Though I was below the dome still, I could feel the leviathan’s rage and intent. When I’d touched the shell, I was sure it was coming for me, but I should have known better. It found a much easier target, and with every second that passed, I knew my family was in danger.
So I did the only thing I could do.
I listened to the secrets the shell whispered, risking the wrath of the tiny crustacean who lived inside.
Words whispered back to me as if it knew what I wanted to know more than anything, and just like that, the leviathan’s rage turned to something else. Intent.
It brushed against the black dome with its massive size, assessing. I watched with horror as it disappeared, only to appear once more in a blur of speed. Its body careened into the dome, and small cracks of white appeared where water dripped through.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Sebastian Jr. crawled from the shell and stared above before ducking back into the shell.
“Not a good sign, is it?” I said. “You don’t know perhaps how to get out of here, do you?”
Small eyes stared back at me, and for reasons I could not put into words, I felt like he was calling me stupid.
“Right,” I muttered. “Insightful as always.”
Another impact shook the dome—this one so violent the ground beneath me lurched like shifting bone. Columns trembled. A distant groan echoed through the air like the seabed itself was warning me to run.
But where?
The dome was sealed. A perfect obsidian sphere carved from magic that predated any human tongue. There was no exit—just the hollowed city beneath it, long abandoned by the living and yet still echoing with their mistakes.
The shell vibrated violently, heating in my palms until I hissed.
“What? What do you want me to do?” I snapped.
It did not answer with words but with sensation—images that flickered across my mind like reflections scattered by ripples.
Towers of white stone… ancient runes spiraling like tide-marked scars… a circle of light suspended in the ocean… a song sung not in voice but in will.
My breath hitched.
“You want me to use it.”
Of course it did. It was a key. A lure. A curse.
Atlanteans had built this dome as a shield, but the shell… it was never meant to stay inside it. The two were opposing forces—containment and release. And now that I held both in my hands, the sea itself was waking to see what I would choose.
The Leviathan struck the dome again.
This time, the cracks spidered outward like lightning frozen mid-strike. Water gushed through. Cold, black, hungry.
“Oh no. No, no, no—”
The floor trembled beneath me as another strike hit. I braced my feet, stumbling backward as debris rained from above.
Sebastian Jr. clung to the shell, hissing unaffectionately.
“I know!” I shouted. “Not helpful!”
A crack split directly above me. A thin line at first—then widening with a sharp, sickening snap.
The first column collapsed.
I threw myself to the side as it crashed against the stone, sending tremors through the hollow city. Dust exploded upward, mixing with cold seawater. The dome was failing.
