Poseidia (8 page)

B
y the next morning, I’d convinced myself I imagined the whole thing. When I opened my eyes, Lily stood at the foot of my bed, her arms crossed sternly over her chest.

“The glass wall opened on its own and I fell through the dome
,” I explained in my defense, before she even said a word.

“
I know.”

“How do you know?” I asked, surprised.

“I sensed your departure when it happened. We all did.” She pulled up the computer menu to the glass wall in my bedroom and typed something.

“
You sensed it?” I slid my feet over the side of the bed and wiggled my toes, expecting them to change any minute.

“There are things you haven’t yet learned about us. It will take time to
clarify.”

“That’s what I want to understand. I want the explanations, today.”
Reality sank in now that the danger had passed. Lily had a lot of explaining to do.

She stared out the glass for a long time
, seeming preoccupied. “I disabled your wall for now.”

Figured that much.
“What’s wrong?”

“Everyone knows. The High Council wants to see you. I’m afraid of what they’ll determine.”

“What do you mean ‘everyone knows?’ Yes, I made a mistake by running away with the dolphin. I’m sorry for it. It was a stupid, emotional, impulsive decision.” I grasped the tooth I’d kept as a souvenir, from under my pillow, and handed it to her. “A tiger shark attacked me. I couldn’t see well—it was so dark.”

She
frowned, only briefly glancing at the tooth. “You couldn’t see? You should have been able to as if it was daytime. I’ll talk to Lucas about that.”

“You missed the part where I was attacked.”

“What you did put our whole community in grave danger. You’re too inexperienced. If you had been seen by anyone, we would all be at risk. Not to mention the harm you brought to one of our creatures.”

“I came back,” I defen
ded as a surge of adrenaline shot through my veins.
I was seen. Maybe even photographed. Had I ruined my chances here?
“Roman said you had to meet with a High Council.”

“I don’t know what they’ll do,”
Lily worried, turning back to stare out the wall. “You’ll have to stay here for now. I’ll come and get you once the High Council has decided what to do.”

“
What? It’s that serious?”

“Yes
, it is.” She left my quarters then.

Falling
back into the sheets, I dove under the comforting weight of blankets. I wished I could undo what I’d done, but I couldn’t. The tooth Roman had given me was still in my hand, and I enclosed my fist around it tightly.
Will they put me in some kind of prison? Or kill me?

Exhaustion won out and I slipped into a deep
, dreamless sleep. When I woke up, Lily was sitting on the edge of the bed.

“They want to meet with you in
a few days. They’re meeting in private first, and will see you soon after to hear your side of the story. This hasn’t happened before, so they want to confer amongst themselves. In the meantime, you’re not to leave the dome. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on you.”

“Am I a prisoner?
”

“This is for your safety and ours. You came back. That’s good.”

“Do you think they are going to throw me out?”

“I don’t know, but I doubt it. We’ll see. Now, let’s go eat, you must be hungry. They have some fresh fruit down
in the common area, and I thought we could have some tea. It’s dusk already.” She held out her hand for me.

“I slept longer than I thought. Let me clean up first. I need a hot shower.” As I placed my hand in hers to stand, I remembered the brutality of the attack. My hand went to my abdomen
, searching for evidence of the bite.

There was none. Not a mark of any kind.
“I don’t understand. I was bitten right here. Shouldn’t there be a scar or something?” The torn dress was piled in the corner, right where I’d left it. I shivered at the memory.

“Roman healed you
—it leaves no scars,” she affirmed. She walked to the closet and took out a new dress for me to wear.

“Can everyone here do that?” I asked, walk
ing to the bathroom.

“Only Roman.”

I didn’t linger in the shower. My anxiety level was high, and my blood sugar low. No wonder, doing the math I realized I hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours.

After I dressed, I walked with Lily to the common eating area. All heads turned towards me as we walked in. They smiled at me in unison, and raised their hands
in greeting. There was a flurry of movement as people shifted from table to table, but quiet—void of their voices.

Lily
led me to a table by a glass wall with a high vantage point and much of the city was visible. While I waited at the table, she brought us a plate of fruit and two cups of steaming hot tea.

Hunger forgotten,
I couldn’t focus on eating. Instead, I gazed out over the city lost in my thoughts, formulating questions.

“How do they grow gr
ass at the bottom of the sea?” An easy topic, to start.

“With see
ds,” she said, not elaborating.

I guess she thought that was a suitable answer.
“Why are they all so quiet? They’re silent similar to the woman who brought me food last night. She didn’t say a word. Does she speak a different language?” I ventured, biting into a huge apple she’d brought to the table.

Lily
raised her eyebrow, glancing briefly at all the other people going mutely about their business. “The woman who came to leave you food doesn’t know how to speak yet, not in the way you do. That’s not part of her job.”

“What do you mean
she doesn’t know how to speak?”

“You have to understand, talking is an ancient form of communication for us. We have a connective consciousness—we feel and think as one. If we wish to communicate something specific to someone, we project our thoughts to the person. If you want to share in memories then you have to be touching.”

“Is it… telepathy?” I quizzed. That would explain why all the people walking around the room never said a word to each other. They glanced at us and nodded their heads when they passed our table, but said nothing. In shock, I looked around at all the people with a new understanding of their silence.
Wait—Roman. Does that mean he could hear all my thoughts in the cave? Oh my god, I’m mortified. I fantasied about him making love to me. I hope he is an exception, or I’ll never be able to face him again.

“If that’s wh
at you want to call it.”

“Do you not have private thoughts?” I asked, getting more and more confused.
Please let my thoughts remain secret.

“We have private thoughts. Not everyone is privy to your thoughts, not exactly. You project into the Connective your energy, the whole of your thoughts, whether they are positive or negative. However, you can project
a specific thought to someone else if you wish to. You’ll have to be trained on how this works and how to protect yourself. However, even your internal dialogue carries energy. If it were negative, it would affect the wholeness and harmony of our community.” She paused and took a drink of her tea.

Whew. I think.
“But… I haven’t noticed any telepathy or connective-y thoughts. I don’t feel that,” I considered. “Does that mean the DNA infusion didn’t work?”

“You don’t feel it because of this.” Lily stopped eating and took my hand, lifting up a long and transparent covering from the back. “This is a sensory dampener. It protects you from our over-stimulating world, and protects us from your inexperience. This is why you do not feel the Connective.”

I ran my fingers over where she pulled it up. “Has that been there the whole time?” I marveled. “I never even noticed.” It was thin and transparent—it blended with my skin perfectly.
Ok, good. I think that means Roman didn’t hear my fantasies. Double whew.

“It covers your electroreceptors and tones down the sensory input from our world. Without it, your brain and nervous system would short-circuit and burn up,” she expl
ained.

“Is that why I’ve felt so… so… odd?”
And freakishly horny?

“Please explain how you have been feeling,” she requested, resuming her meal.

“I’ve experienced really conflicting emotions and mood swings. A part of me is happy to be here, almost to the point of euphoria. Then my brain and logic kick in and I argue with what I feel,” I confessed. “If that makes any sense.”
Yeah, omit the horny part. TMI.

“The euphoria you feel is the Connective. The sadness is your human thinking, holding on to your past, and resisting becoming a part of our world here.”

“Well, I woke up not even two days ago, and I am still in shock and overwhelmed from all of this. Can’t the Connective give me room to adapt?”

“This is what the dampener is for.” She grinned.
“If you’re finished eating, I should take you to see Lucas, to check things out. I’m concerned about your vision. Our eyes are far more sensitive than humans’. Come, we can talk while we walk.”

Lily led me out and we walked towards the Healing Center. As we walked outside in the gardens, we passed many other people in eerie silence. It gave me chills.

We approached the pyramid on our way and I stopped in my tracks—I craned my head up, and looked at the enormous structure, towering above us. An overwhelming desire to go in clawed at my skin. A tickle of recognition and déjà vu made me shake my head.
What is wrong with me?

“Can we go in?” I asked, on impulse.

“No, not yet. Only when the king and high council are ready to meet with you.”

“You have a king?”

“Yes, King Mestor,” she shared. “The King of Poseidia, King Mestor, lives in this pyramid. But we’ll save the story for another day. Come, we need to find Lucas.”

She took a few steps, but I remained
cemented to the ground in front of the pyramid. Lost in what seemed a memory, but it wasn’t from my life. My imagination must have been running wild.

I slapped my face a few times. T
he sting brought me back to reality, and I caught up with her. “If someone had evil thoughts, you would know it?” I asked.

“One must be pure to be part of our Connective. The Connective should purge the beginning of anything dark before it has time to take root.”

“What if they aren’t pure? What if they are evil? What would happen then?” I questioned. A slight breeze gave me the chills and I wrapped my arms around myself. A sense of dread crept up and my skin broke out in goose bumps. The self-hug not enough, I warmed my arms by brushing them with my hands.

“They would have to be removed from the Connective, or they will harm all of us,” she warned.

My mouth hung open in shock. The urge to run away from these crazy people clamped itself around my throat.

As w
e entered the Healing Center, she gave me a short tour before we found Lucas. Near the entrance was a wing of patient rooms, and then down a long hallway was the large room I’d seen yesterday. Being here again made me anxious.

“These are the
healing tanks. This is where you were for weeks. I stayed with you every day, right here.” She indicated the large tanks filled with neon-green water.

“You stayed with me?”
I laid in them for weeks?

“The t
anks hold a sacred formula used to regenerate our bodies. Anyone can use them if they are feeling weak, tired, or ill. If someone is injured in an attack they can stay in them until their wounds heal, if their wounds were not fatal, of course.”

We walked by
the healing tanks and she pointed to the left. “Down that hallway are two rooms,” she said. “One is for bathing and healing mud pools. It’s a community room.”

“And the other?
” I asked, remembering the rows of capsules containing bodies.

“You mustn’t go in yet,” she
warned.

M
y mouth opened to admit I already had a sneak peek, but then I shut it. I didn’t want to know. Not yet, anyway.

She looked over at me and tilted her head again
, pointing to the right side of the room. “Over here is a hallway leading to a locked room. I’ll show you what is inside one day, but not today. We need to find Lucas.” She took me to the same room I’d been in when I woke up. It was a distinctly uncomfortable walk back in time to when I first opened my eyes.

Lucas
entered the room soon after we did. “Hello Anna, how do you feel? I heard you had an eventful day. I need to scan you to confirm you are okay after your encounter. Is that all right?” Concern for me was evident in his face and tone of voice. It warmed my heart—it had been a long time since someone genuinely cared.

“Sure.”

“Have you noticed anything unusual?” With the gadget he had earlier, he scanned me head to toes, as before.