MM-Descending [Invite]

[NPC]

~~~~~

The ocean was unusually dark here. A sunken city had been found just off the coast of California, near enough to the San Andreas fault line that anyone might have blamed earthquakes on the city's current state. Upon looking at it, however - which more eyes would soon, as the company that was managing its maintenance was slowly beginning to explore the idea of tours - one would quickly note that the city was nothing like any inhabitants in the history of that coast had ever built. Some might have called it an Atlantis, but that myth told of a grand, proud city, with modern culture spinning it as being still alive, hidden away somewhere. This city was beautiful as well, but in a darker fashion.

The unnamed city's devastation had done little to disguise its unusual nature. Structures held up by pillars denoted ancient palaces and temples, but with designs that would have been unfamiliar to even the ancient Greeks and Romans and Japanese. They spiraled upward, having been of course whittled away by water and sea life and the passage of time, but they held still, for the most part. It was all dark, but the explorers had brought lights to help illuminate the scene. They could see fading sculptures and inscriptions, in an unrecognizable language, its script completely alien to anyone. The sea flora had grown up along the old buildings like ivy, adding to the sense of beauty.

Three guides accompanied the tourists in their descent. The city was not too low, so an easy scuba dive was sufficient to reach it. They were already in the water, swimming closer and closer to the city, and soon were close enough to touch the pillars and walls themselves, and explore the city on their own, the tour guides, their faces almost completely obscured by their gear, hanging back enough to give the tourists some space, but remaining near enough to interfere if anything went wrong.

~~~~~

[Ryan D'Alteau]

______________________________ - ""

Regardless of whether one had studied ancient mythology in any meaningful capacity or not, both the legends and fictional interpretations of Atlantis were well within the public consciousness. Often mistaken for a city, the Island of Atlas was a relatively small, yet dominant naval power located in the mid-Atlantic who reportedly conquered much of Africa and western Europe approximately twelve thousand years ago. Its descent beneath the ocean stemmed from their failed attempt to invade Athens, where the whole island sank within the space of twenty-four hours; a fabled "day and night of misfortune".

Although the discovery of the subaquatic ruins had been in the wrong ocean - located off the coast of California - the parallels had been drawn to the fragment of ancient Greek legend regardless. Before the news had been broken to the public, a smattering of interested parties from across the country had already studied the ruins and, to their collective surprise, had found no common architectural traits between the ruins and anything else they had thought to check. First on the list had been the two biggest ancient cultures - the Greeks and the Romans - before someone had taken the Pacific Ocean into account and decided to compare them to documented findings from ancient Japan. Up to now, they'd turned up nothing.

Ryan had never even been snorkelling before and, by early-afternoon, he found himself in a complete set of SCUBA gear, swimming his way down towards the ruins. At a distance, they looked more like a collection of eroded boulders; debris shaken loose by the nearby San Andreas fault before being claimed by the underwater plants. With the aid of lighting, their approach slowly brought everything into focus. Broken pillars rose up from the remains of a stone pedestal, arranged in a strict rectangular formation which suggested they had once held up a roof of some description. It may have already been proven to be something else entirely but, as far as the architecture was concerned, it was all Greek to him.

As ever, Adele had been invited along with him and, having spent a lot more of her life near a beach than he had, she was easily outpacing him as she made her own way down to the sea floor. The third person who had been chosen to accompany the trio of guides was someone neither of them knew. Ryan had no idea who the man was, where he'd come from or how he'd been fortunate enough to been invited along and, quite frankly, he didn't really care. With the exception of his fiancée dressed from neck to toe in skin-tight neoprene, the ruins were the only reason he'd come to California today.

"Hey, Adele." In order to facilitate conversation between the underwater sextet, they were each wearing a diving mask which covered the whole of their face. For a novice like Ryan, it helped lessen the probability that he would find himself unable to breathe. The masks also contained a voice-activated radio system, allowing them to speak. "Que pensez-vous de ces ruines?"

[Adele D'Alteau]

Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under the sea

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

She'd never admitted to Ryan that she had an intense fear of being out in open water. With as much time as they'd spent on her grandparents' yacht, she rarely allowed them to travel out of sight of the shoreline, and she'd turned down Ryan's requests of having their next vacation be a cruise. Having a romantic dinner on a yacht in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico may have sounded like an ideal date to some, but to her the mere thought of it made her palms clammy and her heart race.

When she'd found herself engulfed by darkness with no memory of having got there, she somehow knew where she was. Under water. She immediately started panicking and clawed at the water, kicking her feet violently as she made a bid for freedom as she began swimming for what she assumed was the surface. The intense state of fear had blinded her to the fact that there were other people present—Ryan, a handful of guides, and someone else whom she wouldn't have recognised even if she'd been more cognizant. Her breath came in short, jagged gasps and she could feel her body heating up as adrenaline flooded her veins. In her purely reactionary state of self-preservation, her ability had kicked into high gear, effectively robbing her of her normal eyesight. Terror drove itself deep into her bones as what little light she'd been able to see was consumed by the darkness of the sea around them.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew they had to be close to the surface. Unless they were equipped with an atmospheric diving suit, diving anywhere past 130 feet with standard SCUBA gear could have been potentially deadly. That brief wisp of knowledge did nothing to quell the overwhelming fear now propelling her to the surface.

"Hey, Adele."

She heard a brief electronic crackle before Ryan's voice sounded off in her ears. Even in her fury to preserve her own life by returning to the surface as quickly as possible, just knowing that Ryan was somewhere around her was enough to bring her anxiety down to a more manageable level.

"Que pensez-vous de ces ruines?"

Ruins? She couldn't see anything aside from the occasional blurred outline of what she thought was the myriad connection of blood vessels hidden just beneath the skin of a human face. “Je ne vois rien.” Her voice quavered with trepidation. Really, all she wanted to do was get back to the surface and get her feet on solid ground as soon as humanly possible. “Où sommes-nous? Que se passe-t-il?” She was trying to disengage from her ability, but was unable to do so. Lately, her ability had seemed to have taken on a life of its own, as if it were a completely separate entity living within her body. It took over whenever it felt that they were in danger. She'd almost come to think of it as a separate energy or personality—not just something that had been written into her genetic coding the instant she'd been conceived.

That was another secret she'd been keeping from Ryan . . . not so much keeping it from him as she didn't really consider it to be that big of a deal. She'd discuss her feelings about it eventually, but now was neither the time nor place to be delving into such deep psychological issues.

She could feel him near her in the water, just as certainly as he could see her. Although Ryan's hadn't quite honed his ability to be able to locate Adele wherever she went, he'd been working on it. It was still impossible for her to see anything due to her ability being in full control of her faculties. She'd never actually tried to use her ability underwater, though she didn't see why a change in environment would affect that. It would be there if she needed it.

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 726
۵ Mood: FFFFFFFFFFFFfffff
† Outfit: A skin-tight neoprene suit.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: Under the Sea because I couldn't resist.
† Illustrations: None.
۵ Comment / Informational links: None.

[Trevor Taylor]

Hey there Cthulhu, down there in your sunken city
You’re a billion light years distant
And the stars look very pretty
From R’lyeh So close and yet so far away
Iä, Ië

Trevor Taylor had jumped at the chance to explore the undersea ruins, and he was thrilled to be walking in the old hidden place. It was something he had always treasured, really. Ruins, the remnants of the past. The story of what had gone before them. This was something new to him, and the world, however. This find defied everything that qualified as the history of human civilization. He was a talented linguist, and he was an expert archaeologist, so his involvement was more professional than his companions. He was here to make some contribution, whatever he could.

The strangest thing of all was that the visible architecture and glyphs gave hint to a civilization never before documented. This was too much, really. He had no way to decipher the script, not without spending countless hours at the work of cryptography. He knew there would be people on that. The writing was not remotely similar to anything he had seen from Egyptian pyramids to sites like Angkor Wat. It was somehow...alien. He didn't want to get ahead of himself, but there was definitely a feeling of discomfort at how it had unnerved him so quickly. He was coming into this expecting to find a settlement tied to a known culture. But that wasn't the case at all...

“Je ne vois rien.”

The woman answered the man she was seemingly accompanying, and Trevor smiled a bit at her answer. She was fortunate in a way. Not being able to see the things entering his vision could be a blessing, in a sense. Ignorance being bliss, as it was said. But Trevor also felt that despite the terror of the unknown, this band of strangers should press on into the Abyss. Something in his mind suggested that here lay secrets that man was not meant to know. But Trevor was not afraid. He took comfort in his power. Perhaps too much comfort.


“Où sommes-nous? Que se passe-t-il?”

Trevor strode in near Ryan and Adele, and took the liberty of providing an answer. He had taken up French, and several other languages, during his time without abilities. It was especially helpful in his return to academic life.

"Nous sommes dans un endroit qui ne devrait pas exister, par aucune considération de la connaissance humaine."

Trevor smiled, and decided to introduce himself.

"I am Dr. Trevor Taylor, by the way. I am an archaelogist and historian, and I have to say, in my professional opinion...this place is pretty damn weird."

[Ryan D'Alteau]

Helpless hysteria! A false sense of urgency!
Trapped by my phobia! Possessed by anxiety!
Run! Try to hide! Overwhelmed by this complex delirium!
______________________________Dream Theater - "Panic Attack"

"Je ne vois rien..."

Ryan whirled himself around as he heard Adele's voice eventually respond. Over the years, Ryan had heard his fiancée convey a variety of emotions, whether directed at him or towards whoever was unfortunate enough to be the target of her ire. Just about everything from elation and sexual ecstasy all the way to a near-unstoppable murderous rage had poured forth from whatever receptacle - physical or otherwise - truly contained a person's emotions. But, as Ryan replayed the four words over in his mind, he realised that there had been something else mixed in there; something which had been decidedly unlike his wife-to-be at all. Fear. She was actually scared.

Initially, Ryan had taken Adele's lagging behind as simple inexperience with diving. He was similarly unversed but, after a few minutes running over the basics and figuring out how to actually get himself under the water, his skills in regular swimming were allowed to take over. Thus far, he had been able to avoid dwelling on the fact that he was effectively immersed in a pool of water many thousands of metres both wide and deep. "Où sommes-nous? Que se passe-t-il?" It was a fact upon which he gathered that Adele couldn't help but dwell and, as such, she was scared to go anywhere. If she swam too deeply, she risked running out of air. If she swam up from such a depth too quickly, she risked becoming afflicted with decompression sickness and, if she simply stopped, there was a chance that tidal force and the wind could carry her away.

What slightly confused Ryan, however, was her apparent confusion about their shared situation. She seemed to have no idea where she was or what was happening, while he was quick to arrive at the conclusion that the excursion was her idea. Sure, the trip out to the diving site had been mostly a blur, but Ryan simply chalked that up to anticipation. It sounded like the best explanation, after all; the one most likely to be correct. "We're off th'coast of San Francisco, Adele," he explained, swimming his way back towards her. Her apprehension had caused her to fall behind and, while one of the guides had stayed relatively close by, Ryan's arrival was enough to spur him ahead to oversee the trip from someplace else.

Like him, Adele had been kitted out with all of the necessary equipment to dive down to the ruins and back again, hopefully without major incident. Manoeuvring himself until they were face-to-face, Ryan gently placed his hands on his fiancée's shoulders. Normally, he would have clasped the sides of her head but, with her nerves already frayed, he didn't want her to think that he was trying to tear the mask from her face. "We came out here t'see some ancient ruins, remember?" He wasn't entirely sure what had possessed him to come out to the west coast to look at what was essentially partially-eroded stone. As well as wanting to spend more time with Adele - which was always an ideal catch-all reason for doing just about anything these days - there was always the prospect of trying out diving for the first time. But surveying some ruins? Normally, he would have failed to muster the inclination to do such a thing.

"Nous sommes dans un endroit qui ne devrait pas exister, par aucune considération de la connaissance humaine."

An unfamiliar voice rang out in their diving headgear, presumably from the third non-guide member of their little expedition. Like them, he had a grasp of French but, unlike them, he had looked rather more studious. He had actually paid attention to more than the section of the briefing which had pertained to the act of diving, for one thing. Ryan hadn't bothered to ask the man his name - and hadn't particularly cared enough to do so - but it was a situation soon remedied by the application of social niceties. "I am Dr. Trevor Taylor, by the way." Oh, brilliant. Another doctor. If they weren't careful, he and Adele would start hitting it off over whatever subjects doctors talked about whenever they were faced by a member of their kind. "I am an archaeologist and historian and I have to say, in my professional opinion, this place is pretty damn weird."

Letting out a sigh, Ryan protested the interruption. "Well, thanks for the insight, Doctor Jackson." His terse response was followed by a return to the important matter at hand: Adele. The ruins could wait. He could barely see through his mask and into the face lying beneath that of the one before him but, as his eyes continued to adjust, he realised that a portion of his vision wasn't adjusting. Adele's eyes. As though a defensive mechanism had kicked in to compensate for her fear, her ability had fired up. She'd told him a couple of times about how her vision changed when she used her ability - just as his did - and, to have everything reduced to a state where she could only see a vague venous outline while being underwater must have been making everything worse. "Adele, look. There's nothin' dangerous here, okay? I'm here and there's a bunch of guides around who can help you out, too. I'll stay by your side, okay? We can just swim down to the ruins t'gether; take our time."

[NPC]

The city was indeed in comparatively shallow waters, having sunk not so far as to be unreachable by a typical scuba setup. That was part of the tourist appeal - little work on the company's behalf, little skill needed for the customers. It would sell well; there was much money to be made here.

Yet the farther the group swam, the more they would pick up on a slight sense of death among the sunken halls. The structures were beautiful and sturdy, but there was something uneasy about the city, something unnatural, an aura of sorts, such that one like Trevor - or rather Lazarus - might give off. The divers continued to light their path, however, still moving among the arches and columns, guiding the guests around and paying little attention to the conversation that passed between them.

[Adele D'Alteau]

J'espère que tu les trouveras, toi qui cherche fortune.
N'allume pas la lumière, leur adresse est écrite sur la lune
Et je ne serai pas jaloux de savoir que tu tentes ta chance.
On ne s'aimait pas comme ça et c'est sans importance.

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

A voice other than Ryan's rang in her ears and only caused her anxiety to crescendo. Who else was down here with them? "Nous sommes dans un endroit qui ne devrait pas exister, par aucune considération de la connaissance humaine."

“Qu'est-ce que la baise tu racontes?” Her gaze shifted to one of the forms that was Not Ryan. Though she didn't have a name to associate with the body whose biological patterns were patently different than her husband's, she didn't need one to grasp control of his circulatory system out of pure fear and reflex. They didn't know him, therefore he was a threat. “Qui la baise êtes-vous?”

His answer came almost immediately, in spite of the rudeness of her question which he seemed to have ignored. "I am Dr. Trevor Taylor, by the way. I am an archaelogist and historian, and I have to say, in my professional opinion...this place is pretty damn weird."

It was only after he introduced himself that she made a conscious effort to release the grip she had on his veins. He wouldn't have felt anything—or if he did, it would have been a momentary sensation of numbness as she relinquished control. “Je suis désolé.” Adele closed her eyes and attempted to quell the force of her ability, though she still didn't feel safe. She was stuck in unfamiliar territory in the middle of an ocean, which was one of her deepest fears. “Parfois, nous ne pouvons pas nous-memes contrôler.” Was all that she could offer in terms of an apology.

Her face felt wet and she lifted her hand to wipe the wetness from her cheeks, then realised it was futile when her gloved hand hit the hard plastic of the mask surrounding her face. It took her a few moments to understand that the warm wetness she felt on her cheeks were tears, and her chest felt like it was on fire as she drew in desperate breaths of air. Only when she heard Ryan's reassuring voice did she bring her heart rate and blood pressure back under control.

"We're off th'coast of San Francisco, Adele," Through the veil of her ability, she was able to discern the distinct patchwork of nerves and veins which comprised his body. "We came out here t'see some ancient ruins, remember?"

No, she didn't remember. And that was what worried her. But obviously one of them had agreed to it. Maybe she had set it all up and she'd simply been to overwhelmed with work to recall? Or perhaps the severe anxiety she was experiencing was affecting her memory? That was also a possibility. Anxiety and panic affected the mental faculties of a normal person.

"Adele, look.”

She felt Ryan's hands on her shoulders, effectively keeping her safe. There was no fear that she would drift away with the power of the tides and be swept out to sea.

“There's nothin' dangerous here, okay?” His voice soothed her nerves and helped to bring her back to reality. “I'm here and there's a bunch of guides around who can help you out, too. I'll stay by your side, okay? We can just swim down to the ruins t'gether; take our time."

Her respiration dropped to a more reasonable level as she brought herself further under control. As long as Ryan was with her, she would be safe. He wouldn't let her drown in the abyss without a fight. Even so, she found herself unable to regain her sight. “Je ne peux pas le laisser aller.” she explained. The more that she forced herself to quell the ability with which she'd been born, the more it seemed determined to stay at the fore. “Je ne peux pas la faire partir.” Attempting to dismiss her ability only drained her energy further, and so she understood she would have to allow it to remain with her until the sensation of fear passed. “We do not like it here.”

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 749
۵ Mood: Mmmmrrrggh.
† Outfit: A wetsuit.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: Les soeurs de la Miséricorde, Graeme Allwright
† Illustrations: None.
۵ Comment / Informational links: I'mma pee and g2b.

[Trevor Taylor]

Dark for fear of failure an inner gloom as wide as an eye and
Fermenting roiling hate death grip in my veins unveiling rancid
Petals flowering forth foul nectar the space between
A blink and a tear...Death blooms.

“Qu'est-ce que la baise tu racontes?”


Trevor understood that he had intruded on the lovers' exchange, but it had seemed necessary at the time. It was kind of odd, that even though he had the clearest idea of what to expect, he was still uneasy. Being the one who had the most grasp of the situation at hand was not comforting when he basically still knew almost nothing, nor had a frame of reference for the architecture, or the writing. The two biggest clues, and they told him effectively...nothing.

"Well, thanks for the insight, Doctor Jackson."

The man appreciated Trevor's input not at all, it seemed. He even went so far as to mock the historian. It was sort of an honor to be compared to the character of Daniel Jackson, however. The two had similarities, after all. The big difference being that Trevor's adventures were confined to the lands of the Earth, and as on this auspicious day, her seas. But this situation might as well be right out of Stargate, he figured.

Ryan offered his wife assurance, but the closer they got to the city, the more wrong it felt. The pressure must have been affecting him, he decided. There was a slight nearly imperceptible discomfort in his body, and he stopped himself from borrowing life-force from those present, simply because he reasoned he was in no real danger. It was just his body getting accustomed to the changing pressures. But he still couldn't shake the wrongness. Something about it felt almost...familiar.

Like Death lurking somewhere in the deep.

Trevor dismissed the thought as his usual morose tendencies manifesting, as they had too often of late. It was Shoshanna's death still haunting him. Still tearing him up inside. He was envious of the lovers, believing them to have been happy all their lives without the specter of death and loss to cause either of them pain. He knew nothing of the two, as it happened.

“Je suis désolé.”

"Et je m'excuse pour mon intrusion."

Trevor could tell by how she spoke that her native tongue was French. She could likely take a guess that he was not a native speaker, without too much difficulty, he mused. It was not a language he was entirely in touch with, preferring Hebrew or Arabic to the European languages. But as a scholar, it was beneficial to gain mastery of as many languages as he could find time for. He never knew where the next exciting excavation would be, and what the language of any ancient inscriptions would be. So he avidly studied languages, as he had avidly studied architecture, and art. All were important facets of culture.

And despite all his musings, he could not shake that feeling, the dark force bearing down on them. By now it was growing more and more pervasive. The pressure theory was shot to hell, as it had been sometime before his body registered any changes. No, this was an aura.

Adele said pretty much what everyone in the diving party was surely thinking.

"Fear of the unknown, it is the explorer's other-side-of-the-coin. Though we seek the thrill of discovering something new- there is always the fear that it is something best left in the dark."

[Ryan D'Alteau]

Wait, I'm starting to suffocate!
And soon I anticipate I'm coming undone!
I'm trying to hold it together!
Head is lighter than a feather!
Looks like I'm not getting better!
______________________________Korn - "Coming Undone"

"Je ne peux pas le laisser aller."

She couldn't let it go. It turned out that his theory about her ability managing to activate itself like an inflating puffer fish wasn't that far off the mark. Nevertheless, the explanation still left him feeling rather confused. Although he was certainly no stranger to seeing Adele call upon her ability as part of an intense emotional response, this was the first time he'd been aware of his fiancée having no control over it; to have her power "stuck" as she found herself gripped by fear. If he had known that Adele was afraid of SCUBA diving in open water, then he surely wouldn't have insisted she accompany him. The only problem was that he wasn't entirely sure who had invited whom.

He doubted very much that the scientists in charge of guiding them down to the ruins and back again would have placed either of them on the select list of people who would get to see them first. At least Trevor Taylor, the only non-guide diver ahead of them, had a set of fitting credentials which would have proven his suitability for the expedition. Like his fiancée, he had introduced himself as a doctor but, unlike Adele, his doctorate lay in archaeology. Between them, all Ryan and Adele had was a medical degree and a sizeable body count. Ryan really had nothing to bring to the table except a fervent devotion to the woman before him. "Il suffit de se concentrer sur moi," he instructed, trying his best to soothe her as much as possible. "Ignorer où nous sommes."

But it wasn't working as well as he'd hoped. With the only real movement from his fiancée being the act of treading water in order to stop herself sinking, he instead tried a different approach. Releasing his grip on her shoulders, he ducked down and swooped around, swimming around the neoprene-clad doctor until he was by her side. After steadying himself once more, he extended his hand and, after a moment's fumbling with Adele's tensed body, managed to interlock the fingers of his hand with hers. "Je ne peux pas la faire partir...", she moaned, filled with quiet despair.

Ryan didn't like it when he was unable to easily solve a given problem. Without any real experience in trying to alleviate people's fears through psychology, all he really could do was be a caring husband-to-be and hope that it would prove to be enough. "You will, if I help you," he corrected. With the two of them now falling behind, it was Ryan's youth which compelled him to make an effort to close the distance. "I promise, Adele. We're both gonna be fine. If you want, I'll keep hold of you the whole way." Even with the abundance of light provided by both themselves and the guides, there was something undeniably wrong about the environment in which they were immersed.

With the exception of the occasional tantrums thrown by the San Andreas Fault, the coast of San Francisco was a relatively serene place. But not like this. Unless his face's confinement inside the breathing mask was dulling his hearing, the expanse of ocean around them was almost deathly silent. With the exception of the noise from the voice-activated microphones, there wasn't much he could really hear. Without the bubbles which would have arisen had they all worn mouthpieces in order to breathe, their movements were eerily soundless. No wonder Adele was afraid. "We do not like it here," she mused.

Okay, now she was worrying him. Knowing that he was relatively okay with SCUBA diving, despite it being his first time, the only conclusion to which he arrived was that his fiancée had just referred to herself in a plural sense. Electing to ignore it until they were alone and able to speak privately, he continued his routine, gently coaxing Adele along towards the ruins with him. "I can tell. Don't worry. We'll not stick around long."

However, it was then he remembered that they weren't alone. Other people were able to voice their own insights on the same channel he was using to soothe his fiancée and, as Trevor saw fit to prove, not all of these insights were particularly helpful. "Fear of the unknown. It is the explorer's 'other side of the coin'." Ryan simply frowned, though allowed the good doctor to speak. "Though we seek the thrill of discovering something new, there is always the fear that it is something best left in the dark."

"There is such a thing as thinkin' before you speak, Doctor Brennan." Ryan didn't see a point in knowing the man's name and, given that he viewed his input thus far as decidedly unhelpful, it was enough to justify his candidacy for mild mockery. He was trying to think of as many pop culture characters with a doctorate or degree which awarded them the title as possible, if only to have more ammo to use later on. "Don't listen to 'im, Adele. Just concentrate on me, okay?"

[NPC]

As they swam, they would find that they were coming upon a graveyard. Although much about these ruins had been unusual, indicative of some foreign culture that had never practiced any of the traditions that those which followed it did, it seemed the treatment of death was universal. These were tombs, some buried partly in the sunken ground, some above, a multitude of them. The sense of death grew here, but the cause was clear now, of course; they had reached a place in which there were dead, albeit long gone, but still requiring reverence.

The guides kept alongside Adele, Ryan, and Trevor, watching Adele especially closely, as she seemed to be quite concerned about her safety. These ruins were completely safe, however; they had been tested many times, and had never moved. So they swam on, their headlamps guiding the way among the beautifully ruined towers.

As they passed above the graveyard, a huge wave surged overhead, and there was a stirring in the sea. The water around them began to take on a red tint, not of blood, but of a bright red light, seemingly from below. And then the sunken city lurched. The whole of the ruins crashed forward, its structures topping over, falling to pieces, threatening to crush them as the chunks of stone rumbled into the deep. The tourists found themselves in darkness, as their guides were all crushed by the rocks; and, unable to see, they found themselves sinking as well, the city’s debris raining all around on them and on them, large pillars and tombs and walls falling upon them all.

[Trevor Taylor]

There is no more time for apologies
Never let emotions take hold of me
Are you ready to begin your trip to the other side
Death is an old friend of mine

They pushed deeper into the city in the deep sea. It was grim, alien, and pulsating death. The source became clearer over time. They approached a graveyard, a resting place for corpses. He would love to learn more about that, but the environment made that difficult. He supposed at some point in the future they would manage to pull up these mysteries from the depths.

Or not.

The light came as suddenly as the aura and the wave pulsing above them. Red like blood, from...below. Below them, the city under the sea. Emanating death waves, emanating blood lights. And everything surged up and crumpled down. Rocks, and pieces of towers falling, down, into the abyss.

Trevor didn't see what happened to the others, but he felt the smashing of stone on his body. No life force here. Nothing but death. In the waves he saw her face. Shoshanna.

"Shoshanna!" He screamed out, his final breath.

[Ryan D'Alteau]

This is so hard for me to find the words to say
My thoughts are standing still, captive inside of me.
All emotions start to hide and nothing's getting through.
______________________________Dream Theater - "These Walls"

Satisfied that Adele's nerves had been reined in to the point where she could continue swimming by his side, Ryan whirled himself around in the water and began to swim in pursuit of Trevor and the other guides; reducing his speed so that Adele could keep pace. There were so many times, such as when the two of them were out shopping together, where Ryan had struggled to remember that he was fourteen inches taller than his fiancée. His size alone meant that his average stride carried him a lot further than a similar motion did for Adele and, when the two of them broke into a run, outpacing her was a simple task. Occasionally, Ryan glanced back and, although the world around them was growing darker as the group ventured deeper into the ruins, he could always tell where his lover was; if not by sight, then by simple intuition.

For a few minutes since making their way onto what looked strangely like a main road scything through the centre of the devastated settlement, they had been free from anything resembling danger. Although they were quite a distance out from San Francisco's coastline, the marine wildlife in the region - whatever it might have been as Ryan sure as hell didn't know - had stayed well away. There wasn't so much as a fish swimming by. The buildings themselves, while definitely uninhabitable even without the water, seemed rather sturdy in their partially collapsed state. Provided nobody from the group were possessed with the sudden urge to disturb the buildings more than they had to, Ryan was confident that they wouldn't trigger some sort of collapse.

"See?", he inquired, twisting around in the water to face Adele once more. Rather than share Trevor's apparent curiosity and push on further, Ryan had elected to stay with his fiancée and see what she wanted to see. Archaeology wasn't really one of Ryan's interests, but even he was somewhat impressed with how little of the town as a whole had actually crumbled to incomprehensible rubble. While none of the buildings had escaped the cataclysm completely unscathed, it was easily apparent to gauge the approximate size each of them had been in their time of glory. "Didn't I say we'd be fine?"

Ryan knew that they were far from the first people to have ventured down to the ruins. Although he, Adele and Trevor were members of the public, the discoverers of the ruin would have sent their own expert divers and surveyors down first to ascertain whether future ventures were viable with regards to personal risk. Everyone had been rightfully concerned of the ruin's proximity to the San Andreas Fault and, as such, they had taken their time with the routine examinations, double-checking everything in order to arrive at a conclusive verdict. It was only then that they had considered who to bring along.

"Come on. Let's go an' see what th'doctor's up to."

Or, at least, that was what Ryan had intended to do. Although he wasn't touching the floor, he felt the lurching sensation of the buildings around him as the swelling wave passed him by. Within seconds, the sound of the guides' urgent voices broke out over the radio. "Get out of here!", they yelled. "Stay away from the buildings and head back to the boat!" Ahead, Ryan could see an ethereal crimson glow punctuating walls and floor alike as it shone, its intensity escalating as more and more of the ruins began to crumble, disturbed by both the water and another as yet unseen force. It was only then that Ryan began to feel something inhuman about his environment; something that might have been the reason for Trevor's anxiety.

The source of the glowing may have been tens of metres ahead of him and around at least one corner, but its intensity and apparent ability to effortlessly carry itself through the water meant that it was almost impossible for him to miss. And, once he'd found it - or, perhaps, it had found him - he could feel something tugging at him, preventing him from turning away. Such a thing sounded stupid, Ryan was certain of that but, the more he stared, the more that something compelled him to keep looking and, as the moments passed, everything else began to tune itself out of his perception. Buildings were falling around him, the guides were screaming as they fell victim to falling pieces of architecture the size of small cars and the only reason he hadn't been hit yet was of sheer dumb luck.

Even when a piece of an elegant pillar approximately four feet in circumference descended less than three feet away from his face, Ryan didn't even blink. "Shoshanna..!!" It was only when Trevor screamed something Ryan's temporarily entranced mind only registered as noise that he managed to snap himself out of whatever reverie the light had put him under. Realising that the ruins were no longer safe, he whirled around in the water in search of the one person nearby who mattered. "Adele!!" He wasn't sure if there was anyone left to respond, but he found himself shouting his fiancée's name regardless. With the guides presumably all dead and something interfering with the head-mounted lights, Ryan could only see darkness ahead. Projecting himself out of his body might have helped but, being at immense risk of being hit by something as it fell, it was something he didn't want to risk.

He wasn't sure what caused him to swim further down. In the heat of the moment, he had convinced himself that it was something Adele had been wearing that glinted in whatever ambient light from above had been able to reach him; a reason which had been more than good enough at the time. But, as he felt a colossal weight suddenly slam against his air tank, Ryan found himself in danger. A section of wall from a nearby building had been descending from above and, as he rolled around in a futile effort to kick himself away, he could see that, through the partial window frame which had been hewn into the slab of stone, the light above him had shifted to a strange red; one which he knew couldn't have been real.

Once again, the light seemed to paralyse him, dulling the senses to his predicament until even his impending mortality failed to faze him.

He didn't really register what - if anything - came next.

[NPC]

As the stones continued to fall, and the city fell deeper and deeper into the ocean, the odds of survival approached slim until they were none. They were in too deep; there was too much rubble; there was nowhere to go. The graveyard claimed a few more bodies; the city took all it could as it made its final descent, fading into the ocean.

~~~fin NPC~~~