Under the Sea

She walked and swam alone in the ocean wasteland, only pausing to sleep every day and a half or so. She was very hungry, but it didn't stop her silent journey. She passed glowing magma vents and tube worms clustered like flowers, ancient metal whales that had died Above before sinking to their final rest, and rock formations that loomed cliff-like above her. She was dimly excited- she'd never been this far south before- but watchful and almost on pins and needles in her quick pace.

She'd named herself Scylla, after one of the books(?) she'd found inside 396, her metal whale. Some of the guts and brains had still worked and glowed, enough that she'd picked up surface common from their stored knowledge, over time. Part of the draw had been all the treasure it had swallowed- big, cone-headed fish made of metal that exploded of they hit something, flat pieces of water that reflected everything in front of them, a little bone that had other bones on it's ends. One was a knife, one was a saw, and she'd been delighted to find out one let her take screws out of things. The Above was weird, but fascinating.

The water here, for example. She felt lighter, like she was floating on her feet, and it had another quality, like the glow of 396's bones. She could also see further and better through the water than she ever had before, for some reason. Good enough to see movement further off. She crouched down and moved slowly, her tentacles trailing out lazily behind her. It looked like a group of fish, maybe a school of Tuna.

And they were singing.

"The seeweed is always greener, in someone else's lake-"

She crept closer, her lights dimmed and ghostly. It was a stalk, and she gripped her metal stick tightly as she flowed closer to her prey.

"You dream about going up there, but that is a big mistake-"

She just needed to be able to spring-

"Just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor- hey, wait, what's that? Frank, you see that?!"

"It's a squid! It's a squid! Let's get outta here!"

"Verdammt!" She burbled, before the tentacles over her head surged, and hard. She shot forward with a cloud of silt in her wake, the mass of fish twisting away from her before she hit their edge. The maw over her head opened wide as black ink poured out of it, diffusing through the water in moments
in a solid cloud. Tuna were scattering, and she surged forward again. She could see in the dark, but the other fish weren't able to, only panicking.

Her own mouth split open, fanged and alien as she gulped down all the fish she could, from direct passes to grabbing them and swallowing them whole. Her throat was ringed with teeth, to prevent their escape and to actually chew her food, and she gorged herself now. It had been a long time since she'd had anything to eat...

Some of the fish broke for a corner of the dark, before lights began glimmering there, in the shape of her tentacles. They changed direction- right into her waiting jaws. The lights were an illusion, something she knew how to do almost instinctively. They broke apart and bobbed upward, shifting from purple to blue to purple to yellow as made herself float downward, back to the ground.

"Das war sehr gut!" She chirped.

The cloud of ink was beginning to disappear, but she was content. She patted her bulging stomach and sighed happily in a brief pop of bubbles, taking a second to look around at the grey and brown coral flocks. If the rocks were alive, she had to be going the right way. When she started her trek again, she wasn't as nervous or hesitant, not after she'd finally gotten to snack.