We've always been the stuff of myth and legend to you, and with good reason. None of us ever cared for your world, dear surface dwellers. After all, you were unhappily stuck with the twenty nine percent of the planet Earth which we cared nothing about. The dry, nearly lifeless land, a tiny and insignificant pebble compared to the endless bounty of the life-giving ocean. With such prime real estate at our disposal, why would we, your betters, ever bother with you?
For centuries we ignored you, and you continued to spread, building mechanical monsters, polluting the waterways and breeding without restraint, until your resources proved too few to sustain you. Suddenly, dry land wasn't enough to contain all of you, and you began to war with one another over resources. We were content to ignore you even then, until your dead started coming back to life, ravenous and nigh-unstoppable...
I was one of the first to discover the new threat, on a bright sunny day when I dared to venture close to the surface, drawn by the commotion made by those hideous things you call ships. I was stunned to see one of those vessels aflame, and there were men and women onboard, fighting one another, like your kind are wont to do. Nothing unusual here, until some of you began tumbling into the ocean...
I swam closer to the fallen, intent on taking a closer look at your species, and that's when I knew something was wrong. Everyone knows that when you humans fall into the ocean, it's only a matter of time until you drown. I'm told that some of you are capable swimmers, and can float for a time. Inevitably, unless you are pulled from our watery realm, you don't last long it.
Sharks, and a whole host of other creatures have a taste for your flesh, after all. It's almost as if the denizens of the deep sense that it's you dreaded humans who poison our ocean with your filth, and want to make you pay. Toward the sinking human I swam, and watched it from a distance.
Normally, a sinking human waves its arms and legs, screaming silently, letting precious air bubbles escape through its useless mouth, and it amuses my kind to watch you in your final moments. The ocean isn't yours, you don't belong here, we wish you'd go away. You refuse to heed the message, no matter how many of your hideous vessels we send tumbling into the depths.
"Die human filth," I thought to myself as I drew closer to the sinking creature, a pale-skinned female whose body was covered by some fabric I had never seen before. Why you bother with such things, I'll never know. The creature had been in the ocean for a good twenty minutes, yet it was still struggling. How could that be? We all know your kind seldom last more ten minutes in the depths without special equipment. It's a known fact.
"What have we here?" I wondered, and I drew closer still, and my eyes, perfectly adapted for seeing in the dark depths, in places never touched by the sunlight, blinked in surprise. For the human was still moving, and I saw that its face was hideously marked, as though someone had bitten a chunk out of it. Even more alarming, the human's eyes locked onto me, even in the darkness, and it moved its arms in my direction.
I stayed away, of course, for unlike your species, I know that even a top predator like myself is always prey for something else. I hefted my weapon, a harpoon crafted from the finest orca spine. Gently I prodded the sinking human creature with my harpoon, and it reacted to my touch, reaching toward me with its useless, yet nevertheless grasping arms.
Looking into the human creature's eyes, I saw something new...a depthless hunger which sent a chill down my own spine. I poked it some more, and the creature tried to move toward me, even as it continued falling, hapless against the strong currents of the deep. It was now at a depth that no human could survive. Even those hideous accoutrements you outfit yourselves with can only protect you so long in those crushing depths.
"What are you?" I wondered, and I was pondering that when the human creature tried to lunge at me. Reflexively I thrust my harpoon, cleaving the creature's skull in two. At once it stopped moving, and its corpse fell to the depths. I watched it sink with a sickening presentiment. I did not understand what I was looking at, and what I don't know or understand, I tend to fear. It's the one thing our two races have in common.
"Black Star, come back," came a voice, echoing right into my brain, and I paused, for I would recognize her voice anywhere. My mate. I returned from whence I came, to the welcoming depths of the ocean. In this dark, watery world, my kind reign supreme. We are feared by the orca, the great white shark, and the great whales themselves. We hunt the eel, the dolphin and the tiger shark, and savor their meats. In a vast network of underwater caves, at depths no human can reach unaided, we have made ourselves at home for untold eons.
"Moon-Face," I thought-spoke, and at once she appeared, my lovely mate, the one who makes my heart sing. Nearly two meters tall, curvaceous, with blue-black skin covered in tiny scales, her bioluminescent hair, now in thick stresses, standing on end, her breasts bare, and her generous mouth opened, revealing sharp teeth, Moon-Face smiles at me. She is not pleased. Among our kind, a smile is a threat...
"Black Star, you've gone all day, and you've not brought me anything," Moon-Face sternly thought-spoke to me, and I pause, then reach for her hands. We've known each other our whole lives, and although we are from different clans, none can deny that we belong together. Moon-Face still bears the scars of her battle against the great white shark, a rite of passage among our kind. During that battle, I broke the rules and rescued her, and we've been together ever since.
"Beloved, I found something strange," I thought-spoke hesitantly, and Moon-Face looked at me, her face filled with worry. Those bright yellow eyes looked me up and down, and she briefly inspected me from head to fluke. I opened my mind, using the special link that we all share, and allowed Moon-Face's consciousness to enter mine. Feel what I feel, see what I see...
