Here's one last chapter, before Go Yama's "Rumi" comes out!

We've been getting some really great feedback on all the music from Rumi, and we're gearing up to get the book in everyone's hands but, due to some production constraints (remember, we are a SUPER TINY team), it's going to take us a little longer to have those ready to order. So, to make it up to everyone, we're dropping one more chapter before the album comes out tomorrow, plus an exclusive premiere of the track for registered members (you must be signed in to view it)!

We'll share an update when the book is available (hopefully in the next few weeks), but you can pre-order the album on Bandcamp, pre-save on your DSP of choice, and continue to share the music with your friends! For now, here's The Abyss!

As she entered the forest, Rumi suddenly felt heavier, her insides squeezed by barometric pressure as if tightly wrapped in kelp. The sweet scent of jasmine and mint had dissolved completely, replaced by the sharp, unpleasant tang of burnt rubber. Inky clouds floated through the dense forest, blurring her sense of direction. Every time she entered a dark patch, it felt like she’d somehow circled back to where she started. She squinted. For a moment, she was certain the kelp stalks had eyes. Watching. Following her movements. Rumi shuddered.

“Just give up.”

That voice again. 

“Okay, it’s just a thought… stay calm,” Rumi whispered, taking a deep breath. She moved forward, camouflaging herself more adeptly with her newfound yellows, greens, and blues. She found some blue-green coral and clothed herself in its colors. From behind the coral she saw a tiny pinkeye goby swam in dizzying circles, her expression frantic. Rumi faded back to gray and approached cautiously. 

“Hello??” she called, relieved to find another creature in this dark forest.

“Can you tell me where I can get to the ocean?” the goby asked, continuing to spin as she spoke. 

“Umm… I think you’re already inside it,” said Rumi.

“Inside it?” the goby gasped. “No, no, you must not understand. The ocean is a huge body of water you swim in. It must be around here somewhere. I’m late!” 

The goby rustled about, muttering anxiously.

“Late for what?” Rumi asked, wondering what this fish could possibly be late for out here in this dark kelp forest. 

“Swimming in the ocean is on my schedule for a scale half past the fin—sharp! And I never miss an appointment!” The goby’s face flushed with frustration. “You know what, just leave me alone. You’re absolutely zero help!” 

Surprised, Rumi flashed a neon yellow, startling the fish. 

“Oops, sorry about that!” Rumi called.

“Wait, where was I? You again!? Can’t you leave me alone?” the fish said. 

Rumi sensed she was unwanted and had a feeling that this fish might be even more lost than she was. 

“Ok… well… I hope you find what you are looking for,” said Rumi. 

“Bye now,” the goby snapped, resuming her frantic circling.

Rumi glanced around the dense, dark forest. No other creatures in sight. She thought back to her tranquil patch of seagrass, filled with light and all kinds of plants and animals. 

‘Did I take home for granted?’ she thought.

“What could you have possibly taken for granted? It’s all boring. It’s all nothing.”

Rumi looked back at the distressed little goby once more before continuing deeper into the cold. The temperature sharply dropped, and her chromatophores turned an icy blue. 

“Brrrr… “

She briskly rubbed her tentacles together for warmth. The ink clouds stretched endlessly through the forest, blotting out the light. She could barely see. Swimming blindly, she bumped the right side of her head on some coral jutting out of the ground. 

“Ouch!” 

Rumi realized something odd. The sea had gone silent. No current, no rush or hum of the sea—just a strange mechanical pulse in the distance, like a metronome. 

Thump. Thump. Thump. 

Her own heartbeat began to synchronize with the sound, and she sensed a strange metallic taste in her mouth. The pressure increased, but she kept moving forward, determined not to give up on her search for the glowing fish. Blurry lights cast a dim glow on dense stalks of kelp around her, and a shadowy shape emerged from a small pit in the ocean floor. 

‘Is that the fish?’ she wondered. 

It was the right color and rough shape, but bigger. And slower. It lumbered around at a leisurely pace before turning towards Rumi. The creature had long, flowing whiskers and a pair of wide, luminous antennae that stuck out in opposite directions. It wasn’t the fish she’d been chasing—but a catfish, pale white with red stripes across its body. In one fin, it clutched a shiny coin. 

It stared for at Rumi for a moment. Then—it waved. It’s fin gesturing for her to come towards the pit. Rumi’s stomach churned.

‘Is this another sign?’ 

The catfish turned and slipped back into the pit. Rumi mindlessly followed. 

THE PIT 

The pit was unnaturally bright, lit by a harsh, fluorescent light. The tunnel twisted and turned in sharp right angles, its walls flat and smooth almost as if they had been manufactured. Replicas of plants kelp, and coral lined the walls like the plants in a goldfish tank. 

‘Is this place even real?’ 

Rumi spotted a crab and tried to call out to it. 

“Hello??” she called out.

No response. 

She floated closer and tapped it gently. It tipped over like a toy, its shell slick and waxy beneath her touch. The smell of metal and plastic invaded her cuttlefish nostrils. Rumi rubbed her belly, feeling queasy. 

“It’s okay. You got this,” she whispered to herself. 

But as she descended further, the ocean became more and more unsettling. She tried to camouflage herself behind plastic coral, but couldn’t match the strange artificial colors. Her perspective began to warp. She had the sensation that her surroundings were zoomed out, small and far away, as though looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Rumi tried to get a grip on reality, to find something to ground herself. She grasped for the zoomed-out plastic plants, unsure if she could even touch them—only to overshoot and bang her tentacle against the wall. The left side of the plants looked strangely off—either grotesquely oversized or wilted like dying flowers. Their proportions made no sense, as if drawn by a child. 

‘Where am I?’ she thought. ‘Am I still in the Cerulean?’ Rumi could hear her own frantic heartbeat as she floated towards the catfish, now resting beside a wide, open clearing in the middle of the tunnel. Its coin shimmered in the fluorescent glow. 

Faint music played from a sagging rectangular object with a crooked wind-up crank, like a warped jack-in-the-box. The catfish floated in front of a plastic pirate’s chest and looked directly at Rumi. “Come you admire to my coins,” said the catfish, its puzzling catfish language seemed out of order.

“Sorry… what?” Rumi asked, unsure if it was a question or command.

“My coins, my coins,” the catfish repeated cryptically. 

As she got closer, she noticed the catfish had several extra fins and an extra tail, all waving her in. “One no knows coin enough is how much.”

Rumi nodded politely, still confused. 

“I’m not sure about this,” a little voice inside her said. 

She ignored the pit in her stomach and approached, yielding to the catfish’s persistence. 

“Come treasure to taste.” The catfish offered a coin to Rumi. 

She timidly took the coin in her tentacle. A sour, metallic taste bloomed in her mouth.  

“Yuck,” Rumi whispered to herself. 

The catfish grinned and pointed multiple fins to its chest. 

“Now here come…” 

It grabbed her with one slippery, bumpy fin—slick and spongy like a large tongue. Rumi hesitantly reached over to lift open the chest and began to feel around with her tentacle. An old, musty smell oozed into the water. 

Without warning, a giant fin shot out from the chest and grabbed her by the tentacle. 

 “Augghh!!” 

The fin yanked hard, dragging her in. She struggled to pull her tentacle away, using her other arms to force herself out. The fin was cold and covered in jagged scales. She barely slipped free, losing a few of her suckers to the rough scales on the way out. 

Gasping, Rumi darted deeper into the pit. She saw an opening out of the tunnel and rushed out. The fluorescent light was dim in the open space, and she could barely see. She looked desperately for a place to hide and squeezed into a crevice between two warped plastic rocks, body blending into the dull gray. 

“I should’ve NEVER started following that stupid glowing fish,” Rumi protested. 

She felt overwhelmed. She wanted to go home. She wanted her CC. She wanted to escape into Ocean Days—where nothing was dangerous, and everything made sense. Even if it wasn’t real, at least it was safe. 

“Nothing is real, anyways.”

She curled tighter, closing her eyes, trying to shut everything out. 

After a while, Rumi heard faint bleeps and bloops in the distance like the sound of a communicator. ‘Is that a CC??’ she wondered. 

She looked up and a bottlenose dolphin swam by in measured circles as if tracing out mathematical equations in the water. Its sleek, metallic body gleamed in the dim light. Each flick of its tail triggered a pulse of sound. 

Bleep. Bloop. Bleep. Bloop. 

THE DOLPHIN 

“Excuse me!” Rumi called out, her tentacles tensing. She half-expected the dolphin to spin around with jagged, sharp teeth. 

“Greetings!” the dolphin replied, overly polite but completely monotone. Relieved, Rumi floated closer—until she got a better look. 

Its face didn’t line up. She could see its nose and mouth from the side while staring directly at its front. One eye sat higher than the other. Its whole body looked disassembled and reassembled incorrectly—fins skewed, tail twisted, even the sleek lines of its torso were misaligned. 

Her tentacles twitched nervously. 

“Um... well I… I don't know if you’d know, but I…,” she stuttered.

“Nice!” the dolphin interrupted, raising one fin like a glitchy thumbs-up.

“Well, yeah… like I was saying… I just wanted to ask …” 

“Nice!” the dolphin replied again with robotic cheer. 

The dolphin’s head suddenly detached from its body. Calmly, it caught it and reattached. 

Rumi’s mouth fell open. 

“Your approach is appreciated,” it said. “I assume you have an inquiry. Please state your purpose.”

Rumi tried to compose herself, breathing in deeply.

“Can you… tell me where we are?” she asked, finally able to form a coherent question.

“Sure, I can!” 

It paused. Said nothing more. Rumi waited for several awkward seconds. 

“So…?”

“Ah. You were implying I should tell you where we are. I must process your query further. You said, ‘Can you tell me where we are?’ Is this a possibility check, a friendly inquiry, or a veiled threat?” the dolphin said, grabbing its head again. 

“A… friendly inquiry?” Rumi guessed.

“Nice!” Another fin went up. 

“I figured that was most probable. Well, in that case, you are precisely at 38.8488° N, 135.0000° E. This area is not yet mapped in Ocean Days. But as one of the game's programmers, I can certainly show you.”

Rumi's W-shaped eyes lit up. 

“Wait—you work on Ocean Days!?”

“Affirmative. Ocean Days is a new game for all ages. Connect with friends. Share your life. Discover true happiness. Once you start, you won't be able to quit!” 

The dolphin sounded like a commercial.

“If you have the map, maybe you can help me get back home!” Rumi said.

He stared into nothing for some time in silence. 

“Well…?”

“Oh! Another query. I must process this further. Was that a question of possibility, or—"

“Just help me, please!” Rumi snapped.

“I have coordinates for most of the ocean,” it said. “But I do not know where you live. Do you have your Coral Communicator?”

“Uh, well, no, I lost it.”

“Unfortunate. The game is the best way to stay connected. Always. Night and day. You can meet friends. Earn points.”

Rumi's face sank. She did not know her own coordinates. 

“Well, it’s got … you know, seagrass and tide pools, and this one rock that kind of looks like a sea cucumber if you squint. Oh! There’s a ton of crab traffic, and, uh, my friend, Rio lives there…” Rumi trailed off, her voice getting smaller. 

The dolphin stared blankly. 

“These are not valid coordinates.” 

“I know,” Rumi muttered. Her shoulders sagged. She would have to keep traveling, lost and without direction. "You must have seen a lot of places in the Cerulean if you've been mapping it. I wonder if you’ve been to my home,” Rumi said. 

“I’ve never left this pit,” the dolphin said flatly.

“Why not? Don’t you want to see the rest of the ocean?”

“No reason to. I know the map. I know all the coordinates of the Cerulean. Going out to see it would only cause discomfort. The map is just as good. In fact, it's better.” 

Rumi thought of the map in her CC.  It didn’t show Tako’s garden, or the singing starfish, or the meta coral. Could it ever? 

The dolphin continued. “Soon, everyone will be living in this world. Let me show you.” It pulled out a sleek, metallic-black communicator—the newest model. Rumi had only heard rumors. 

“Ooo, wow, it’s so shiny!” she squealed. 

As it booted up, the bright digital neon display seemed to suck the color right out of Rumi’s face, making it dull and pale amidst the glow. She was entranced by the new communicator’s interface displaying stunning 2D renderings of coral reefs, caves, and schools of colored fish. They looked perfect. She felt the familiar pull. ‘Maybe the dolphin is right? If it looks like this, I bet everyone in the Cerulean will want to be in the game,’ she thought. 

“Ocean Days is an unparalleled experience. Efficient exploration. No danger. No mess. Guaranteed satisfaction.” The dolphin presented another sales pitch.

“I guess… exploring from bed sounds nice,” Rumi admitted. 

“You can even hear on the device now.” 

It attached a strange shell to the device and beckoned for Rumi to place her ear on it. 

Rumi grinned at the funny bleeps and bloops. The dolphin smirked as if he had played an elaborate prank on her. “Rolled,” he mumbled. It scrolled through more 8-bit hits—The Beatles, Nirvana, Daft Punk. 

“Listening anytime I want? That would be amazing,” Rumi said. “How did you make this?” she asked, pointing at the lifeless attachment. The dolphin plucked a tiny computer chip out of the shell and held it up. 

“This,” it said. 

“That tiny thing plays music? What even is that?” Rumi’s eyes widened in curiosity. 

The dolphin's floating head tilted in disdain. 

“You do not know? This powers everything in the Cerulean. It's a machine.” 

Just then, a deep-water rose shrimp floated by, and the dolphin pointed at it with a displaced fin. “That's a machine, too. All of them are. They run on microchips from the Great Barrier Reef.”

It grabbed the shrimp—and ripped off its head. 

“Augghhhh!” the shrimp yelled. 

The dolphin looked down, puzzled. Inside were animal organs. No computer chip.  

Rumi’s heart pounded, and she struggled to keep her composure. 

“Uh... how do you know they’re machines?” Rumi asked, certain that the shrimp wasn’t a machine. 

“The voice told me.” 

“The voice?”

The dolphin didn’t answer. It spoke like Rumi wasn’t real. 

“Of course, I knew it all along,” the dolphin continued. “It’s all machines. I’m a machine, too. It’s all an algorithm. The ocean is all cause and effect, all determined, it doesn’t mean anything. Nothing means anything.” 

It grabbed another shrimp and tore it apart. Blood and limbs floated like debris. 

Rumi began to back away, panic building, skin flashing alarm red. 

“You are a machine, too, of course,” it said ominously. “Let me show you.” 

The dolphin darted at her, and Rumi shot backwards. Something fell out of her tentacle pocket—the starfish’s triangle. It sank quickly and hit a rock.

DING!!!! 

A bright, harmonious tone rang out, and her skin flashed a bright, neon yellow. 

The dolphin was caught off guard by the bright flash, and its head shot up. Rumi rushed behind a gray rock and hid. After grabbing its head, the dolphin tried to search, but couldn’t orient towards the sound having its ears in asymmetrical places. After the dolphin floated further away, Rumi bolted into the darkness, not daring to look back. 

“Now, where did that interesting little machine go?” the dolphin muttered into the void.

THE EEL

Rumi stayed motionless, camouflaging herself behind plastic rocks until she no longer heard the dolphin’s mechanical voice. Luckily, it gave up quickly with its scrambled eyes and ears pulling it in odd directions. 

“What am I doing here? I am so lost,” Rumi whispered, tears forming.

The dolphin’s words echoed ominously in her mind. 

“It’s all machines.”

‘Am I really just a machine?’ She felt real but couldn’t know for certain. She cried harder. ‘At least machines don’t cry, do they?’ 

Her thoughts spiraled.

‘Who am I? What’s in control? Is everything in the Cerulean just a giant machine?’ 

Machine or not, Rumi was determined to get out of the pit and go home. She longed for comfort and friendship and wondered how she could have ever taken it for granted. Too scared to swim past the dolphin, she floated farther into the abyss. The greasy scent of burning oil pervaded the cold waters. 

A gulper eel sat writhing back and forth, its tail caught underneath a large rock. As it moved, glowing trails smeared the water like streaks of paint. 

“Excuze me,” the eel said with a polite, sly smile. “Can you help me outz?”

Rumi hesitated, her chromatophores flickering as she floated closer to get a clearer look. Faintly glowing sea stars hovered nearby, their outlines swirling like illusions. 

“Your tail… it’s stuck?” she asked, uneasy.

“Yez. I waz hiding from a dolphin.”

“A dolphin? I was, too! Let me help.” 

Rumi compassionately reached out and pulled. 

“Ah, such kindnezz,” the eel said dramatically, eyes narrowing. With a final wriggle, it slipped free, leaving a glowing trail in its wake.

“Thank you, trulyz. You are so strong. A generouzz soul. Such graceful tentaclezz. Such a beautiful gray colorzzz.”

Rumi blushed a soft red. “It's no problem, really.” 

“Whatzz your name?” the gulper eel asked, his voice buzzing as if through a plastic karaoke microphone.

“I'm Rumi.”

“A pretty name for a pretty cuttlefish. My name izz Kane.” 

Rumi enjoyed the flattery. The eel continued.

“You don’t look familiar, do you live down here in the deepzz?”

“No—I’m from higher up.”

“Well, welcome to the deepzz.” His grin widened.

“To be honest, I’ve met some strange creatures down here. But you’re… nice.”

“Yezzz, there are no creaturez like uz eelzzz.” 

“By the way, you said you were just hiding from a dolphin…” 

Kane’s face darkened. “Alwayz hiding. From all the mammalzz. Whalez. Sealz. Especially those dolphinzz.” 

Rumi nodded, thinking of the dolphin. It had scared her.

“Did you know that mammalzz get to eat 25% more fishezz than all the rest of uz?”

“Really?” Rumi asked in surprise.

“Of course. For every 10 fish, they get 12.5 fishezz. All the good onezz too. Not fair!”

“Yeah, that does seem unfair when you put it that way.” Rumi started to feel sorry for him. 

“It’s all their fault I wazz stuck under that rock!”

“Because you were hiding from them? Were they chasing you?” Rumi asked.

“No, but if I ate 25% more fishezz, I'd be strong enough to lift that rock myself,” Kane said. 

Swaths of tiny brown garden eels began popping out of the sand around them, agreeing with him like a slithery echo chamber. 

“Yesss. Not fair. Not fair.”

“They float and play. We have to scrape for every scrapzz,” Kane hissed. He swiveled his head towards Rumi, his eyes swirling like a hypnotic pendulum. “Don't you know anyone who getzz everything without working??”

Rumi’s mind jumped to Rio. He always got more OD points than her. And he barely tried. She planned her posts. She earned it. 

“Yeah… I do. He gets everything. He totally doesn't deserve it.” 

Rumi’s colors flickered between dark red and gray as her mind spun with jealous thoughts. The garden eels echoed her rising resentment. 

“Yesss. Not fair. Not fair.” 

But somewhere deep inside… a small voice.

“This doesn’t feel right…”

Kane roared, quickly drowning out the voice. 

“They take everythingz from uss!" Kane and the garden eels chanted in unison. “You work. They play. You dezzerve better.” 

“I do,” Rumi hissed. “Why should I get scraps? I never realized how unfair it is!” 

“You’re finally seeing it clearly,” said Kane. “They’re the problem. The mammalzz, the bigger fishezz, THEM!” 

Rumi’s eyes now mirrored Kane’s swirling pendulums. Her tentacles began to leave visible trails as they moved about. Her chromatophores flickered between gray and black like a storm cloud. She imagined stealing Rio’s communicator, deleting his posts and points, even trying to spread rumors that his stubby tentacle was fake. 

Kane voice surged. “Listen to me! Once the mammalzzz are gone, we’ll be free! No more scrapzzz! Only the best! We must get rid of them!” 

A roar of slithering approval erupted from the crowd. But one small garden eel, hesitating, turned his head to avoid making eye contact. Kane’s head snapped toward him. 

“You think I can’t beat the mammalzz?” 

“No, I juzt… I have mammal friendz, and… they’re not all badzz,” said the tiny garden eel.

“FRIENDZZ?!” Kane’s eyes turned bloodshot. “Mammalzz are not friendzz… they dezerve to die.” 

“Maybe they could help, if you talked to them—,” the garden eel tried to reason.

“MEEE! I wazz the best hunter before they stole my ssspot. They ruined everything! No one is better than electric eelzzz!!!” 

An ancient rage gripped Kane, and the swirling trails around him grew violent like a thunderstorm. Rumi shook her head, knocked out of the trance by the tiny eel’s courage. The intense trails clearly outlined the body of a gulper eel. 

“Wait… aren’t you a gulper eel?” Rumi asked, immediately regretting it. 

“I'M AN ELECTRIC EELZZ IF I SAY SO,” shouted Kane, trying in vain to spark electricity. 

He loomed toward her. 

“Hey… it’s ok if you can’t make electricity,” Rumi said frantically. “I can’t make colors sometimes and… well, you can still do other awesome things if you—"

“I was wrong about you, Rumizzzz. You attack my ideazzzz, you attack ME,” said Kane.

His jaw unhinged, mouth tripling in size. Just as he was about to swallow Rumi whole, the little garden eel lunged out of the ground and jumped in front of Rumi, getting caught in Kane's mouth. 

CHOMP.

Kane swallowed him whole. 

“Spit him out!! He didn't do anything wrong!” Rumi cried, voice shaking.

Others began to rise and float behind Rumi—the tiny garden eel's courage was contagious. Kane grinned, and his rows of jagged teeth glistened in the dark. Rumi wanted to fight, to scream at him—but fear gripped her. Fear of being eaten. Fear of never making it back home again. Fear of fear. 

“ONE LAZZT CHANCE. GET OUT!” 

Kane’s deep, bellowing hiss reverberated through the pit. 

Rumi slinked away. Feeling defeated and worthless, her body deflated, and she looked half her size. Not knowing where to go, she began to float aimlessly, getting smaller with every breath. The memory of the small garden eel—his bravery, his sacrifice—haunted her. 

‘What did he sacrifice himself for? What is the point of anything?’ 

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Meaningless.”

The glowing trails of the eels faded into darkness, and Rumi drifted into total darkness. 

Her head hit the pit wall. A dull ache from the right side of her head began to grow and envelop her. Her ears rang like a dial tone, rising in volume as the rest of the world faded. She felt herself sinking. And everything went dark.

THE BLOBFISH

When she awoke, Rumi was floating in total darkness— except for some tiny, drifting lights that blinked like lost fireflies. 

“Ughhh, where am I?” she mumbled in a daze. 

The water pressed in like thick, suffocating sludge, dragging her back into sleep. Her tentacles twitched and her chest tightened as she strained to open her eyes. 

They fluttered shut in defeat. 

“Auhhh…” She tried to cry for help, but only a faint whisper escaped her lips. She sat frozen for several minutes. Or was it several hours? When she finally pried her eyes open again, the faint glow of the microscopic lights filtered back into her vision. She saw tiny faces on the lights with vacant expressions. They reminded her of the sleepswimming fish back home, glued to their communicators. 

It was eerily silent. The only sound was a strange mechanical heartbeat—the same one she had heard when she first entered the pit, but here, it was deafening.

Thump… thump… thump.

Flashes of light—like disposable camera bursts—flickered at irregular intervals, briefly revealing fragments of the dark world around her. Warped, melting rocks loomed in the darkness. One pulsed with pill bugs. A droopy clock sagged over a coral branch, hands twitching erratically. 

Rumi stared at the clock face, wondering if she could figure out the time, but could not seem to make anything out. All the numbers were crammed to one side in a jumbled mess. 

She couldn’t think. 

Time disintegrated. Seconds, minutes, hours—she couldn’t tell them apart. Everything bled into everything else. 

‘How long have I been here?’ she wondered in panic. “A minute, an hour, a week?”

Maybe she had always been here. 

Rumi counted the mechanical heartbeats to ground herself. 

“One… two… three.”

Thump… thump… thump.

Still searching, she floated towards another clock and bumped into something cold and slimy. 

A flash of light snapped through the dark. 

Her tentacle was stuck to a huge gelatinous blob, its sides sagging like a melted candle.

“Ugh, gross!” She recoiled and shook the goo off her tentacle. 

Looking back to see what she had touched, Rumi jumped back in surprise. The blob had a face. 

‘Is that… a blobfish? So disgusting,’ she thought. 

‘I can hear you.’

The words entered her brain like static in size 12 Roboto Mono. Her chromatophores flickered red in surprise and embarrassment.

‘Don’t worry. Your insults are meaningless. After all, everything is meaningless.’

The voice. It was… familiar. 

She looked at the blob. It stared vacantly into the darkness, motionless. 

‘Am I going crazy?’ she thought. 

‘You may be. Or not. It doesn't matter. I know that you too, have sensed the meaninglessness.’

The words buzzed in her brain like a swarm of bees. Was she hearing them? Or thinking them? 

‘Am I just a machine just like the dolphin said?’ she thought. 

‘Yes. Machines. After all, we are just made of tiny parts. Just chemicals and collisions.’

“But I don't feel like a machine!” Rumi protested out loud as if to prove to that she wasn't the text.

‘Feelings are just a part of the machine. Biochemical responses. No deeper meaning.’

Rumi’s chest tightened as she tried to remember to breathe. 

“I’m not a machine. I’m not a machine…” 

Her voice started to sound alien, like the voice of a stranger. 

She looked back at the blob. ‘Isn’t it talking? Why isn’t it moving its mouth?’

‘I could move. But what would be the point?’

Rumi looked at her tentacle and tried to sway it up and down. Was that free will? Or mechanism? A flash of light illuminated the space— a vision of gears, cogs, broken clocks, like the inside of a cosmic machine. 

“I can see… it’s all… it’s all just a machine,” she whispered.

Rumi started to forget things. She had to frantically search her mind to remember her past, her home, her hopes and dreams. They all seemed to be falling apart into a jumble of cogs and gears. 

Her thoughts, feelings, even her bodily sensations felt like they were being pulled and controlled by some deep ocean puppet master. Her skin began turning black, merging with her surroundings.

‘It’s all meaningless.’

Words began to lose their meaning. She had to strain to even understand her own thoughts. 

‘Me… you computer… data… algorithm… home go… find friend.’

She clung to the last word. 

‘Friend… what is a friend, again?’ 

Thoughts of Rio reaching out to her again and again, inviting her to explore, pulling her away from her CC. He had cared. Even when she had stopped. 

Her black skin flickered violet for a moment in desperation. ‘Friend. Help. Connection. Meaning.’ 

She gripped the idea with everything she had. 

“Do you have any friends?” she asked. 

‘I am the only thing I know that exists. Therefore, there is no one else to value me. I am worthless.’

Rumi felt the immensity of the hopelessness in the words, as if it was speaking with the voices of all the hopeless creatures in the Cerulean. Her body sagged under the weight. 

‘Hope… what was that again?’ 

She was sure she remembered something hope, although it seemed so very far away. 

“Don't you have hope?” Rumi was no longer sure if she was speaking or not.

Hope does not logically exist. I’ve never seen it. But it does not matter. I am worthless. You are worthless. That is objective truth.

The blob's text came rushing in, or was that her? It was getting harder to tell. Voice, text, thought, self, blob—boundaries became blurry. The more she fought it, the more anxious she became. Her chromatophores turned pitch black.

No one cares about our existence.

She tried to look at the text, but the more she looked, the more she felt she WAS the text. No longer the observer. No escape. 

No meaning.

She panicked.

“Get out! Get out of my head! I’m going crazy! Am I dying?”

Everyone could die, and it would not matter.

Voice and text melted into each other. 

The pressure was too great and began flattening her body. She was becoming the blob. 

You can give up. It does not matter.

She began to fade. Her own heartbeat began to sync with the mechanical thump of the abyss. 

And then—

Flash. 

A flicker of light, like a divine flint, sparked a memory. Tako's voice, as a tiny whisper. 

“Follow your breath. In and out. Breath is your anchor to the here and now.’ 

Rumi gasped. She hadn’t been breathing. She inhaled deeply.

In… Out… In… Out. 

Slowly but surely, she followed her breath.

Another still, small voice pierced through the darkness again: 

“You are not the whirlpool. You are the water itself, in which all the whirlpools arise.” 

Something shifted. 

Her body felt lighter. She felt herself suddenly waking up from a terrible nightmare, being pulled out of a giant whirlpool by invisible, loving tentacles. Cooler tones began to lighten her dark skin.

She shot a quick glance over at the blob. It was still there—but it no longer felt like her, its thoughts no longer intruding into her mind. She turned away quickly, still filled with anxiety and fear at the thought of becoming the blob again. But a new awareness was blooming inside her. 

“I believe I do have a choice, and I can make a decision.” 

To Rumi’s relief, the voice finally sounded like her own. She wasn’t sure if she could ever get out of this place, but she could make the decision to try. She faced the blob, staring at it directly. Its body sagged and shifted, barely holding together under its own weight.

‘Meaningless. Worthless.’

Rumi observed the words. Then took a breath. 

‘Just thoughts.’

She smiled.  The words began to lose their power. 

“You aren’t worthless. And I’m not either,” she said out loud.

Rumi reached into her pocket and grabbed Tako’s gift, the tea bubble. 

“Come here, let’s share this tea bubble.” 

To her surprise, the blob moved—subtly, clumsily. Its expression remained blank, but it seemed almost… happy. They sipped together, savoring the sweet taste of jasmine and mint. 

Rumi still couldn’t sense time passing, but something was changing. Her surroundings were no longer just cogs in a machine. She began to see life in the darkness. Two glowing worms curled toward each other in an embrace. 

“Whoa. There’s life… way down here?” 

Warmth filled her chest. She remembered friendship. The sparkle of sunbeams on seagrass. The dancing melodies of the starfish. 

A light flashed. 

Then another. 

In the darkness, tiny, winged ovals flashed a brilliant indigo. The flashes become more and more regular as they circled around her. 

'These are the flashes? They’re… beautiful.'

In the pulsing light, Rumi could now see her surroundings more clearly. A narrow path upward was lined with the flashing bodies, but it looked impossibly far. She cringed at the thought of swimming past the eel and the dolphin. She looked down. 

“Am I… flashing?” 

Rumi’s chromatophores danced in a new pattern, as if awakening from a long sleep. They pulsed a bright indigo in perfect synchrony with the tiny, winged ovals. 

Something inside her tentacles also seemed to be flashing. 

Rumi peered inside her tentacle pocket—

Ms. Barbara’s pearl. 

She gripped it tightly and turned a calm, seafoam green.  

Fibonacci’s voice echoed: 

“If you carry this light with you, you’ll always be able to find your way—forward, upward, and to the impossible.”

She suddenly felt that she wasn’t alone in her journey, others were with her, watching over her. She still didn’t know if she’d escape the pit, but she knew one thing: 

The path was up.

She looked back at the blob and bid it farewell. It was no longer a monster, just another lost soul.

“I have to keep going,” Rumi said out loud. 

So, Rumi started swimming. The heaviness of the depths still pressed down on her, but she kept on going. Inch by inch, into the darkness. 

Then—a streak of light. The fish. 

It passed in front of her, and she could see its back, a beautiful glowing koi fish adorned in mysterious patterns and all the colors of the rainbow. Rumi followed. The koi slowed its swim as if guiding her lovingly out of the darkness. Her body grew lighter and lighter, and a curious flame in her heart pulled her forward.