Harm and Harmony

-Chapter 81-

Day: 98

Days Left: 5382

Lives Saved: 0

Corinna watched as Harmony's body crashed into the ocean and disappeared into the black water.

"Harmony!" the young woman screamed over the torrent of rain and wind. "Harmony!" She bolted towards the sea, almost stumbling as the air pushed on her back. Reaching the water, she waded through it, heaving her body forward against the tide. Her feet lost contact with the ground, and she swallowed a mouthful of air before diving down into the watery depths below.

All she could see was a darkness that covered the sea bed, making it impossible to judge how far down it went. Then, suddenly, a luminous green light shot down from above. It was the wisp. Radiating its emerald glow, Corinna saw it circling around a body sinking slowly down... Harmony's body.

Kicking her legs furiously, Corinna swam her way over to the unconscious chimaera who had almost sunk down into the darkness below. Harmony seemed to get smaller and smaller as she got further away from Corinna's grasp.

No... She was actually getting smaller. Her limbs were shrinking, becoming thinner and shorter. Her snake-tail had receded into a short stump. The fur across her body turned a lighter colour then withered, revealing the layer of skin underneath, human skin. No longer were there talons and claws, no snake-tail or fur. Instead, what remained was a human woman wearing a jackal mask with a large crack cutting across the forehead.

The broken mask slid off Harmony's face and descended down into the darkness.

Eventually reaching the unconscious young woman, Corinna grabbed hold of Harmony. Her eyes darted down at the broken jackal mask that had almost been taken by the abyss. It had likely been damaged from Harmony's fall. Perhaps it had struck the rocks on the way down. Corinna speculated whether it was still useable. If they were to survive in The Eternal Abyss, they needed to be able to fight the other monsters. Clinging tightly onto Harmony, Corinna kicked her legs and extended her arm, reaching out to the mask.

A hand clutched onto her wrist, pulling her down. Gasping in fear, Corinna coughed and spluttered from the black water she accidentally inhaled.

The wisp whizzed around, illuminating the horde of water nymphs that had been hidden in the darkness. Their skeletal arms clawed at Corinna, desperately trying to grab her and claim her as their own. They grasped hold of Harmony's long legs and pulled her down.

Corinna retrieved her spear tied around her back and jabbed at the nymphs keeping Harmony hostage. Despite Corinna being drained of energy from swimming, the creatures retreated from the small threat. Slamming her foot into another nymph's face, Corinna kicked her legs and swam up to the surface, glancing back down to see the damaged jackal mask disappear into the darkness.

Breaching the surface, Corinna inhaled a long breath, gasping and coughing out the water that had clogged her throat. Only stopping for a moment, she continued to swim back to the shore. Fortunately, the tide worked alongside her, the waves pushing her out to safety.

Rain still poured down in a torrential storm, causing the sand underneath Corinna's feet to be like dark sludge. She slipped and collapsed to the ground as she hauled Harmony's unconscious body out of the ocean's reach.

A wave of fear swept over Corinna. Harmony was not breathing. Though she knew that no one could die in the Eternal Abyss, it still meant something terrible.

If her mask had been damaged, that must have meant that Harmony had hit her head. She could have lost all of her memories from that fall.

Recalling back to the lessons she learned from school, Corinna followed the steps to perform CPR. She pushed her hands against Harmony's chest thirty times in quick and steady rhythm, then opened her airway and breathed in twice. As she repeated this, she pleaded her mind for Harmony to wake, to her remember who she was.

After a few minutes, Harmony jolted upwards and spat out any remaining water that she swallowed from her fall. Heaving, her breaths were jagged and heavy, almost like she was drowning again.

"Harmony?" Corinna hesitantly rested a hand on the young woman's shoulder.

Harmony turned around, her eyes first glancing back at Corinna, then to where the rock spire had been.

Once it was a towering construct of surviving rock and earth that reached the sky and now it was a rubble of fallen and broken debris barely taller than herself soon to be finally claimed by the ocean.

"It's gone..." said Harmony in an almost inaudible whisper. "It's all gone..." Her eyes blurred as tears slid down her cheeks, hidden by the rain.

"Harmony?" Tears had also formed in Corinna's eyes, seeing the young woman's shivering body.

Harmony collapsed forward, so weak she was unable to sit up properly by herself. Corinna caught in her a tight embrace as she clung at her dress, sobbing and weeping "it's all gone..."