Mith stared through half-open eyes at her breakfast, moving it around with her fork. It stirred a little before settling back down on her plate.
"Are you alright, Mith?" her mother asked from across the table.
Mith glanced up, wishing she could go back to sleep, but dreading it all the same.
"I had another nightmare..." Mith mumbled, taking a small bite of her food. She barely tasted it.
Her mother grew still for a moment, then sighed. "I think it might be from stress? School is starting and you haven't decided if you're going to go back or not."
Mith continued to push her food around her plate, not answering.
Her dreams had always been vivid and her sense of deja vu was constant. This dream had felt different though; more real. The thought of that terrified her. Was it just her indecision of what the future held? There were so many choices ahead of her and she felt stuck, unsure of what to do.
"Your grandmother and I have to go into the city. I was thinking you could come along, check out some other schools in the area?"
That surprised her enough to look up.
"You'd let me go to school in the city?" Mith asked.
"You're 17 now, almost full grown. You've mastered your skill and... we have enough help around here," her mother said, giving Mith a warm smile.
Mith's family ran a farm on the outskirts of civilization, one of the few places left where the sun was still strong enough to grow crops. It held dangers that most city folk couldn't bother to know about, but for Mith they were a part of daily life.
"When are you going?" Mith asked, taking another bite. Some of the flavor returned, reminding her of how hungry she was.
"We have the last field to harvest, so perhaps a week? It would go faster if we could ensure your help," her mother said, leveling a stare at her.
Mith felt her cheeks grow hot and she lowered her gaze again. "Yes mother."
"Hey," her mother said, reaching across the table and taking Mith's hand. "Everything will be okay. They'll figure out why there's not a lot of sun. In the meantime, you get to figure out what to do with your life."
Mith managed a strained smile, not daring to voice her fears. Her dreams were dark places where the sun had been swallowed up and food was scarce. Something was coming; she could feel it.
The sound of footsteps echoed from the stairwell as her three siblings poured out of the upper floors.
Their home was built in a seamount, spanning several levels and looking out over their farm. From their vantage point, Mith could see everything from any window in her home.
"I'd better get to work," Mith said, pushing her half eaten breakfast away from her.
"Heya sis,' said Sebastian, his deep green scales almost black in the early morning light.
Mith stood up, not wanting to be in here with everyone. She didn't like being around lots of noise and commotion, preferring the quiet company of her mount, Ti. She gave Sebastian a smile in greeting. Her two other siblings, Garrith, with scale colors of green and blue, and Meredith, her deep ocean blue scales matching the almost black of Sebastians, appeared from the landing. They exchanged morning pleasantries before Mith ducked out the front door and headed down to the sandbar below their home.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:59, Tue 04 Oct 2022.

As Mith headed down, someone else was heading up. Tru puffed as she scaled the mount, for she was a willowy girl without much strength. Looking up to see how far she had to go, she saw Mith coming and smiled up at her. She stopped, letting the reason for her visit come to her.
She brushed at her arms as she was chilled by a brisk ocean current, still cold from the night. Her scales rose a bit then clamped down against her skin in response, and she shivered. It was really too early to be out and about, she didn't know how Mith's family did it every day.
As she watched Mith descend, it became clear she was troubled. Tru kept her worry from her face, waiting quietly. She knew Mith would open up if she wanted, if not today, then later when she had thought it all through. Maybe. That was how it had used to be, children sharing children's worries. But now they were grown, and Mith had been cagey lately. Tru hoped it wasn't something serious. Just anxiety over school or something. But things like that were easy enough to talk about. Whatever was bothering Mith seemed to be bigger than that, and Tru was a little frightened to find out what it was.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:13, Tue 04 Oct 2022.

Mith was so lost in her thoughts that she nearly walked right past her best friend, Tru. She blinked and looked up before a large smile spread across her face. Relief coursed through her at the sight. It had been almost a week since she had last seen Tru and the desire to share some of her worries floated to the surface.
A small voice inside her hesitated though. It was worrying her, would it not also worry her friend? She felt her smile slipping and pushed the thoughts aside. She'd wait to share, at least for the moment. No sense in spoiling the visit so early on.
"Good morning, Tru!" Mith said as she continued downward. "I have to go take care of the coxpits, follow me?"
The creatures were small fish-like crustaceans her family harvested for food.
The ocean current reached Mith and she shivered, her worry deepening. It was too early in the year for it to be this cold... wasn't it?

Tru smiled dreamily and nodded. "Okay." She thought the coxpits were cute. She didn't like thinking about their eventual fate, though. But food was food, and getting more scarce all the time. But she could go play with the babies and make sure they had a happy day. Plus, it would warm her up. Cold always made her feel slow and sleepy.

Mith beckoned her forward as they continued down the slope. Several times she opened her mouth to say something, but then rethought it. How did one tell their best friend they were worried about the world ending? Then again, was that really what she was afraid of?
She fed and cleaned the coxpit cage and before she knew it, her chores for the morning were done. The faint shimmer of sunlight shown overhead and she couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't dimmer than it was the last time she took time to notice it.
A shadow darkened the space above them and Mith's heart jumped into her chest. Above them an elongated shape slithered towards the surface some fifty feet above them.
She froze, beckoning Tru to silence. It appeared they had escaped the things notice, but Mith didn't want to take chances. At Tru's confused look, Mith pointed upwards.
Without saying anything, she allowed the current to pull her further away from the monster above them. If she wasn't careful, it would sense her movements in the water. They were out in the open, too far away from the seamount to seek cover. She hated the GMO's. It was them alone that had stopped her further exploration of the surface and taking the lack of sunlight matter into her own hands.
Unfortunately their only source of cover took them closer to the rift. The rocks that made up the wall blocking access to the deep ravine were their closest source of protection. The Coxpit pen wouldn't hold up for two seconds against a GMO attack. She glanced at Tru and pointed, waiting for her friends acknowledgement.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:38, Sun 09 Oct 2022.

Slowly curling into a trembling ball, Tru gave Mith a tiny nod, her eyes wide. She saw Mith drifting towards the wall and ceased her own automatic adjustments to stay still. Tru was closer to the coxpit pen than Mith, and floated along nearly parallel to her friend.
She had only seen a GMO twice before, once on a family outing when she was little, and again while out exploring with Mith a few years previous. Both times she had been able to hide right away. Being so out in the open like this nearly froze Tru with terror. She desperately tried to hold very still and not sob aloud, but she couldn't stop the trembling. She was too afraid. A tingling numbness engulfed her hands and feet, and the same feeling prickled at her cheeks and forehead. Her breathing quickened, and now she also fought against fainting dead away.
But while she couldn't take her eyes off the GMO above, she could still see Mith from where she was. Mith's body language communicated caution and alertness, but not fear, and that more than anything helped Tru not panic and flee as fast as she could.

Mith could see Tru was struggling. She stopped for a moment to let Tru get close enough to touch. Then with a minuscule movement, she took Tru's hand in hers. She could feel her friend trembling and wished she could talk. GMO's were incredibly dangerous, but this wasn't the first time she had encountered one. The best bet was to let the current take them where they needed to go. It would take longer, but would lessen the chance the creature would spot them.
It took what felt like hours to reach a large enough crevasse for them both to squeeze into. She pushed Tru in front of her, glancing behind her.
The GMO has stopped in it's eastward movement, flicking it's head back and forth. She could barely discern the movement, as far away as they were. It had sensed them, but hadn't seen them. Despite their lethality, GMO's had terrible eyesight.
She turned back towards the hole in the rock where Tru waited and froze.
Where an open expanse of water had met her eyes just moments before, pitch black water stared back at her. It seemed to rush up to her like the maw of some giant beast threatening to swallow her whole. It stopped just short of the rock wall where she had been trying to seek shelter. The crack in the earth was still there, but seemed darker and more threatening than ever.
She couldn't help the jolt of movement as she nearly tripped over her own feet to get away from it. Tru poked her head out of the rock wall to see what was taking Mith so long. In that instant, the slightly opaque blue water was back, as if the wall of blackness had never existed.
"Mith!" Tru cried, pointing behind her.
She turned to see the GMO speeding towards their hiding spot. Her sudden jerk away from what she thought she had seen had given away their location.
Scrambling to her feet, she put on a burst of speed and concentrated on charging up her electric shock. If she could surprise the creature, she might live through this.
Thankfully she was close enough to the outcrop that she made it before the creature got too close. Heart hammering in her chest, Tru and her got as far away from the opening as possible. In moments, they could feel the water current as the massive creature swam back and forth over the top of their hiding place.

Tru let herself cry, gasping in short, terrified breaths between each racking sob. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed rather than watch the GMO, her body shaking worse than ever as she clung to her friend.

In reply to Tru (msg # 8):

Mith did her best to appear calm. Shock had made movement difficult after she had reached the safety of the cave. She reflexively reached out to Tru. She held to her friend as much as Tru held to her. She may not have started sobbing, but her body was shaking hard as her mind  ground to a halt. She could feel the water moving behind her as the GMO swam back and forth, trying to decide if it could get at them. But Mith wasn't worried about the creature. What had she seen? The wall of blackness replayed itself over and over in her mind.

She tried to tell herself it was the stress of her dreams. She had seen something, but her mind had made it more than it was. The whole world didn't shift like that.

Slowly, the words began to feel real. She had imagined it, the fear of the GMO driving her to see things. That was all.

It felt like hours, though the sunlight had barely shifted when Mith noticed she could no longer feel the water movement. She took a deep breath and released Tru, who had stopped crying but was still shaking.

"Are you alright?" Mith asked, looking over Tru for signs of injury. Then she berated herself mentally. She should have pushed Tru back to the seamount and gotten the creatures attention, not dragged her with to the caves. What kind of friend was she? "I'm so sorry."

Tru gave Mith a small smile with shaking lips. "Sorry for saving me? Th-that's silly." She giggled, the sound pitched high with stress. "We were so out in the open, if I had been alone it would have got me." She shuddered and started to gently hiccup as she tried to take deep breaths and calm down, rubbing her trembling arms. Her muscles were becoming weary with all the shaking, but she couldn't make it stop. Her shoulders juddered on.

In reply to Tru (msg # 10):

They waited another ten minutes or so before Mith headed for the opening. There had been no sign of the deadly creature for awhile. The creatures could be stealthy, or so she had heard. Her experience said they only kept people away from the surface, though to hear people talk about them, they were crafty.
She found a larger rock on the floor and threw it as hard as she could through the entrance. She scurried back several feet, watching the opening. When no shadows crossed over it, she ventured further and stuck her hand out. When there was still no movement she crept forward and stuck her head out, shoulders bunching in case she needed to dive back inside.
Clear water stretched out in front of her. To her left, the seamount rose from the ground several hundred feet away. Her heart kicked into high gear as the thought of looking to her right filled her with dread.
'It was my imagination. There's nothing over there except empty water...' Mith thought to herself forcefully.
She glanced that way quickly, heart thudding painfully in her chest. Open water stretched across the gap opening to the same murky depths she had come to expect. She let out a breath of relief, her shoulders finally relaxing fully for the first time in what felt like hours.
"It's gone, Tru. You can come out," Mith called to her friend, glancing around. The sunlight was still filtering through the water, indicating not much time had passed. She said a small prayer of thanks to the God of All, feeling foolish for not doing so earlier.

She heard Tru's emphatic sigh of relief from deeper in the crevasse. Moving quickly, Tru darted past her friend and swam upwards a bit, wanting to feel the sun on her face. Curling her legs up to her chest, Tru closed her eyes and just floated quietly. She still trembled, in soft little bursts every few moments, but she almost had it under control. She groaned. "By the Sky and all it holds. That. Was. Awful."

Mith bit the inside of her cheek as she continued to look around. Her chest was still tight as the same image of the dark, black water re-entered her mind. "I agree. Let's head back..."
She didn't like the idea of leaving her back exposed to the source of her uncertainty and kept checking behind her every few feet, as if making sure what she had seen was only in her mind.

Tru hurried to Mith's side, eager to get under shelter and perhaps find something sweet to eat. That would definitely banish the last of the tremors. As her adrenaline ebbed, Tru felt more and more exhausted. As her brain gradually stopped buzzing, she went back over the incident in her mind. She was distracted by Mith's jumpy behavior, but thought it only natural after what they had just been through. She was about to offer to swim backwards to keep an eye on their rear when she remembered something. "Mith, what made you stop? At the crevasse? I thought the GMO was about to get you so I poked my head out, but it was still a ways away. And you were looking the wrong way."

Mith felt her heart skip a beat. So Tru had noticed. She kept swimming, swallowing hard as she tried to come up with a valid reason. After several moments hesitation, she came up empty. She slowed then, drifting a bit.
"I... don't know," she answered, feeling like that was an inefficient answer. She scrubbed a hand across her head. "I was swimming towards the rock and... well, the space beyond the crevasse... it changed. It went all dark and murky. It happened in an eye blink. One second I was shooting towards the rock, trying to get away from the GMO and then next..."
Mith shivered at the memory, the giant wall of darkness that wanted to swallow her up. The water around her felt cold and she shivered involuntarily.
"It was probably just my mind playing tricks on me though," Mith said, glancing behind her for the hundredth time since coming out of the cave. The open expanse of water was the same grayish green it had always been. She didn't mention the eerily familiar scene she had seen in her dreams.

Tru followed her gaze, cocking her head to one side. Perhaps something passed overhead? But she would have noticed something that big. Maybe something above the water? She looked back at her friend, saw how troubled she was. She caught her lower lip between her teeth as she considered. "I've never known your brain to play tricks, Mith. Should we go back and check?"

"I..." Mith started, glancing backwards again. Curiosity burned within her, coupled with the terror of seeing something so close to her dreams. Before she could answer, another voice rang across the empty sandbar between them and Mith's seamount home.
"Thank the Surface!" came the panicked sound of Mith's mother. She was rushing across the sandbar, apron flailing wildly as the water whipped past her. Mith could see the slight waver in the water behind her that indicated just how fast she was going. "Your father would have had my farm if anything would have happened to you, Tru!"
She gave a disparaging look to Mith. "What made you think going to the crevasse was a good idea?"
Mith burned with embarrassment. "We were too far away from the seamount and the coxpit's pen wouldn't have held up for a moment against the sun eaters (formally GMO's). The rocks and burrows against the crevasse were our best bet."
"Did you not think of the ecroles?"
Mith felt her stomach clench. Ecrole's were nasty little blood suckers that could cause a lot of pain and hassle if one were to encounter them. They had quills across the top they could shoot as a defense. They were venomous and caused an awful rash while it worked through the system. It's bottom had six legs, each of which it could move individually. They were equipped with suckers that could pull the blood from a vanoran's body. They tended to hide in small holes inside the seamounts and large rock piles. They weren't aggressive like the sun eaters, but could still be problematic.

Tru giggled softly in distress, her lavender eyes still a little too wide. "I would rather face ecroles than a sun eater..." She spoke in a whisper as she sidled up to Mith and took her arm in jittery arm in silent support.

When Mith did not immediately respond, her mother pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. "You have always had an unnatural obsession with that crevasse. Perhaps going to school in the city would be best..." She turned away from them and headed back towards the seamount. "I've made some lunch. I assume the coxpit's have been seen to?"
Mith nodded, still biting back the retorts that tried to surface. It wasn't her fault a sun eater had attacked. She still felt the rocks had been the best bet.
Arguing with her mother was futile though. What Mith did or didn't do had little effect on the family. She had two older brothers who would take over the farm and her youngest sister was betrothed to a high up in the city. Mith had freedom to do whatever she wanted - except to go near the crevasse. The back of her neck itched and she resisted the urge to look back over her shoulder again. She didn't know what had happened, but it was clear it wasn't about to again.
"Come in for some lunch, the both of you. Let's just... not mention this to anyone else, alright?
Mith frowned. "Did no one else notice I was gone?"
Her mother shook her head. "Everyone assumed you were over at the rocks. I was the only one that noticed the sun eater. They left to go take care of other parts of the farm, no one was out here."
Mith breathed a sigh of relief. No one else had been in any danger. She wondered if that was the true reason for her mothers ire. Not warning the rest of the family was a rather blasé thing to do.They followed her mother back to the seamount silently.

Tru clung closely to Mith the whole way back, her eyes forward on Mith's mother's back. She still felt so frightened. The sun eater was one thing, and over with, but the anger of Mith's mother was another. Tru couldn't really handle confrontation. It just... made her go blank, almost. She shut down and couldn't respond. It was frustrating for her, because no matter how often she rehearsed in her head, no matter how many appropriate responses she came up with before or after, she always froze. She wished she had the courage to really speak up, instead of just whispering or worse, doing nothing. She wanted to defend her friend. She determined to mention that Mith's bravery was the only reason she was still alive. She would have almost certainly panicked and tried to flee if she had been alone, or even the first to spot the sun eater. It shamed her to admit it to herself, but it was true.

Panic was another problem. There hadn't been many moments of such danger in Tru's otherwise sedate life, but each time she had eventually succumbed to the blindness of terror. If she had been alone or otherwise unaided, she would be dead many times over. Stifling a groan, Tru leaned her cheek against Mith's shoulder and despaired of ever being as brave as her friend.

When she looked up, Mith's mother had vanished through the entrance to the seamount and they were nearly there, so Tru risked another whisper. "We can go back later, ok?" She knew Mith was still concerned about whatever she had seen. She shuddered to revisit the crevasse so soon, but if she was with Mith, she knew she would be alright.