, but this time it fueled her.
“Got it,” Brigid muttered as she hit the final command. The screen shifted, and a file began to decrypt, the progress bar creeping forward like molasses. “C’mon…c’mon… These are the plane’s personal security cameras that Isla collected.”
The file opened, and the grainy image of a cockpit cam feed filled the monitor. Brigid’s breath caught, her fingers hovering over the keys. James leaned forward in his chair, his brows knitting in intense focus. Isla floated closer to the side of the tank, her body turning as if pulled by a current, heart thudding with quiet dread.
The video played.
A narrow cockpit view of an alien aircraft flickered to life. The craft shook from turbulence as a soft, rhythmic thrum echoed in the background. Strange orange glyphs floated over the console, highlighted in neon blue. Two of the aliens sat at the controls, their elongated, eel-like faces swiveling toward one another with sharp, swift movements.
“Pilot comms?” Brigid whispered, squinting at the screen. Her fingers darted to the interface, adjusting the volume. Static-filled audio trickled through like a distant radio broadcast. “I think they’re talking. Figures…an alien language.”
One of the aliens turned toward the camera as it made sharp, clicking sounds that echoed like tapping glass. Its black eyes flicked to the viewer—no, to its co-pilot—nervous, frantic, its body twitching with unnatural speed.
It’s afraid, Isla realized. They weren’t some mindless invaders. This thing…this person was terrified. These are just normal people from another world.
“Something’s wrong,” James muttered, his vision narrowing. “Look at the pilot’s hands. He’s tapping that console too fast. He’s panicking.”
Then, the craft lurched.
The alien at the console snapped its head toward the viewport, its eel-like face flaring as it stiffened. Isla’s enhanced senses caught something her human mind might have missed—a subtle shift in light, like a sunbeam filtered through oil-slicked glass. The craft's external camera feed switched on, showing a wall of rolling black clouds ahead. Not clouds—mist.
Brigid sat up straighter, breath shallow. “They’re inside the clouds that that giant tentacle monster created when breaking into this dimension…”
James leaned closer. “Not just that. Look.”
A shadow. Long, writhing, like an oil-slicked snake, slithered through The Fog in front of them. Its motion was unnatural, not bound by inertia or logic, more like a figure being drawn in shifting charcoal strokes. One of the alien pilots jerked back, its elongated fingers gripping the console.
A second tentacle pierced through the cockpit, splitting through the walls like fogged glass, undisturbed by matter or physics. Isla’s tiny heart lurched. The camera flickered, visual distortions rippling in sync with the arrival of the limb. It didn’t break the cockpit’s hull. It passed through it, its massive bulk visible but intangible.
“Oh God,” Brigid gasped, her fingers frozen over the controls as she slowed it down.
Not God, Isla thought grimly. Something else.
The alien crew thrashed. One of them reached for something below the console, while the other tapped at its chest, its fingers squirming violently as if swatting something invisible away. The second pilot’s head twisted unnaturally, twitching like an insect caught in glue.
That’s when they saw them.
The slugs.
They slithered through the air like smoke given weight and form. Not small, little things, like she’d seen birthed from the orange alien’s bodies. These were fully formed, long and twisting, their translucent bodies coated in iridescent fluid and tiny tendrils weaving around them as if tasting the air. They pulsed with internal bioluminescence, tiny filaments shifting under their skin.
Gray, veiny, slug-like things, with too many tendrils and too many eyes that blinked in random patterns along their bodies. They emerged from the massive limb that coiled around the aircraft, passing through it as if a ghost; the slug men detaching from the black-like parasite, drawn out by some unseen force.
Brigid gagged, slapping a hand over her mouth. “No! No, no, no.”
The slugs moved with uncanny precision, darting like eels across the cabin. They coiled up one of the pilot’s arms, and Isla’s fish vision caught the shift in its aura. Its spiritual glow dulled like a flame being slowly snuffed out.
They aren’t killing them… They’re turning them into incubators. Not fully physical, but not fully ethereal either. Something…between.
One of the slugs twisted its way into the pilot’s chest cavity, and the alien’s eyes glazed over, a soft glow of blue light seeping into its pupils. It turned toward its co-pilot, its expression slack, as if the soul had been ejected from the vessel.
“The hell am I looking at?” James hissed, his knuckles white on the table.
“They’re…infecting them,” Brigid muttered, her voice strained. “The tentacle breaches the cabin, holding the plane in place, while these things…plant themselves into them. This is the thing that comes if you use too much electricity? I’m going to throw up—”
The first pilot thrashed, its arms whipping around, its fight about as useful as attempting to punch phantoms. It reached for its co-pilot in desperation, but the co-pilot—now controlled by the slug—grabbed its hand. For one awful second, they stared at each other.
It knew.
The one still fighting knew it was already too late.
The tentacle that had breached the hull shifted again, slow but deliberate. It reached down, wrapping around both pilots with a gentle, almost parental care. The slugs froze, their movements still as the tentacle cradled them, converting them to smoke and guiding them into itself.
The feed cut to static, and Brigid’s retching filled the cabin.
When the feed resumed, the cockpit was empty. Both pilots were gone. No bodies. No signs of struggle. Only the faint outline of smoke-like residue where the slugs had been. One-sixth of the passengers were now missing—taken. As if, it left them as offerings for the Endless Sea.
Isla’s thoughts spiraled as she watched, the dots connecting in the quiet space of her mind.
They’re not dead. Her thoughts burned like fire. The slugs don’t kill them. They feed on them, and the First Light… The First Light moved them out of their corrupted, infected bodies to save them. He moved them into the insects… Just like He moved me into the fish.
Remembering the moment just after the terrifying orange alien attack, she understood what they’d unknowingly done.
The aliens didn’t know what was happening to them. They attacked Maeva because she attacked them… When she freaked out. She’s a siren. She doesn’t deal with bugs in the ocean. They terrify her. They were trying to get her help. But she freaked, and they… they fought back.
Her gills fluttered as the pieces of the puzzle snapped into place. Her gaze locked onto James. He’d pulled out the bug zapper to protect her and killed all the insects—the saved aliens from the flight. This place…is a nightmare.
No one could hear her if she wanted to tell them…and what good would it do if she did other than cause unnecessary guilt. Her tiny body floated in still water, the full weight of the Truth settling into her core like an iron anchor, remembering Hollow and her conversation.
The Truth can have teeth.
“All this time…we thought they were monsters,” Brigid mumbled, her gaze shifting to Isla’s body, strapped to the table. “They were just people on a plane ride. People just like us… No, more normal than us. This place…makes me sick.”
Brigid’s fingers hovered over the console as she turned it off. Her face was pale as snow, her eyes glossy, distant. James brooded over the information before glancing toward her.
“We don’t know if that happened to Isla… Last time, she summoned the lightning at the plane and saved us by,” he chuckled, rubbing the back of his thick neck. “She saved us by having me dig a hole, filling it with water, and putting gummy bears in it.”
“What?” Brigid’s head rose slightly. “You didn’t tell me that. So, what happened to her if it wasn’t the slugs? How…would she even know how to do that?”
He slowly shook his head, wearing a grimace as they both turned to her body. “I don’t know. It was so bright that Maeva and I couldn’t see, but it felt like… I can’t explain it. It’s like my father hugging me…inside of a nuclear bomb. When my sight finally came back, we were having to deal with the insects that came after, but…she asked the strangest thing.”
“What?” Brigid whispered.
“She asked us if…we saw the unicorn. I don’t know.”
Kael’s urgent voice came over the intercom. “Hey, I see the base! We’re back,” he said in almost a cry, relief puffing out of his mouth. “We’re back!”
Brigid exhaled sharply, her shoulders sagging as she rubbed her face, fighting back more tears, her fingers trembling. “Good. I’m…I’m not sleeping tonight, though. Not after that… I hope Director Evelyn has a solution to help Isla.”
James rose slowly, his face shadowed by the low lights of the room. His eyes, sharp as razors, drifted toward Isla’s tank. He knew she was watching. She tried to make a few letters in the tight tank but it didn’t seem to stick.
“Take care of yourselves,” he muttered, holding his side and gingerly walking toward the exit. “I’m going to bring the tank up to the director and see if I’ll have support or not…but I’m heading back.”
Isla’s gaze dropped to the base of the ship, her eyes tracking the slow, curling movement of the shadow below. Her thoughts echoed in the quiet stillness of the tank.
It’s the end game. Where will this go?
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