by Luca Tarenzi
Was it the cold numbing the pain?
He was engulfed in darkness, such complete darkness that he had to wipe his eyes to be sure they were open. He also opened his mouth and felt the water move down his throat in an absurd sensation of soft ice.
He tried to make a sound, but nothing came out. It was completely silent.
Then, hands stopped him from moving around, taking him by the shoulders and holding him firm.
He instinctively tried to get away, but his limbs were weak and uncoordinated. He felt as weak as an unfed baby.
Something soft and sinuous touched him and then wrapped around him.
Thaw blinked, but he still couldn't see a thing. He felt like he was being touched by algae, invisible filaments that seemed to possess life, working their way in among his fingers, around his arms and even into his hair as they wrapped around him. It felt strange, alien, solid and yet delicate at the same time, and it wasn't unpleasant.
Something touched the wound on his thigh. He flinched, but the pain lasted only for an instant. It was followed by a tingling sensation and then numbness.
He reached his arm out through the stringy algae and felt a jelly-like substance on his leg, a substance not as cold as the water. He was able to squash it with his finger, but not break it.
Then, something placed something on the cheek that Livid had injured and Thaw felt the same substance.
He caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye, but it was a moment before he realized that he was starting to see again.
The darkness slowly receded into a shadowy green, revealing elongated moving forms. Thaw moved his hand and pushed his finger into the closest one. Hair.
A shock of long, black hair was flowing around him, moving like a sea snake. He was wrapped in a cloud of hair.
He parted it with his hand, opening up an endless underwater landscape tinged in phosphorescent green.
He was floating above a forest that extended in all directions beyond an indistinct horizon that had to be miles off. The vegetation wafted in the water like a giant, single living organism and Thaw didn't recognize even one of the plants. Some looked like agglomerations of opaque spheres that seemed to get smaller and smaller the higher up they were, others looked like skeletal fingers festooned with mucilaginous flags, and others resembled ferns rising up from the green expanse like the antennae of giant moths. Every single leaf, bulb and festoon - of whatever they were - was far bigger than him.
It was impossible to see the lake bed on which the vegetation grew, but Thaw felt it was as far away as the horizon. The surface had to be a great distance away as no light seemed to be coming from there, but rather, what light there was, came from nowhere precise, almost as if it was from the water itself.
The Lake would never have been big enough to hold everything he saw before him. This could not be the bottom of the polluted pond between mounds of rubbish in the Landfill.
He vaguely recalled some of the stories he'd heard as a child about the Goddesses dividing up the world and the water realm not following the laws of time and space, but it was so hard to think clearly...
His eyes had finally gotten used to the water and amid the long floating leaves, above and in the forest, he made out the Sirens.
He'd never seen them before, but he recognized them immediately and with utter certainty. They were like a forgotten dream that had suddenly come back to him. They rose and dropped in the water, wrapped in the dark foliage that covered nearly all of them, only occasionally allowing glimpses of their white skin, their faces that seemed carved out of shiny bone, tapered arms and long spectral fingers. The similarity to jellyfish was undeniable. Large, shiny, black jellyfish that swelled and contracted weightlessly, reflecting flashes of green.
So, these were his people.
Or, half of him. The non-earthly half of his blood, his monstrous inheritance.
This realization had no real effect on him. He felt numb and distracted, like he'd just woken up - or hadn't yet. Something else seemed to be blocking his mind.
The landscape before him was surreal, not without its own absurd beauty, but Thaw felt no sense of familiarity.
He'd known he was different his entire life. It was something nobody had ever let him forget. No look. No word spoken to him by another Goblin. Even in his friendship with Needleye and the others - friendship Thaw never doubted was real - there had always been a hidden note of caution, that indelible fear of what his blood might conceal.
But he had never felt different. It was the others who felt it. It was a thought that came from the others and all he could do was reflect it. For Thaw, his being different was something abstract and undeniable, but also elusive and nameless.
His Glamour was different. Nobody else possessed it, but was that enough to separate him from the whole world?
When he looked in the mirror, Thaw saw a Goblin. What did the others see? Perhaps something like those black-haired creatures that were now moving in front of him in this luminescent abyss?
Definitely not.
He might have originated in this emerald world, but it was his mother's home, not his. No more than it was home to Needleye or Verdigris. He was a child of the Landfill, no more or less than the other Goblins.
Almost as if in reaction to his thoughts, the cloud of hair slipped off him in a single fluid movement and moved in front of him, blocking his view.
Thaw swayed and floated backwards.
Out of the dancing strands emerged a face with soft lines, probably double the size of Thaw's head, with enormous eyes and cheeks covered in tiny scales.
She had long lashes, bigger versions of Thaw's. The scaly cheeks were identical.
Thaw opened his mouth twice, but was unable to say a word.
He'd imagined this moment more times than he could count. On occasion, he'd even gone to gaze down at the Lake from the top of a hill, perhaps in the grey light of dawn or the reddish hue of sunset. He dreamed about diving down into the waters to find his mother, even though it was universally known that anyone who disappeared into the Lake would only ever reappear as a drop of blood, and perhaps not even that.
He'd even prepared what he would say. Sometimes it would be a long speech, at other times a few words, each deliberately chosen. And questions.
Many, many questions.
He tried to get his thoughts in order, but couldn’t manage. What was he feeling? Relief? Gratitude? Affection for that creature that had given him life so many years before and had now saved him?
Did he feel hatred born out of a sense of abandonment because he was exiled from that world without a word or because she'd never tried to contact him or even let him know she existed?
He'd certainly felt all of these emotions at times during his life. Right then, though, it was a complete absence of emotion that he felt, perhaps because the cold of the abyss had passed from his lungs and stomach into his heart.
The Siren blinked and tilted her head slightly to one side, a gesture that was so normal in the midst of this alien world that it left Thaw's head reeling.
She was clearly waiting.
She was waiting for him to ask a question.
So, Thaw asked the one thing that really was on his mind.
Where are Needleye and Verdigris? Are they safe?
No sound came from his water-filled throat, but he knew instantly his mother had heard him. She raised her hand - her pearly colored hand with three fingers and a thumb - out of the mass of hair and clearly offered it to him to take.
Thaw hesitated for a second and then he held out his own hand, allowing her to take it.
The image in his head didn't seem like the sought after transfer that happened with Glamour. It was much more like suddenly remembering something he hadn't thought about for ages. It was a moment in the present that, absurdly, seemed to well up from the past.
Thaw saw - he remembered - Needleye and Verdigris swimming anxiously to a nearby shore, shoulder-to-shoulder, under
the dark blue sky of the early evening. Verdigris' head occasionally slipped under the water, but Needleye would immediately push her up, supporting her friend until she could start swimming again.
Thaw's head began to spin again. He was tempted to let his mother’s hand go, but she seemed to have the opposite idea, holding him even tighter.
What happened to the others? Livid? Albedo?
This memory was shorter, but just as detailed. Pieces of plastic and wood floated in the water. Livid was hanging onto one piece, a piece of wood not even as long as he was, and kicking his legs madly to propel him; his face showing evident signs of the effort and his eyes reflecting the glowing torches in the distance.
Thaw swallowed the frozen water.
You let them live. All of them.
The Siren remained silent, making no answer with her thoughts or her gestures. It hadn't even really been a question.
Thaw looked into her eyes. Her enormous, overly big almond-shaped eyes were an uncertain color, caught between green, grey and black.
Could he ask her anything he wanted? Was this finally the time when he could get the answers he'd sought his whole life? Why he'd been born. Why he'd been abandoned. Who was his father? What was his destiny? If the Sirens could see the future, then...
His mother continued to look intently at him.
What are you waiting for? Thaw felt the anger rising in his throat, unexpected and incomprehensible, but truly authentic. Do you want me to speak to you? To ask you questions? Are you so anxious to discover what I want to know from you?
The Siren's expression remained unchanged.
Of course you aren't. Because you know everything. You Sirens know everything, don't you? You know what I am thinking even before I do. Perhaps you will tell me that you knew everything about me in the past, that you knew where I was and what I was doing. Maybe you know about every time I asked where you were and what you were. What I was.
The face with its big eyes remained unchanged.
Does it absolutely have to be a question then? Okay. I'll give you what you want. I'll ask you a question. Only one question. Why?
The Siren blinked once and her fingers trembled ever so slightly. Thaw only just saw this before the memories came flooding in like a river, washing everything else away.
This time - he was sure - these were true memories, but there were too many. It was a chaotic bombardment all at once that made him roll his eyes and jerk his head backwards with a voiceless scream.
He saw a boundless abyss of inconceivable vastness where light and darkness are the same color and the creatures are beyond gigantic, swimming with the slowness of the ages and looking through eyes older than Time. Then, there were marine forests so vast they made the one he'd seen earlier look like a flowerbed. The plants were like thousands upon thousands of columns wrapped around each other in indescribable spirals. These gave way to enormous submerged cliffs cut with colossal caves as dark as the void between the stars. Next, there were sandy hills covered in geometrical shadows, creating impressions of armored creatures with too many legs and antennae.
And cities.
Cities carved into the rocks like termite mounds, crowned with towers of mother of pearl and black coral around which clouds of Sirens swam amid amazingly long pale snakes and swirling shoals of fish and other creatures of the abyss that moved so rapidly that it was impossible to discern their shape.
Thaw shook his head, in hopes that it would cast out this memory invasion, but it had no effect other than to allow the abyss to penetrate him more deeply. He was filled suddenly with thoughts containing abstract concepts, impressions and emotions that could only have come from a mind completely unlike his.
He saw a newborn Goblin with pointed ears and pearly skin, a contracted little face and tightly clenched fists. The baby was covered in strips of hair formed into a crib. He knew he was remembering himself. The mind with whom he was sharing these thoughts was filled with vastly differing emotions for that baby. Undoubtedly there was affection, but it was mixed with the awareness that this child was as much the fruit of chance as a need that had little to do with procreation.
He then saw the face of an adult Goblin, but its appearance was far from clear, a face his mother had given so little importance to she hadn't memorized its features fully. He was a father chosen by chance who'd been kept alive only as long as needed and then eliminated like all terrestrial creatures that ended up in the abyss.
Thaw realized with utter certainty the Sirens needed to maintain a link to dry land, a connection that would prevent their dimension from breaking away from all other reality to float off into the immensity of the void. Such a connection had to be forged through intimate contact with an earthly creature, but it mattered little if the intimacy was sex or devouring the creature.
Thaw was totally still, gritting his teeth until he felt them grinding.
Was that her answer? Was that the terrible secret of his birth?
He was simply the by-product of something that had absolutely nothing to do with his existence. He'd been thrust onto the earth because he didn't belong to the water and the darkness any more than that world belonged to him.
He tried again to struggle free, but his mother's grip was unshakable. The flood of thoughts raged even stronger, threatening to drown him in a new avalanche of revelations.
What do you want from me? He screamed without words. What more do you want from me?
In response to his voiceless questions, he felt his body mutating.
He felt his arms and legs changing size, and the water changing temperature, becoming warm and comfortable against his skin.
No!
The presence of the abyss that had already filled his mind seemed to be overflowing and spreading through his body, running through his veins like a pulse of cold. He was filled with a sense of being without time, a sensation that with every beat of his heart the world dissolved ever more into an eternal instant. Immortality because there was no time.
No…
He felt his muscles shifting under his skin, moving and sliding against his bones which in turn changed shape. He felt his hair losing the braids and growing, growing ever more.
No!
His final glimmer of consciousness faded and for an instant instinct took over. The pure, primordial instinct of Moryans.
Thaw shot forward and bit the hand holding him.
It was like biting into foam, but it lasted no more than a moment. Then, the Siren's hand dissolved between his teeth, slipping away along with all its visions.
Thaw struggled for a few more seconds out of a nervous reflex, but then he realised he was alone.
The sudden silence seemed more violent than a blow to the head.
He blinked and looked around.
The water was dark, very dark with only a faint glimmer, but this time it was definitely from above. All traces of the Sirens, underwater forests and emerald light was gone. Only water and darkness remained.
Thaw breathed in deeply, only vaguely noting that he seemed perfectly used to inhaling in water. The memories of the visions was already confusing him, like the cries of a disorderly crowd he'd heard at some distant time in the past. His mother's final thought when she left him was still very clear and perfectly understandable: an amazed, puzzled impression of doubt.
You truly don't understand?
Thaw said these words again with his mouth, not knowing if his mother could still hear him.
Well, perhaps you don't know everything about me like you thought. Perhaps you really know nothing.
He moved his arms and legs slowly, checking that they obeyed him, and then began swimming upwards.
Years before, you dumped me on the land because I had no purpose. Today, you told me the truth and offered me to become like you. Like all of you. If that was your way of making amends, by giving me a place to stay, then you really don’t understand anything.
Almost immediately, the water above him became lighter.
The surface couldn't be too much farther.
I have a place. But it's no thanks to you. You offered me a life like yours, outside of time. You offered me immortality. You tried to take death from me, my dear rediscovered mother.
You tried to take from me the one thing that makes me feel alive.
He reached the unmistakable glow of the surface quicker than he could have imagined, his head crashing through into the open air.
It was like waking up suddenly from a vivid dream. All the physical sensations he knew so well suddenly awoke in an instant. The air hit him and the water filled his nose, forcing him to kick harder so he was farther out and able to spit all the water out.
He had to work hard to say afloat in the cold water - the naturally cold water.
There was no water in his lungs; it was as if there never had been. He was exhausted. His wounds throbbed, all of them.
Verdigris clutched the root of a weed growing in the water with one hand and, with the other, she held the hand Needleye offered her in the darkness.
Another effort. She could do it. And again...
Verdigris managed to crawl into the mud slowly, partly by herself and partly with her friend's help. Then she rolled over and fell onto her back, breathing in as much air as she could. The sun had only just set and yet the night seemed darker than an underground hole. Clutches of vegetation rose up above her, moving gently in the evening breeze, but she sensed their presence rather than saw them.
Crossing the Lake had also become a well of darkness in her memory. Dark, dirty water bubbling up, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. A struggling Needleye helping her keep her head above water. Shouting receded into the distance. Sore shoulders, knees and eyes. Terror lumped in her throat. And more darkness.
She tried to look around, but saw only shadows. What part of the shore were they on?
She felt like they'd swum in a random direction - if swimming was the appropriate term for the desperate thrashing some Moryans used to keep themselves afloat when in danger of drowning - with the sole purpose of escaping the mayhem of the platform. They must have succeeded, because the Goblin voices were far off now, only just audible on the breeze. Perhaps she couldn't even hear them. Maybe she just imagined she could.