Evander Resur wakes up in a diving bell stuck under rubbles, trapped underwater, he held his head, throbbing in pain from all sides. He soon calms down once the pain goes away.
"The diving bells seem to be supplying oxygen from above" Resurs says to himself"
He looks up through the pipe, then stare at the blue canvas of the sky. He has no memories of what happen beside that he was was on a ship, then agiant black shape with glowing white eyes surfaced out of the water, it then struck him in his right chest, then slithered under the ship, and behind it he sees a waves of gigantic weird looking marine life covered in spikes rushing at the ship, leviathan and other sea monsters sank their teeth through the metal of the side hull, slowly pushing the ship onto it's side. While others manage to leap onto the ship, their jaws catching frozen passengers in their maw. The ship slowly capsized from the weight and like a video but cut between frames he see himself falling into the water as the ship sank, he catch a glimpse of a diving bell in the corner of his left eye, and frantically swam to it before those things could find him.
"I don't remember anything else" He thinks.
Resur sit and waits for something to happen, he's too weak to move the the diving bell off of the ground. Two hours later he hears the sound of a whale, and he shouts through the hole of the diving bell, asking for help.
"What am I even doing, asking a whale to help?". He scoffs to himself, while slowly losing hope.
He then feels start to feel vibrations and sounds of metal scraping against the outside sediments. The diving bell soon lifts off the ground, freeing him but opening the door to the ocean water outside. He feels an immense wave sleeping through the small space, it slams him against the wall of the diving bell as it slowly surfaced. He bite down the pain and swam out, dodging the falling rubbles and sediments. His eyes watch the diving bell ascend, then he sees a white whale, shape like those cheese stick he use to eat back at home. He has no idea why it helped him, and if it understood him or not, but he want to believe it does. He swam up to it hesitantly, the sperm whale slowed down for him to catch up, he gently pressed his hand on its rough skin, feeling warmth in this cold sea, he placed his forehead up
against it's body and rubbed it softly.
"Thank you" he says softly through closed mouths, then repeating multiple time just incase it didn't hear him.
Resur gently pulled away and looked at the whale's eyes, watching the lower eye lid curved up like a smile, the whale lets go of the diving bell and swam away. Sadly it didn't say anything. He thinks to himself.
"Then again, that red haired lady on the ship did say I would die if it even said a word to me, as if I could understand what she said, something about vibrations?".
He thinks to himself then looks up, seeing the sunlight penetrating through the ocean water. Resur slowly ascends, once he at the surface he stares up into the sky, the blue canvas he saw earlier is now decorated with white and orange clouds of all shape and sizes, slowly moving and drifting along with the wind, parallel with the waves taking him. He smiled, realizing his current situation isn't too bad. Then he thinks to himself.
"How hasn't I got hypothermia yet? Or whatever she called it. I even held my breath for so long, maybe that thing gave me fish powers".
He mulled over it and realize it's no use, he swims back to the diving bell, then saw lands of sea weed dancing, orchestrated by the ocean waves. He swims down, and gently tap one of them, giggling inside of how cute it looks when he interrupts it's dance, he stuffs a few into his mouth. "Salty, it taste like the ocean, but I don't mind." He watchs sea turtles swim pass him, biting down on the seaweed while staying a float while he sank. He tried doing the same, engaging his core muscle and positioning his head down as he eats, he failed. Almost backflipping underwater. He giggled inside and followed the turtle around, realizing he's on the cliff of an underwater crater, he looked down and saw different floors full of corals, red,green, blue, a schools of tropical fish, a dark nests of octopus, orange crabs walking side ways, a slow swimming manta rays, a whole ecosystem in this crater.
"I kinda wish I'm a fish" He says to himself, thinking about how easy his life would be.
He looks around then swims to a small red crab. He tries grabbing it, only to get pinched in the thumb very hard, causing him to immediately smash it with his left hand repeatedly. The meat breaks into pieces, making It float away. He caught them in his mouth, swallowing salt water with him.
"Seasoning, I guess"
He feeds the rest to a group of blue fishes with black stripes, reminding him of the officers on the ship. He feels his memories coming back.
"Huh I was expecting my head to hurt like they do in the movies when you remember something." He says to himself without opening his mouth.
After chasing fishes with broken corals and eating enough crabs he returns back to the diving bell, feeling comfortable floating between it's metal interior, despite that his butt is still very exposed, and he's scared something may take a bite of his gluttonous maximus. He swam back down after resting for a while after growing bored. After chasing fishes around for fun for an hour he saw a piece of steel left in the sea weed. "Nautilus" the name read. He follows the other debris, seeing fields full of dead leviathans from that night. He freezes for a bit, unable to trust himself.
"What if it's not dead, what if it's asleep? What if I check on it and it wakes up?" Frozen in fear he slowly sinks down to the bottom.
Resur muster up his courage, pretending the feeling of him biting his teeth is the physical embodiment of strength flowing through him. He grabbed a sharp piece of broken off steel plating, then rush one of the leviathan, stabbing it in the gills. No movement. No shaking no trashing, no movement. He then immediately turned his back, he thinks he's in a horror movie and he has a feeling there's going to be something behind him.
Nothing was there, but there is one behind him. The same one he stabbed, the white zebra stripe squid face immediately swipe it's tail across his face, sending him through the water, he almost lose grip of the "sword". He looks around, luckily the water was clear, but the visibility makes fear more easy to feel as he watch it swim to him at high speed. It open it's squid mouth as it got close, he dodges to the right, stabbing its side, causing blood to spray out, blinding him but giving him a smoke screen in the form of a red mist.
The blood attracts other foes, more leviathan woke up. Resur noticed immediately and swam away, slowly ascending to not get the bends, once he's out of the water he swallow as much air as he can, believing that he'll bite more air than the leviathan can take a piece of him. He dove back down and kept swimming, running away, they gave chase. Their fins were made for swimming, Resur is but a human, his legs are only for improvisation.
Adrenaline filled his body and heighten his senses, though he's slower than them, he's more maneuverable, dodging their bites by slowing down, and making jokes about breaking their ankles to calm himself. If they had any. He repeats this while slowly gaining distance. Up ahead Resur sees sand, a slope of sand.
Light shines on it like an underwater hill for him to climb. He doesn't know if swimming with straighten legs or bent legs will help or not so he switches between them while kicking faster. Once he got onto shore, he ignore the weight in his chest as he start running away from the shore.
"I seen enough movies, you guys were going to jump out of the water to grab me!" He exclaims to himself.
The monsters eyes stared back at him, their flashing colors on their body disappearing slowly as they retreated from shore. Resur dropped onto his butt, gobbling as much air as he can while he laughs to himself between the breathing, he then notices his hand shaking. He looked up at the sky, shadows of palm trees hugging his skin, the sound of leave rustling and the ocean waves dragging itself onto shore slowly calmed him down. He marked an arrow pointing back to the diving bell before getting up.
Resur got up and started walking along side the beach, trying to get a a good look of the Island he's on. As he followed the shore a black shape came into his view, distances away. Looking like a giant crab with only one claw pointed diagonally to the left sky. As he got closer he realized its a ship, a ship wreck to be exact, the same ship he was on. more memories of him on the ship flash. He was leaving home alone, mum died of the Virus, it slowly mutate people into fish monsters or what they commonly called "Leviathans". Dad cried and hugged her, letting her eat him as his tears ran down her neck. 10 year old Resur watched it all happen, frozen, knee locked before running away. After living on the streets, surviving with side hustles, going to community events for food and quick bucks. He saved enough to go to Molthyr, sadly his dream sank with the ship that night. After his eyes focused back on the ship, leaving his thoughts he kept walking towards it. Barnacles hanged on to the sides of the broken off bow. Resur noticed a make shift ladder made out of wood, tied together with banana leaves.
"So someone was here before me" He thought to himself, picking up a nearby rock, sneaking up onto the deck. Looking around he saw grilled fish on the table. Saliva flooded his mouth immediately, but he decided to not eat anyone food without permission.
"It'll be stupid to shout but um, may someone tell me if they're here?" He calls out softly, then hearing a thump behind him. A lady with long red hair tied in a bun, a triangle shape body, beautiful almonds eyes titled upwards as if she always look curious or smiling. A sharp Nubian nose with a soft curve. Her face shaped like diamond with white clear skin like the sand. Long slender arms, but she's quite built, wearing a black tank top.
"May I ask if you're done analyzing me, Resur?" She said the "May" part with extra emphasis.
Resur gasped from her beauty, her consideration, and the fact she knows him.
"Sorry, it's just you're the only other human I met today."
"Pfft, it's alright, I saw you on the ship".
"Ohhhhh, you're that marine biologist, I'm Resur, as you know, may I know your name?".
"Thala Sophie, commonly joked around with the word Thalassophile, which mean someone who love the sea or ocean, and you look like you're the ocean itself" She says playfully, smiling.
Resur smiles back from ear to ear. He let those words go through his ear and head as slow as possible to savour it. Bowing his head then thanking her loudly. Thala giggled and walked past him, grabbing the plates of grilled fish.
"May i ask you to join me? Considerate Ocean Boy."
Resur nod and sat across her, eating as minimally as fast as possible to be polite but fill himself.
"Please, you may eat as much as you want i got a lot more." Thala says.
Resur smiled with fish still stuck between his teeth and gobbled them up. Once he's filled he sat up straight and stared at her.
"Uh, mam, I just would like to say thank you, but may I stay here?" He asked nervously.
"Sure, I was going to ask you anyways, it gets lonely around here, and may i ask who taught you to be so considerate and polite?"
"My mum, she's a sweet person but she died from the virus". He said after a long breath.
"Oh I'm really sorry if her death caused you any pain, but I hope you're okay and better now".
"I am, but it stills hurts sometimes, whenever I stare up at the sky I try to find her face in the clouds". he says, feeling tears escaping through his eyes, dropping a role and descending down his cheeks, turning his head to the clouds.
Thala smiles. " You may live here with me, Resur". She says softly as she push the chair behind her, walking over to him opening her arms for a hug. Resur closed her arms around him immediately, burying himself into her shoulder. Tears rushed down his eyes as he repeatedly thank her.
"We just met thoughhhhh." Resurs said slowly.
"You said that after hugging me? Funny, well i don't usually trust strangers but, you're considerate, i saw you stopping yourself from eating my food, you showed yourself and dropped that rock earlier, you're the one that trust people too easily, Resur so I think, j can trust you."
Resurs cackles in her shoulder, muffled by her skin he gently pulled away once he's done crying. "I was raised on the street, I couldn't trust too many people, and when i do they usually take advantage of me, but I still want to believe in people, and the world, i won't approach anyone from a hostile stand point. Can't let one bad apple stop me from tasting the whole basket.
Thala smiles then briefed him more about the island, and the ship, what chores they need to share and showed him around the ship, what's around, where not to go.
The two walked down the stairs into the hull, a make shift bamboo bed with leaves lay on it.
"Go on, you look like you're about to die." Thala encourages him, leaving the room lonce as Resur jumped on the bed, breathing as deep as possible while staring up into the ceiling.
"I got a friend....and a bed" He says to himself, burying his face into old pillows. Though he just met Thala, he have a hunch that she's someone he can trust. She fed him, comforted him, hugged him and even gave him a bed to sleep on, and he doesn't know if its because he haven't slept for so long or if there is a sleeping agent in the food, Resur simply didn't care. He gently closed his eyes and let his consciousness and head sink into the pillow. He wonder what he looks like now.
"Maybe I'll ask Thala if she has a mirror once I wake up" he thinks to himself before he slept.