"Tonia! Stop right there; you can’t go there; it’s out of our territory!" Zara cried out with a show of concern.
"Nobody has to know, or would you tell on your dear sister?" Tonia replied with a smirk.
"Queen Mother knows and sees all, remember?"
"Come off it, Zara! Life is all about risks."
"I’ll just wait here for you, and make sure you do not touch anything there if you eventually see it!" Zara warned, eventually giving up on her older sister, who swam deeper into the depths of the ocean. The story was told of the vault of Arcadis, where rare treasures with mystical powers were stored yet guarded by the Box jellyfish, whose sting could send any living thing to an early grave.
Tonia continued to swim deeper into the ocean’s depth, with the surrounding water’s temperature gradually dropping, yet insignificant enough to deter the unwavering Tonia. Her sister’s figure began to diminish out of sight from the distance as she propelled deeper, this time around a bit slower, fear gradually creeping inside of her, an inner voice counseling her to have a rethink and turn back. The only company she had was a vast sea of many waters, freezing and dark, daring only the brave to proceed.
Tonia’s heart paced faster while her motion weakened to a lag. Her senses heightened, ready to pick up any sound or movement, but all that lay ahead was pitch darkness, and behind her was a distant illumination, fading away on the horizon.
Tonia’s blue and spherical eyes were quick to adjust to the darkness surrounding her, driven only by the positive propulsion of faith.
The depths of the ocean sparked thick and cold darkness; however, in the far deep, ahead of Tonia’s travel, was a golden sparkle, defeating the dominance of fear, loneliness, and darkness. This distant glow, which gradually increased, revealing the blueness of the ocean’s depth, propelled Tonia’s locomotion faster than before, surging within her an optimism to explore the deepest parts of the ocean and perhaps see for herself the truth behind the foretold vault of Arcadis.
Tonia’s eyes requited the radiance of the golden sparkle, whose dimension and source could not be ascertained. Right before her was the source of the sparkle: a rectangular doorway almost ten times bigger than her with the inscription, "Travelers have no past". "What does this mean?" she thought to herself. Tonia knew her adventurous nature would seek whatever lay beyond, perhaps the treasures she was foretold. She wondered if Zara still waited for her despite the long hours she had spent traveling the depths of the ocean.
While she stared at the inscription on the doorway indecisively, an eerie sound closing in on her caused a quiver in her, ceasing the breaths of her gills and alerting her fins for a quick swim to safety. Turning in the direction of the sound revealed the distant figure of the dreadful jellyfish, swimming intentionally towards her with a fierce fury to attack. Tonia scurried to the doorway, hoping to find a knob or entry; however, none appeared, only for her to be absorbed in the brightness of white light.
She, however, continued swimming in the direction of the light, heading to the unknown, away from her known enemy, the Box jellyfish. Tonia’s fins were at the peak of their functionality, her mouth sweeping in the waters of the ocean, closing her gills for breath. Her body, however, began to transform, with her fins gradually collapsing into limbs, her gills into ears, and her mouth and nostrils becoming like human ones.
"Who is that naked girl in the water?" A strange but manly voice yelled out in the far distance, calling the attention of others, who gasped in fear and concern.
Tonia, on sighting the humans at the shore, made a quick U-turn to dive into the depths of the water, but her fins had disappeared, and her new structural replacement, the long limbs, had difficulty adjusting to their new functionality and only erratically wobbled the water. She saw a human figure dive into the water towards her while others yelled at a distance, which caused her to frantically swim farther away from the beach, however slowly and almost unproductively.
Despite her efforts to swim to the depths of the ocean, Tonia felt strong arms grab her fragile naked body and drag her tired yet struggling body to the beach, where she was quickly covered by some clothes that were strange to her but welcoming to her new covering, skin.
In the far distance, in the middle of the ocean, was a bubble of many waters, packed full by a class of fish, where her sister Zara had gathered others to witness the transformation of her sister, a resolute farewell to Tonia the traveler, lost forever to the surface world of humans.
