Chapter 10 - The Unbroken Abyss
Thomas didn't reach for a crowbar. He didn't rush to dig his brother out of the stone.
He stood tall in his dark green overalls, the cold wind whipping his messy brown hair across his forehead as he looked down at Arthur with eyes that were as calm and unyielding as the ocean floor.
"You said she was an evolutionary miracle, Arthur," Thomas said softly, his voice echoing over the rising roar of the surf. "You said she belonged to science."
"Thomas, please!" Arthur shrieked, the freezing water reaching his chest, his hands clawing uselessly at the cold basalt. "I'm your brother! You can't leave me here to drown!"
"I'm not leaving you to drown, Arthur," Thomas replied, taking a step back toward the cliff path as a giant wave rolled into the cove. "I'm leaving you to the sea. It decides who lives down there. Not you. Not me."
Thomas turned his back on his brother’s screams. He began his slow, painful climb up the remaining stone steps of the cliff path, holding his broken side, refusing to look back even once.
Behind him, a massive, iridescent tail broke through the crest of an incoming wave, striking the water with a thunderous SPLASH that drowned out all human sound forever.
One year later.
The Blackwood Lighthouse was dark. The research station down the coast had been permanently abandoned, sealed off by government barricades following the "tragic landslide accident" that had claimed the lives of Arthur Vance and his research team.
Every evening at twilight, when the overcast sky turned a bruised shade of purple and slate gray, a lone figure in a blue rain jacket sat on the edge of the high basalt cliff overlooking the Devil's Throat.
Thomas sat with his legs dangling over the fourty-foot drop, holding a small brass thermos of warm tea.
Far below, in the dark, churning waters of the cove, two small, glowing green fins broke the surface.
A tiny, pale hand reached up out of the freezing foam, holding a rare, shimmering black pearl harvested from the deepest vents of the abyssal trench. The toddler placed the pearl carefully onto a low stone ledge that was accessible only at low tide, before doing a joyful, elegant backflip into the waves, her iridescent tail flashing emerald and sapphire in the fading twilight.
Thomas smiled softly down into the dark water.
He lifted his mug in a quiet, solitary toast to the abyss below.
May you like
"Goodnight, Lily," he whispered into the fog.
And from the vast, dark ocean deep beneath the cliffs, a soft, silver bell chimed back in the quiet dark.
