Shrouded Seascape

Back in the Subterranean Sea, Sparkle sat outside the main door. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them. With a dejected look, she silently watched the vibrant forest outside the house.

A sudden screeching sound of snapping trees broke the silence as a grotesque creature that towered several stories high emerged from the dense foliage.

At first glance, it seemed to resemble a massive, distorted wolf. However, it didn't have a single strand of hair on it and was, instead, covered in a thick layer of crimson membrane. Within the translucent membrane, streaks of purple, thread-like organisms slithered and writhed.

The giant wolf parted its cracked jaws and continuously devoured the fallen branches on the ground. When the branches were done, it moved on to tearing chunks of grass from the earth, and when the grass was depleted, it began to consume the soil itself.

With every bite it took, its barely wolf-like form began to wrap into a stranger monstrosity. If previously, it was just the product of two wolves fused together. Now, judging from the number of limbs, it resembled the amalgamation of six wolves, fused and contorted into a single monstrous entity.

Sparkle recognized it; it was one of her younger brothers. She hadn't seen it for days, but it seemed to have managed to find its own food source—devouring the flesh and blood of their father.

Meanwhile, their father, Charles, was indifferent to the loss of his physical remnants. He was more focused on other concerns.

As she watched her sibling's gradual transformation, a hint of grief flickered through Sparkle's eyes. She shifted and leaned most of her slender frame against the khaki-colored door.

With a trace of pleading in her voice, she implored, "Dad…please, let me in."

Yet, in the face of his own daughter's pleas, the door remained tightly shut.

A bright, white light enveloped Sparkle's body; her figure began to turn translucent as she tried to enter the room with her own powers.

However, when Charles was determined not to let her in, there was no way she would be able to barge in. After all, their powers shared the same origin, and any attempt at teleportation was futile.

The white glow around Sparkle flickered a couple of times before fading entirely. Sparkle still remained stranded where she was. Frustrated, she reached up and touched the faint wrinkles on her face.

"Dad…" she began. "The physical changes on me have nothing to do with helping you. It has always been like this."

Her eyes dimmed as she continued, "I don't even know what I'll turn into when I fully grow up…"

Charles' weary voice emerged from behind the closed door.

"Sweetheart, go find your mother. I shouldn't have dragged you into this chaos in the first place."

A pained look masked Sparke's visage as she closed her eyes in anguish. "Dad! You were the one who sent Mom to the surface; do you not remember? How am I supposed to go to her?

"The other gods of the Subterranean Sea can't even leave this place. How am I supposed to go find her?!"

"Did I… send her to the surface myself? I must have loved her very much then, did I? What was I thinking back then? Why didn't I send you up with her?

"Wait. No. You can't go up there. The surface world would be thrown into chaos if you went up. You belong to the Subterranean Sea! Now hurry up and leave!" 𝙍𝒶ℕ𝐎฿Ěᶊ

Sparkle clenched her right hand and thumped on the door with a balled fist. With a trembling voice, she pressed on, "Dad! You're all I have left! I don't have much time either."

The moment those words left her lips, the door slowly creaked open, and Charles' backview came into sight.

"If you want to stay, you must promise me one thing. Otherwise, I will send you away and you'll never find me again."

Sparkle seemed to have guessed Charles' following words, and she started her argument. "Dad, have you forgotten that my body has always grown at this pace? I've been aging faster than the rest since the moment I was born. Perhaps, from the very start, I only have less than ten years to live."

"Promise me," Charles said with a slight tilt of his head.

Sparkle's head drooped in defeat. "Alright, I promise."

"If the same situation from before happens again, never ever risk your safety to wake me. Leave this place and go as far away as you can," Charles stated.

Sparkle hesitated for a moment before eventually giving a reluctant nod

When Charles turned to face her, she couldn't hold herself back any longer. Tears streamed down her face as she threw herself into his arms.

Charles held Sparkle's face in his hands. As his eyes fell on the faint lines that marred her otherwise youthful skin, he felt a pang of hurt in his heart.

His fingers gradually moved downward and reached Sparkle's fair neck. Like tendrils, they probed under her skin as he attempted to analyze Sparkle's body and seek a plausible solution to halt the seemingly inevitable changes.

But Sparkle was not the least bit concerned about the changes. "Dad, don't be like this. I'm not human, and I've never feared death. I've had this premonition for a long while that when I reach the end of my lifespan, perhaps that's the moment that I will transform into who I was truly meant to be."

With a faint smile, she continued, "You know… When I was born, if Mom hadn't raised me as though I were human, I might've finished the transformation long ago.

"Mom taught me many things. I've also learned much from humans. But it's only now that I realize… I was never a human.

"There's no meaning to emulating humans—their appearance, their language, their rules. It's like a human trying to learn the language of ants and live among them. Maybe, my current form is unnatural."

Charles tightened his embrace and planted a gentle kiss on Sparkle's forehead.

"My pitiful child…"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

A soft smile graced Sparkle's delicate face. "I'm not pitiful. Even if it had been a mistake, as a human, I felt many special emotions I would've never experienced otherwise. Things like the love you and Mother gave me. And I like it."

Charles led Sparkle to the leather sofa and sank into his seat. The flesh on his back swiftly fused seamlessly with the supple leather.

A trace of confusion clouded his eyes as he asked, "Sparkle, is your mother really on the surface now?"

"Mmhmm," Sparkle nodded as she curled herself into his lap. "You sent her there yourself. You probably made that decision after she sacrificed two million lives for power."

"So many people died?" Charles muttered to himself before asking Sparkle, "Her name… What was it again?"

"Anna, but most of the time, you called her Zhao Jiajia."

"Is that so…" Charles then slowly raised his hands, and the next moment, a folded sheet of paper materialized between his fingers. It was a sketch tucked away in the pages of his diary.

It was a portrait of a stunningly beautiful woman. Charles himself hadn't drawn this portrait, but he had long forgotten who had drawn it.

However, he was certain that he had harbored deep feelings for her, or he would've never kept her sketch in his diary. The woman was surely Anna—his wife.

His rough fingers traced the lines of the portrait. Staring at the picture of the stranger whom he shared not even a single frame of memory with, he said, "Anna, how are you doing? How's life on the surface? Don't worry about anything down here. I'll handle them all. Just… live in peace."

Watching the scene before her, a hint of envy flickered across Sparkle's eyes. Back when she was younger, there was this fleeting moment where she had dreamed of experiencing love like this.

But before she could explore what love felt like, she had already outgrown that stage.

Just then, Charles' brow suddenly furrowed and his face darkened. He slowly rose to his feet.

"Dad, what's wrong?"

"Something's amiss. I don't know what it is, but just now, it seems like something important has happened."