Welcome to Gaia! ::

Humans say that the deepest parts of the seas are the most mysterious places on the planet. That the sea is the only place that will never be explored. Tales of the sea are shrouded with mystical and eerie things. Little do they know, its also the closest place to hell any living creature is ever going to get.

Our people have been diminishing, slowly, but surely. We are marked by dark gray skin and yellow, translucent hides over our entrails. Our pale colored brains are left exposed, since they are less sensitive to impact than most creature’s. We live in the deepest parts of the ocean, where other intelligences cannot cause us harm. For centuries, we had lived in peace and silence. But, that was before a new kind of being revealed itself as a threat to all of us, an evil that has proven to not only be a murderous force, but to be swift and cunning.

The waters about the city are now scattered with the bodies of those felled by the ones we call the shrieks, since we have not marked this new enemy except by the horrible shrill cries that they create as they claim another victim. We have, however noticed, that the only places bodies have been found are spaces that are not lit by the crystals that grow and light a safe trail for us to travel. It is thanks to those crystals that we have not wasted away from starvation. But it was highly advised that we not leave the light for anything at all.

On the 13th day that we were trapped in the capital of the city, I was meant to go and retrieve supplies from the storage unit at the edge of the town. There were five of us left, four males and one female, not that it really mattered, since we knew that inevitably, we would all end up dead just like the others. Leaving the brightness of the capital, I made my way along the path led by the crystals, knowing full well that they kept me alive. The shrieks were always well hidden. No one had seen any physical form of the creatures. All they knew was that after hearing the shrieks, someone came up missing, and later was found floating belly up in the darkness.

As I reached the darker parts of the city, the bodies started to appear, and grow more numerous. There were only a few about, but I could see that their faces had been unnaturally twisted into wide eyed, frightened expressions and their flesh drained and wrinkled into skeletal forms. Their faces had mutated from whatever had killed them, giving them gaping mouth on their faces. We had no mouths, but devoured victuals through an open seam in between our ribs and bellies. What kind of monster had done this? All the yellow parts of these people were missing, and therefore, their lifeforce. I could taste death through my gills. It was all around me, death and destruction, ghosts, having been hideously shaped into something unnatural. Then, one of the bodies, despite its malformations, was familiar to me. I had known this person, his form distinctive to me by the brands he etched into himself for reasons even he didn’t know about. Most thought he was insane, and so did I. Even though I felt this way, I could not help but feel sorry that he had to die in such a way, like all these other poor souls. I also felt the greatest curiosity in the back of my mind. What if I could look at his body and determine how to possibly repel the shrieks? Find out where they had started to destroy him. Fear completely leaving me, I straggled from the light into the dimmer parts where his body hovered. The scars were once yellow, showing the life that flowed through him, but now, they were empty and black. Looking at his corpse, I saw that the brain had been changed into what appeared to be black and gray tatters of dead skin billowing idly from his head. It disgusted me, to think that the mind could be so horribly altered. But why? Turning away quickly, I started back towards the light, a few seconds of complete silence passing. Then, I heard it. The shriek. Louder than I had ever heard it before. My heart filled with fear and I found myself completely motionless. A set of body, angled digits grasped my brain, and I could feel the details of the wrinkled skin, the sensitivity of my cerebellum finding the same symbol that the insane one had carved so repeatedly into his flesh. Then, the meaning of that symbol came to my mind. The concept of shadow overtaking light, so that light could not exist without darkness. Now I knew that he had known this was coming, the destruction of our civilization. Why would he tell no one? As I realized that it must have been his very corpse that began to mangle my mind into confusion and drink away at my innards, I felt the more anxious feeling of doom enter me. It was inevitable. Some kind of monster born from our race was taking over, and somehow, it had been our doing. The minds of the shrieks had been mangled by the sins of others, our inability to comprehend anything besides survival and transcendence. My body soon started to shrivel—I was completely empty, and yet complete--and now I knew, the shrieks were the ones who understood all.

And I would soon be joining them to purify all that had been imperfect…