A plague in Atlantis

Chapter 1

A plaster of anxiety covered him but it was not dominated fully by the fear of deep, blue seas waiting to uncover it's secrets but a much meeker fear ,the fear of people. He had to be stuck fully in an enclosed tube with a few people, underwater where anything could strike anyone and safety would be towering above them. Thwarting their efforts to reach it but then, it was covered by another fear when the turbines swished and pushed them to the unknown and he became so frustrated to have many anxieties. The turbines were slow but steady and it pushed them deeper into the sea and his fear suddenly subsided. Even in chaos, there was calmness .

Chapter 2

The submarine lunged downwards like an arrow to the murky waters below. He turned his attention to a story he read, 'The Survey'. The roars and howls of the submarine became no more than mere sounds. They were not far from humanity, they were cut off from it. Interaction with the others were going to be scant. A bit terrified and desperate, he actually spoke out.

Chapter 3

''Is it going to be a long ride?''

It was the sentence, he had spoken, that day. ''No. Depends on your definition of 'long'?'', the man near him spoke. He was at a towering height of 6'1, 2 inches above him. ''Duration?'', he asked objectively. ''Around 2 days. 1 day narrowing it down to the least.'', he answered but he didn't like him and sheepishly admitted to himself that he would have not liked any man speaking out those words. It brought inferiority with it. ''Thanks'', he said in a mechanical voice and the man had caught the mechanical tone of his voice. He went to his designated room. It resembled more of a cubicle. It camouflaged with the other cubicles and everyone came rushing to their rooms. An empty sense of formality filled him as he entered his room and when he laid down to sleep, he felt he could almost cry but during nighttime, that was a good thing. It helped you sleep better. He started to fantasize of how things would be, when he got to the surface.

Submarine A11 is marked the best submarine in Diamondwood by 'The Times'.

And then, suddenly, the world around him roared with the coming of dangerous truths. It was thrust deeper into the ocean and it was darker. They had come to the part of the journey where there was no turning back. It was when the real fear started. He slept without further complications as the sea around him wobbled in the darkness.

Chapter 4

They had a bit of irritation while waking up, the next day but they all, decided finally and a bit, grudgingly that irritation was better than getting rusticated from the mission. He felt drowsiness heaving heavily on his eyebrows but he was glad, the so-called first day was over .'Everyday was the same. No light. Just the white bulbs in the submarine. No real sunlight.' He thought with a pessimistic inner voice and the tall man was there. The similar twinge of anger returned. He felt that the man was too practical. The real pessimism wasn't in the submarine but on the roughness of their mission. Floating like a rock in the endless and unforgiving darkness of the sea outside. A man, probably their leader, stood with great strictness. He didn't really look at the tall man with a mental disgust and anger but he felt exactly so, when he saw the assumed leader. ''I am your leader! Submarine A11 is on the drive.''. It was with a great authoritarian anger, he had said that. He had never felt as much anger for a person until this fateful day. ''Nobody wants your opinion'', he muttered under his breath in few tired and angry breaths. The crew broke off like disintegrating bread. He swished through the crowd as if it were the sea itself. ''What mission?'', he asked and was rooted to the spot in a rigid way like a tree. ''To find some species of fish'', the man said in a friendly way. He admitted to himself that he was actually a good man. His head was making up things like an insane person. ''Thank you'', he said mechanically and strode off from the scene. They were becoming friends and he was happy about it.

Chapter 5

He started to feel good about himself. The training for research hadn't been so bad after all. He got a friend. The luxury, he didn't have so far. The anger suddenly returned as the man returned too. To him, it seemed like the actions of a maniac but to others, it seemed like the doing of a caring and broad-minded leader. ''Sorry to disturb your minds but we are in distress!'', he said. His underlying anxiety turned out to be true after all. Voices screamed in panic and scrambled around like splintering wood. He followed their actions and ran along. He rubbed his lips, closed his eyes for a brief second, and ran to the heap. He pulled out a swimsuit from the heap. The feeling, he had when the submarine was ready to push them to dangerous depths, came back now. He wore his swimsuits. He looked back and the white bulbs took the color of the sinister red bulbs. An alarm, suddenly broke out like a jump scare. It took him aback, but he sprang back and wore his suit, having no idea, of how he did it.

Chapter 6

He followed the crowd looking like a penguin, desperate for help. A red bulb fused out and the crowd repelled from it like 2 like poles in a magnet. Then, the sound of breaking glass filled his ears and his eyes closed to darkness. Before passing out, he knew one thing. It was the sound of the window breaking, but he was not scared because he couldn't. He didn't have time for that. The darkness started, both physically and mentally.

Chapter 7

He felt his leg wobble around in his sleepy state. His face started to stretch and his eyes seemed to eject itself from the body. He was in the deep sea. He screamed and kicked in fear. He kicked something solid. ''Help'', he screamed though it passed out only as bubbles. Everything was dark, like ink had been poured on his eyes. Suddenly, a providential image of the swimsuit, whizzed through his mind and it had a torchlight. He was lost with nothing to help , except the torchlight. He reached to it, as he swished the water around. He caught it and felt his way for the switch. Suddenly, it occurred to him that he hadn't checked the oxygen level and made up his mind, that he won't check it at all. He finally found the switch and clicked it. The light flowed outside and he saw particles dancing like dancers within the spotlight. His mind was in the crossover where desperation and smartness aligned. He started to think of how, he could go to the surface. He might have probably lost the submarine and that metal rock would be floating in the darkness, not knowing that a resident of it, was not in the safety of it's metal walls. The octopus or kraken could be here. Worse, the Cthulhu could be pulling him down to dangerous depths......

He shook off the thoughts as he looked back and a figure passed through the darkness. It had a cylindrical beak and green, cold eyes. He pushed it off. Then, he realized that it was a man, wearing a diving suit. Never, had he been so happy to see a man wearing a diving suit. The man held onto him and swam around, using his torchlight to guide them. He took out his torchlight like a warrior taking his sword and shone it against something like a rock. It was a rock wall that was shielding something beyond.........

Chapter 8

He carved something but the sound of it did not reach him. To him, it all seemed like the breaking of the stone instead of a carving. The man showed a long thumbs up .

''You wouldn't believe what I found beyond this wall when I pushed it'' ,It was carved. He closed his eyes and placed his hand on the rock. Ready to push it open and reveal it. It could either give him, a new chance at survival and redemption. It could be some providential force to save him or it could be the contrary, the definition of death, he could be pushed into an endless, underwater abyss. Together, they both, touched the rock and pushed it .It fell to the other side ,whatever it was.

Chapter 9

He couldn't believe his eyes and his heart started to pump fast. His face was stretched to the bone, making him look like a skeleton with a layer of flesh and he could feel his muscles crunch together to his nose. There were lights. Lights of color, blooming vividly. His mind shook with the surprise. His body wobbled with the shock of what he just saw. Then, he started to feel a sudden surge of excitement and realized that they weren't just lights. There was a whole underwater city. It had a large flawless obelisk, standing out, apart from the other buildings, undisturbed by the ruthless flow of the dangerous sea. There were no fish, which was obvious, considering, how much the town was safely pampered from the rest of the sea. There were shopping malls, supermarkets and houses ,not to miss the underwater sheds. Though, he didn't know why, those were used for. There were lots of buildings and to the far side of the border, there were statues of hungry tigers and lions . The ruthlessness present in their stony eyes, but the most magnificent was the obelisk holding the position of a leader ,holding the high ground. He was dreaming. There had been many dreams since he joined this mission. Dreams that blurred the line between reality and unreality. He squeezed in, through the hole in the wall.

Chapter 10

His imaginative side. The one that refused to grow apart had been waded off, and was replaced by his practical side. The highest potential, this funny-looking city had was to give them a new submarine ready to plummet them above, just like how it was before all this drama, took place. The city was probably the ghost of what should have been around 1000 years back and 1000 meters above, from where it stood now but still, the reason, why it stood nestled inside a stone wall was unanswered. What he saw defied the limits of his imagination and mocked humanity's logic. Something caught his leg and he shuddered. The familiar image of the kraken came back to his mind as he turned to his back. Then, he realized it was the man and a huge wave of relief passed through him.

Chapter 11

The extent of his admiration over the city was extreme, to the point, that the person near him slipped out of his mind. He bent his straight and rigid spine and drowned, vertically as he sunk below sunken city which was like Atlantis but it didn't seem to mimic it's architecture. He landed with a sudden, soft thump as the neon lights welcomed his arrival. The good thing was, nobody needed to die out of suffocation, under these depths. The pressure, alone can smash him into bits. He walked around and stumbled upon a hotel. The illogical neon letters were above the hotel. ''Stay with us'', it read blatantly.

''HOOOSH! SHOOOOHHH''

Something passed. Slowly but fast enough to escape his gaze. He continued with his walk again, briefly swimming for fun.

Chapter 12

He saw a house, the modest among the buildings here. No neon lights present, yet it was visible, thanks to the light, emanated by the other buildings in the city. As he looked onto it, a black figure flashed before the corner of his eye like a jump scare. The sight of it could make him, turn vertical again. It was a man or at least, something that appeared to be a man. He had large pupils in his eyes and a bony neck, that was so thin to the extent, that it could break his flesh and come out but the strange thing of all, was that, there was a hexagonal patch of purple around his neck, which painted his hidden necks, like a cloud in a drawing. He swam again, as he realized that the surreal and beautiful city had a much darker thing, nestled in it ready to reach him out in the form of people with bony necks and then, the oxygen mask flashed back to his mind. The level would have significantly lowered by now. It could go all out of the cylinder and into the deep, unforgiving sea. Lost and unused, just like the city was.

Chapter 13

He swam, using all his energy. Desperation and fear molded into madness as he sent ripples of water wading backwards. A image started to form inside his head again as fully developed like a baby bird in a egg shell but, it wasn't terrifying. It was an image of the modest house . He swam back, in unknown directions, hoping it wouldn't lead him to a terrifying thing and the word, 'terrifying', had taken on a much more realistic tone and not just something as funny as a monster in a closet. The wooden house was there, drowned and held by something that was probably, under the seabed. Strange. First, a whole underwater city, flourishing in the depths against potential predators and crushing pressures. Second, funny looking people with thin necks. He swam in and scanned the room around him, they were intact and there were the objects, which people had, back on the surface.

Chapter 14

He awoke with a start. He was still underwater. Now, he started to feel anger rush through his eyes, instead of fear. So many thoughts had passed through his mind, that he forgot, that he had a heard a wobbly voice, like songs, heard in the restrooms of a ballroom. He started to come to terms with the situation but sometimes, life got absolutely bonkers to come to terms with. He looked at the timer of his oxygen mask. The level was full, and a wave of relief passed through him, that was beyond words.......

Chapter 15

The door swished against the water and revealed a man. A thin man with a bony neck, just like the man, outside. He should have been excited of his discovery but impending danger was close to him and a discovery is nothing more than a sight, if he didn't live to tell the story. ''Cure the plague'', the man croaked out, in a tone that couldn't be spoken by a species that was not as old as the city. ''We are going through a plague. If you don't help us, the master will serve you right?", he croaked out again. Whatever it was, it should be faced by him. All he hoped, was the punishment was confined within the dangers of death.

''Swooooooshhhh''

A voice whirled around and the next thing, he saw was that the man was floating vertically upwards, absent-mindedly. Either fainted or dead. He didn't care about that. ''A whole protest is waiting outside'', his rescuer carved on the wall quickly. All things seemed to stop for him. Nevertheless, he rippled the water backward, as he followed.

Chapter 16

There were hundreds of those, outside (Bony necks ). There were strange tubes, that were enclosed and looked like large bullets, floating and whirring around in dizzying sounds as they flew around him. The man swam upwards as his hand tugged his hands too.

'Swooooooooooooshhh'

He heard the sound. The very same sound that he heard in that house. The house of that mad man. As he swam, the fact that he was a fugitive was thrust heavily on him. He turned around and he saw a feat, that couldn't have been done by the same person. His eyes widened and he started to feel dizzy. The man was holding something. Some talismanic object that repelled the tube-like vehicle and the city below them glowed with sinister red colors of lights. Almost everything went red now, like buildings when an alarm broke out. More tube-like vehicles charged towards them like a gunslinger and a horse in a Wild West movie. The man swung it in all directions and it did have some effect on the vehicles. It sent a vehicle plummeting downwards with a crashing speed, that he thought that it would crash near the building . The buildings turned on the sinister red glow as well. The whole city was painted in red now. The tube-like vehicles followed them as his head dangled like a bobblehead. They neared the wall with neon lights. The wall, where the exit lay. He swam, with all his energy with his companion to that wall. He swam to the the hole ,the exit. A wave here, a wave there and he was out of the city. Where the people wouldn't dare to come near. His friend was out too. He turned back and a huge white light flashed, ready to temporarily blind him. It was not the lights of danger in the underwater city but the light of hope. The light of a submarine. With that he picked up the rock. For some reason, he wanted to shield the city from the dangers of the outside force. He didn't want their efforts to go to waste. Enemy or not .With the last bit of adrenaline kicking him, he closed the hole with the rock, keeping it enclosed until it was found again.