The Strange Rituals of Humanity (Ocean's Song, Chapter 10)
Alone in Miguel’s apartment, Amara witnesses the strange rituals humans perform while adapting to her new legs.
Amara sat stiff on the couch, legs drawn beneath the blanket. The human had told her to rest, but she was not tired. Not drowning. Changing.
The crown whispered: Stabilization ongoing. Secondary swarm degrading. Host functions: improving.
Her gaze drifted to the desk in the corner, where a tower of black stone and glass blinked with lights. Little points winked like plankton scattered in a tide pool. She cocked her head at the faint clicking inside. She answered with a burst of dolphin-clicks, soft and uncertain. The machine did not reply.
Her eyes lifted to the largest screen. A line of pale green ripples crawled across it—sharp, deliberate. Her chest tightened.
The signal. Her signal, sent against the Council's will, etched now into human angles and symbols. They could hear it. But did they understand? Or did they only measure, like fishermen counting corpses in a net?
She had broken the deepest law to send that cry to the surface. Now she was trapped here to see what answer it would bring.
She pushed herself up, bracing on the couch. Her muscles were strong—still coiled with Atlantean swimmer's power—but the pattern was wrong. Too much thrust, and she lurched forward, arms windmilling. Too little, and her knees collapsed.
The nanites barked corrections: Not fast enough. Too much thrust. Shift weight.
It felt like leaping from cliff to cliff, each stride a fall disguised as movement. In the old tongue, there was a saying: To swim against the current, first you must yield to it. Perhaps humans had the same law. To walk was to fall, and catch oneself before the abyss claimed you.
She clutched the desk at last, knuckles white. Shame burned in her chest—she had once outpaced dolphins; now she toppled like a hatchling.
The screen pulsed expectantly. The crown whispered: Information access terminal. Multiple input protocols detected. She spotted a small dark circle near the screen's edge—a microphone, the nanites identified. But her throat still struggled with human sounds, words emerging thick and uncertain.
The keyboard would have to do. The crown shimmered her vision, overlaying familiar Atlantean glyphs above the strange human symbols. She recognized this now—a control center, like the great terminals in the deep cities where information flowed like currents through coral networks. Here, the humans had built their own version, crude but functional.
Slowly, clumsily, she struck the keys: L-E-G-S.
The screen erupted in color. Human limbs gleaming under bright lights, voices sharp and eager. Hair removal. Smoothness. Beauty standard, the crown whispered, then offered context: Similar to shell-polishing rituals. Aesthetic enhancement. Images flashed—razors, wax, machines that tore hair by the root.
She recoiled. Hair on legs? Why would humans grow it, only to strip it away?
Another image flashed—an alligator lumbering across sand. The voice promised salvation from scale-like skin with a creamy potion. Amara's throat tightened. Scale-like? She would give anything for scales. Her legs were pale, bare, fragile as bone coral—ugly in their nakedness.
She cleared the screen and typed with more purpose: H-O-W U-S-E L-E-G-S.
Videos bloomed—rows of humans straining, bending, springing under shouted commands. Leg workouts, the captions pulsed.
Her lips twitched in the ghost of a laugh. Even they had to practice. Even they were not born knowing.
Amara drew a breath. If she was trapped in this clumsy form, then she would master it—even if it meant mimicking the strange rituals of hairless, shouting humans on a glowing screen.
The screen filled with rows of humans bouncing in unison, their voices sharp with command. Squat. Step. Lunge.
Amara mimicked them, watching their movements and trying to copy the rhythm. She thrust too hard, overshot, and nearly toppled into the wall. Too much thrust. Adjust weight, the crown corrected after her stumble.
Her next step was too cautious—she froze mid-stride, legs quivering. It was falling, over and over, and somehow not hitting the ground. When she wobbled dangerously, the nanites offered: Catch with opposite leg.
The humans on screen smiled as they strained. She bared her teeth too, though hers felt more like a grimace.
Her arms windmilled, her knees buckled, but she kept going—awkwardly echoing the rhythm. After several attempts, she managed a full sequence without falling.
And for a moment, between slips and corrections, she felt the ghost of balance.
The instructor's voice cut through, clear even before the crown translated: Remember, stay hydrated!
Amara paused, frowning. Hydrated. Water. At last—something she understood.
She staggered toward the smaller cave Miguel had used earlier, bracing on the walls. Inside, smooth stone surfaces gleamed under light, crowded with strange devices. She remembered the sounds from here—the clatter of preparation, the hiss of water. A place for making sustenance.
She found the water source by instinct and sound—metal pipes, a lever. But when she grasped it, nothing happened. She twisted, pushed, pulled. Finally, water gushed forth, glittering in a narrow fall.
She leaned forward, opening her mouth to the flowing stream as she always had.
Her throat seized. Wrong. Flat and bitter, tasting of metal and strange chemicals. She jerked back, spitting and gagging. The nanites offered: Safe. Hydration source. Essential.
She glared at the flowing stream. "Water," she muttered, the syllables heavy. This was not water. This was some pale imitation, stripped bare of the sea's gift and tainted with foreign poisons.
Her gaze fell to a small glass jar—white grains within. The crown supplied a word: Salt.
She seized it, tasted the crystals on her tongue. Pure, harsh, but familiar. She took a mouthful of the bitter stream-water, then a pinch of salt, trying to blend them in her mouth.
Better, but still profoundly wrong—like trying to rebuild the ocean one drop at a time. Why did humans separate what belonged together? Salt and water, divided into jars and streams, lifeless apart.
She leaned against the stone surface, chest heaving, staring at the running flow.
"This world," she whispered, the words strange in her mouth, "does not even know water."
She left the tap running behind her, its endless hiss a pale imitation of waves, and returned to the glowing screen. But this time, she did not sink into the couch.
She stayed upright, shifting from foot to foot, knees bending with every step. Falling, catching. Falling, catching. Her arms flared for balance as she practiced the rhythm, each stumble met with quiet nanite corrections.
The screen pulsed with new voices. She wondered—had her signal reached others? Were they listening?
She cleared the search and typed: C-L-I-M-A-T-E.
Images unfurled—fragments of human life, compressed and polished. A woman tossed her head, waterfalls of shining hair cascading down her back. Voices purred of strength, volume, shine.
Amara blinked. Hadn't the other voices demanded that hair be removed? Now they begged for more? Which was it, then—strip or grow? In the deep, beauty meant balance: the sheen of healthy scales, the harmony of form to current. Here, it was contradiction piled on contradiction.
She stumbled through another lunge, almost falling, catching herself on the edge of the couch. Her muscles burned with the effort.
The screen shifted to what she'd actually searched for—melting ice, rising waters, storms lashing coastlines. But even here, voices promised solutions in bright packages. Climate-ready living. Storm protection.
Amara narrowed her eyes. They knew. The images proved it—they could see the damage, measure the destruction. They had known for decades, but instead of stopping the harm, they built shelters. Instead of healing the waters, they retreated to higher ground.
She tried again, her fingers faster now: O-C-E-A-N P-O-L-L-U-T-I-O-N.
The results made her stomach clench. Plastic islands. Dead zones. Coral graveyards white as bone. They knew. They knew everything, but had done nothing to stop any of it?
Her legs ached, trembling from the constant movement, but she kept searching, learning, practicing. The crown pulsed suddenly, firmer than before: Adaptation cycle complete. Secondary swarm dissolved. Host stabilized. Transformation irreversible.
She froze. Irreversible.
Her throat tightened. There would be no return to the sea, no reclamation of scales, no lifting tail to the currents. This body was hers now, pale and graceless, bound to air and gravity.
For a heartbeat, she caught her reflection in the dark edges of the glass—pale skin, stormlight eyes, legs unsteady but hers.
"This is me now," she whispered, voice thick but clear, the words breaking strange in her throat.
Tears threatened, but she clenched her jaw. The sea had taken many things before. It would not take her resolve.
The hallway echoed with footsteps. Amara stiffened, heart hammering, instincts screaming to dive for water that wasn’t there. She straightened instead, forcing her legs to still, arms braced against the wall to keep from toppling.
The door opened. The human entered, shoulders tight. Another followed close behind—taller, darker, his eyes scanning the room like a predator seeking its next meal.
The human gestured toward the second. His voice was careful, measured. “I brought Parker.”
Parker stepped forward, fists clenched, his voice a blade. “Who is this? Where’s Rachel? You said you had something—where the hell is my wife?”
Amara flinched. Recognition struck as she looked at him—this was the man from the plume, the one she had lifted toward the surface. His features were sharper here in the stale air, but unmistakable.
And the name… the name hit her like a surge tide. Parker. It wasn't a word for help. It was his name. The woman in the waves hadn't been begging for rescue—she had been calling for this man.
The first man moved quickly, planting himself between them. “Back off, Parker. She’s barely standing. She’s injured—half in shock. She can hardly speak, doesn’t even know who she is yet. Maybe she’s lost her memory.”
Her throat worked, struggling to shape the words. She pointed at Parker, repeating carefully: “Par…ker.” Then she pressed her hand to her own chest and pronounced, “Am…ah…rah” before pointing at the first man.
Both men froze, startled by the effort. Slowly, the first man tapped his own chest. “Miguel,” he said simply.
But Parker’s eyes were burning, locked on Amara as if she alone held the answer. His grief was a tether, pulling her down into a world where the ocean’s song no longer belonged only to her.
A cold dread washed through her, colder than any abyss. She had acted to save a life, assuming a plea for aid. But if the woman had only been calling for him… had she saved a life, or stolen one?
(…to be continued next Friday.)