Chapter 249: Alex????????

After what felt like a long time— minutes or hours, the storm made it hard to tell— we found that one specific vine island.

I knew it was the right one because Alex stopped pointing at things and started looking at the water instead, her eyes doing a slow assessment of the current visible in the dark gaps between vine platforms.

She'd gone mostly quiet after the last bridge, which I'd learned was her version of focused, the chattering and the complaints going somewhere in her head while the calculating part came forward.

"There," she said, not pointing this time, just looking.

"There," I said, looking at the edge of the platform and the aggressive dark current below it. Churning. Active. Literally waiting for me to Jump to SUCK ME.

She looked up at me. "Jump into the water."

I looked at the current.

"Jump into it," she said again.

"We'll die," I said. This felt like a relevant point.

"No. Once you hit the water, grab the first vine you see and pull it. That's it. Just pull the vine."

"And then?"

"And then it works." She said this with a calm fsce of someone who had done it before, which was somehow more unsettling than if she'd sounded uncertain about it. "Trust me."

"I trust you," I said. "I'm also looking at the current."

"The current is only at the edges. The vine will—" She stopped, looked at my face, and made a decision. "Just go. Please…. I've been embarrassed being carried by you, like… my arms are wrapped around your neck and my legs are in your waist."

"Alright." I adjusted my grip on her. "When we die, I'm noting for the record that this was your idea."

"Yes," she said. "At least I'll have someone beside me. Tehee."

ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ

Then the sky split open.

The thunder that came was the loudest one yet, close enough that the sound arrived before the light, and the lightning that followed turned everything into white— the platform, the water, the village around us, and above it, clearly, unmistakably, the JELLYFISH.

Lower than before. Moving. Not drifting anymore, not following the general storm current, but moving with direction and intention, the bells tilting forward, the trails of tentacles swinging behind them.

Toward us.

And Yes, ಠ⁠◡⁠ಠ I jumped.

The water arrived all at once, cold and immediate, and then the water immediately started sucking us aggressively.

I got my eyes open underwater —the water pulled at everything, dark and fast— and looked for the vine.

There. THIC, right there, one large vine trailing down from the platform above into the water, darker than the water around it.

I grabbed it with one hand and pulled.

The vine pulled back.

Not my strength, not the motion of the water— the vine itself, contracting, retracting, drawing us in with a force that overrode the current completely, and I instinctively closed my eyes because there wasn't anything else useful to do with them and held on.

When I opened them again we were inside.

A cave. Or something like a cave— a hollow space inside the vine mass of the platform, just large enough for maybe five people, the walls alive and green and faintly warm.

Half of my body is soaked in the water below, well, Alex didn't lie about being half soaked here though.

The water in here moved differently— slower, gentler, a faint circulation that wasn't the aggressive current from outside. And it glowed. Blue, soft, coming from somewhere below the surface— I looked down and found the source was outside the cave entirely, visible through the entrance hole we'd come through, something about the water out there in this specific spot carrying light from somewhere I couldn't identify.

It filtered in and turned everything in the cave a soft underwater color.

Alex was in front of me. Sitting on a knot of vine that served as a ledge, her feet in the water, looking smug.

"Told you," she said.

"You were right," I said.

"I was right."

"I acknowledged it."

"I know, I just wanted to say it again." She looked around the cave with the proprietary satisfaction of someone showing you a place they found. "Safe zone."

I found a thick vine sticking out from the wall at the right height, tested it, decided it would hold, and used it as a seat.

We sat there in the blue-lit cave, the two of us completely soaked, water dripping from hair and clothes and the ends of fingers onto the surface below.

Alex's hair was plastered flat against her face and neck. I was probably not better. We looked at each other in the blue light and the outside storm made its noise beyond the cave entrance and neither of us said anything for a while.

It was actually fine.

The cave was quiet in the specific way enclosed spaces were quiet— the storm was still happening, we could hear it, but it was happening out there and we were in here, and the difference was significant.

Then Alex said, "Hey."

"Hm."

"Don't you want to know how I know about this place?"

I thought about it. "I assumed everyone in the village knew."

"No." She looked at me. "Just me and the Chief."

"Huh." I processed this. "How?"

She settled into her position on the vine ledge, the smug thing leaving her face and something more considered taking its place.

"I have a power," she said. "I know you probably won't believe me— power only exists in stories, whatever, I know… but I have one. That's how."

I looked at her. "Cool. What is it?"

She blinked. "...You're not going to question the part where I said I have a power?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I believe you. What is it?"

She stared at me with an expression of someone who had prepared for an argument and had their argument evaporate and didn't know what to do with their hands now. "Why aren't you shocked?!"

"Because I have one too," I said.

A pause.

"You're fucking with me…" she said.

"Dude…."