"The Test" by Tina Wingham

The Test

by Tina Wingham

“Swimmers, you have 15 minutes to bring me something from the furthest point you can manage, and remember the winner gets to join the royal guard for our glorious and magnificent leader.” 

With a bang, the ocean swarmed with bodies, writhing in the sudden cold, lapping waves engulfing all traces. 

Sucking in my last breath, I braced for it, but nothing prepared me for the cold that stung my pale blue skin beneath my scales. The deeper I swam, the more I felt my skin retract. It crept across me in tiny, relentless bites, as if a swarm of unseen creatures were burrowing beneath my flesh.

But I persisted.

The sunlight zone faded quickly. At 200 metres, the world dimmed into a dull, flickering grey. Shadows stretched and warped, and above me the surface became a distant, trembling mirror.

I didn’t stop.

This wasn’t about winning. Not really.

The royal guard was a trap wrapped in glory. My father had served. His father before him. They never spoke of what it was like down here, but I had seen the way their eyes lingered on the horizon, as if something out there was still watching them.

No, this was just something to endure.

A final test.

At 1000 metres, I crossed into the twilight zone.

And everything changed.

The water thickened, pressing in from all sides. The cold sharpened into agony. My limbs slowed. Shapes moved in the dark.

The distortion of my vision, the way the water bent the last remaining rays of light into impossible angles. Then I saw them.

A school of Hatchetfish drift past, their thin, metallic bodies glinting faintly. Their large, empty eyes glowed like distant stars.

Their beady eyes always watching.

Every single one of them watching me in perfect, unnatural unison. Their eyes locked onto me, unblinking.

The silence was deafening, the roar of water thundering in my tiny ears. 

Then, without warning, the school scattered, vanishing into the dark as if they had never existed.

Something else had arrived.

Something that even the badass Hatchetfish were scared of.

A ripple of water flowed past my leg.

Turning carefully, my pulse hammering.

Barracudas.

Dozens of them.

Their long, sleek bodies cutting through the water with terrifying ease. Their teeth flashing in row after row of jagged teeth. They circled me lazily, waiting.

I forced myself to remain as still as I could.

Predators chased movement after all. 

But something about this felt…odd.

One of them drifted closer.

Then another and another until they had herded me all the way to a sunken underground cave.

I kicked backward instinctively, trying to break away, but the water seemed to suck me inside, slowing every one of my pathetic movements. The barracudas adjusted instantly, tightening their circle.

Driving me deeper inside.

“No,” I whispered, though the sound vanished before it left my mouth.

This wasn’t part of the test.

No one said anything about this.

The endless darkness below gave way to panic.

Something moved; I could feel it pulsing.

Slow movements.

The barracudas stopped halfway inside.

As one cohesive unit, they turned away, slipping back into the shadows, leaving me alone.

Alone with it.

It unfolded from the darkness like something waking from a long sleep. Tendrils drifted out, impossibly long, swaying with a grace that didn’t belong in this dead water.

And then

An eye opened.

It was larger than my entire body.

Just staring at me.

A low vibration rolled through the water. It pressed against my mind, sliding into my thoughts like ghost fingers reaching for their salvation.

You came.

My frozen body hung suspended.

Images flooded my mind: my father, standing at the shore after his service. The way he never entered the water again. The way he flinched at the sound of waves.

He hadn’t been afraid of the ocean.

He had been afraid of this.

You will return, the voice whispered inside me. Just like the others.

A tendril drifted closer.

Closer.

It brushed against my scales.

The test was never about distance or strength.

It was about finding this place and being fed to this creature.

Far above me, beyond the all-encompassing dark waves, the others would be surfacing, gasping, celebrating, believing they had won the test.

And I would be nothing but this year's dinner.