Alyd in Tantra's Fairy Tales by ADALBERTO ATONDO SAINZ - HTML preview

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Dear reader, the conversation between characters in this tale are in elf language but they are translated into english for reader’s enjoyment and understanding.

We are on High alert. Yesterday Tantra dropped an Emperor Bomb in Barbaraś downtown kil ing hundreds of thousands of our people. We are inside a hydrogen powered submarine several kilometers underwater approaching Tantra’s continental land. We suspect they have underwater bases and we are committing our resources to find them. Major back in our capital says no alarms were raised anywhere before the Emperor Bomb fel so it must have been 87

launched somewhere around this area. The only two possible explanations are a submarine long enough to carry one of those bombs, or they have built an underwater base from where they operate. So we are sent to scout the area along smal er fighter subs escorting us from behind at 5 and 7 OĆlock each.

Our radar detected something deep, so big, an enemy submarine was discarded. The problem with the discovery is that whatever this is, it is several kilometers long and moves some hundreds of meters from hour to hour. When we arrived at the location there was nothing there, radar read a big body of something but only water and the ground underneath us. We were ordered to hold our position for 12 hours.

“Wake up Alyd ! You are gonna be late!” I heard in my dream “Late for what?” I asked “The adventure of a lifetime! Wake up!”

There was a tremendous turbulence which woke me up from my dream. Something huge must be happening outside for the waters to move such a big submarine.

I rushed into the control room. Everyone was staring at the big screen which the feed of the outside cameras were transmitting. The ground underneath us moved. It looked as a big -

something - made out of gigantic metal ic plates started moving shaking the water and ground

“A leviathan” said my commander.

“Alyd , are you there?” asked HQ in the comms. “Fol ow that creature, Emperor’s orders”

Leviathans are known to exist but no one has seen one in over more than a century. They say their blood holds the secret to eternal life. We throttled ful power in his direction. Our radar has a reach of 500 km but if it continues at its current speed, the newly discovered beast would disappear from us in under 30 minutes since he is faster than us. But before that happened, it stopped and minutes after, when we catched up, we were facing a gigantic underwater cave.

“Go inside” said HQ Here we go, bad idea, we should send drone patrol first.

“No drone patrols, we need to study this creature, get your scuba teams ready with the dril ing equipment” Said HQ as if they read my mind even worse idea dril ing into its plates As we went inside, the big spot in the radar disappeared but our orders were to completely map the cave. We went for hours mapping it until we surfaced inside an air chamber. HQ ordered us to get off the sub on foot to continue mapping and record everything, which we did. “Hurry Alyd you wil be late honey” I heard inside my head. I need to sleep.

While on foot I separated from my team and climbed down some curious hole in the grounf. It came to my attention there were no plants whatsoever in the cave except the ones surrounding that hole in the ground, so I climbed down butI started regretting it since it was longer than expected but then I reached the ground. Stepping down, I heard a thumb over my head to 88

discover the hole from which I come from was no longer there, instead rock as if there was never a hole. Just before I panicked, some lights were turned on behind me. I turned around fast to discover some sort of showroom of several items behind crystal boxes as if they were museum articles. One of the crystal boxes contained a black pen made out of flowing goo with living snakes on the top. I tried to communicate with my team but comms weren’t working.

“Those wil not work here, honey” Said a very big cat looking at me from the darkness. Eyes were green-ish and it seemed to float in the air. “Keep exploring the museum we made for you”

The next crystal box contained what seems like an ancient manuscript written in an old language, but somehow I could read it as if I had written it in another life and as if this place was home to me long ago.

“Welcome back to hel !” Said a speaking worm standing next to the floating cat. He had a pipe which he was smoking from and his skin was dark with little spikes coming out.

“Am I in hel ? Am I dead?” I asked, afraid.

“I hate that question,' said the worm and disappeared into thin air.

“You are not dead, Alyd ,” Said the cat. “I wil present myself as fast as I can. Let’s say I am the devil and I love cats, so I wish to take this form because…” A few seconds pause. “I like cats”

Then he continued.

“Your heart led you here, the first ring of hel actual y, and it is your heart alone to blame.”

A creepy silence dominated the scene and the cold was starting to take over.

“Remember when you were one of us? You were part of a bigger soul, you wrote that manuscript, then a little tiny part of you went up to Earth to live a life.”

“No i do not” I answered, but al of this felt familiar.

“Yes, it doesn't matter, you being here again is your soul asking for a debrief before continuing the journey, your brain doesn’t need to understand anything, only the heart.”

More silence.

“We knew God would win this one, they usual y win when fairy creatures roam the Earth, but oh my god Alyd , the last civilization was al ours, they destroyed themselves. It's like a game for us.”

More silence. Cat disappeared and a light revealed a door some meters away which I reached and opened to find I was in the middle of what seemed like an oval arena. I was being cheered by deck cards? Yes, deck cards with arms and legs. Celebrating my arrival into their dimension.

The floating cat appeared and when he spoke, its voice could be heard everywhere.

“We wil show you that hel can also be fun, Alyd !” He said. “Release our baby!”

Al of the deck cards cheered and hoorayed. What the fuck is this world?