AkemiKraus

Akemi Kraus, the daughter of a Japanese researcher and German journalist, was born into a period of significant technological advancement as the glass sphere now illuminated homes in place of flimsy wax cylinders. An average family selected to embark into the furthest reaches of the known, or rather unknown, world; 海洋, Ozean, the ocean. Tasked to aid in the beginnings of mankind's first permanent underwater research station they would become known as the most infamous adventurers of their time.

The station, reflecting the ocean’s unpredictable temperament, would harness such raw natural force utilizing new technology; geothermal power, extracted from underwater volcanoes. With this futuristic technology, their research would begin on the alien world that slept so deep beneath the surface, many of its inhabitants possibly never knowing the sun’s warm caress. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Perhaps, however, what they uncovered was meant to remain another point of ignorance for man. 45 individuals traverse below the tides and only 1 would ever surface again; Akemi Kraus.

Her ears felt like bursting as the pressure nearly suffocated the young child, Akemi was eager to adventure so close to the earth’s unraveled center. Every day was like reading the newest science-fiction novel brimming with the expansion of their station, discoveries of a new unimaginable life wadding through the murky waters, and things that any child couldn’t even begin to understand. As their new life crept forward her mind adapted and… her body followed.

Many began to notice eerie developments of their own; skin hardening akin to a shark's, painful blistering that would rupture to reveal gill-like structures along their esophagus, and insatiable desires for flesh—a sickness of sorts. None were immune, not even dear Akemi with her eyes casting an otherworldly glow, developing a nauseating sensitivity to natural light, and suddenly the creatures just on the other side of the porthole began to speak a language she could fluently understand. Scarcely a year had ventured by and now, either through insanity, sickness, or a deadly concoction of both, their numbers had dwindled drastically.

Fearing for their precious daughter’s safety those caring parents used the last ditches of their sanity to preserve her through experimental means; cryogenic freezing. Frozen and forgotten by the world and time she slept.

And slept.

And slept.

Decades crept past. Eventually, the old and neglected system finally breathed its last breath and freed the child. Now abandoned by all but the plankton drifting in the waters, far below the waves this child would protect her world; her home.

Days rolled into weeks, followed by months, and then an onslaught of years following her revival. The station left in a decrypted state was now glistening like the thousands of stars above. Perhaps now was finally the time to turn her gaze towards the world that had abandoned her eons ago.

On an island neglected by time, one might find a rusty elevator resting in the forest there. Soon a ding would echo across the land for the first time in over two centuries. The doors will groan open and reveal a woman donned with grease-coated covers and goggles dedicated to shielding her pupils from the sun above, her worn boots easing into the warm sands.