Don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve got the biggest collection of serials you ever did see. One of the rooms down here filled with hundreds of canvas and wood boxes holding dozens of film reels. I’ve got all the great ones—The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Flash Gordon, Captain Midnight, The Blue Meteor, the Raptor—

But they all pale before the 24 Aqua-Marine serials Balaur Studios produced from ’39 to ’49. I never get tired of watching them. And why should I—I was there! We spliced actual newsreels of Aqua-Marine in action into the made-up parts of the story.

Revenge of the Sea-Witch? Raiders from the Deep—great stuff! But for now I need to find out where I misplaced my Oxynite. It’s a medication Captain Nefartat impressed on me the necessity of taking three times a day. Enriches the oxygen content of my blood. Haven’t been sick a day since I’ve been taking it. But it’s not like me to misplace something like that.

“Looking for these?” It was the soft mellifluous tones of a woman’s voice coming out of the shadows of my playhouse. I spun around. There’s no way anybody can get in here. And why did that voice seem familiar, as if I’d heard it before…?

The woman’s of medium height, long black hair billowing down her shoulders over the straps of some silken evening gown. She holds the pill bottle in her hand. It takes me a second to recognize her. It all comes rushing back.

‘Julia? Julia…Chandler?”

“Long time, Jackie—you’re looking well.”

“So…are you.” Can’t help myself but I start feeling really, really awkward. I’m sure she never picked up on it, but I was so in love with her back in ’43, when we both starred in The Aqua-Marine and the She-Wolf, the ninth Aqua-Marine serial. She played Ursula, the She-Wolf, this gorgeous pirate maid, more ruthless than the Dragon Lady from Terry and the Pirates. I played myself, Jackie Harkins, like I always did, Prince Thag’s kid sidekick. Well, partner is more like it, since I wasn’t just a kid anymore. I’d just turned sixteen. I never found out how old Miss Chandler was, but she always had a lot of the guys around her in attendance and I figured, what could she see in a kid like me?

But she doesn’t look like she’s changed a bit. She’s just the way I remember her. But if that was back in 1943, and I’ve been in here since 1950, and…how long have I been here? She would have to be in her fifties now…

“It’s me, alright, Jackie. If I tell you somethings that only I would know, would that convince you?” She proceeded to do just that. There was no doubt about it. This was Julia Chandler, there was no doubt about that. But something started nagging at the back of my mind, something that should have been obvious, but whatever it was I just wasn’t quite getting it.

“Look, it’s great to see you, but could I have those pills? I need them to…”

“You mean the Kheft?” She shook the bottle in her hand and slowly approached me.

“Kheft? No—this is Oxynite.”

She smiled and held the bottle sideways in her two fingers. “I know what Nefertat told you. You need it to enrich your oxygen levels while you’re down here. But that was only so he could keep you dreaming down here all these years. You have no idea how long you’ve even been here, do you? Or even what you really are.”

She had gotten really close by now. The closer she got the more uncomfortable I was getting—not because there was this beautiful woman two feet away from me, a woman I’d loved for years, but because the feeling that something was just not right wouldn’t go away.

“In some ways, you’re still like a young boy. Not been around too many women.”

“Well…” I was beginning to feel uncomfortably hot though the room was cool enough. “…there hasn’t been too much time for girls, what with all the…adventures.”

“And saving the world like the two of you used to do. You’ve given up a lot…but I know how you really feel.”

And suddenly, so suddenly I didn’t even register how, she was in my arms.

Or rather I should say I was in her arms. It all happened so quickly and, not that I didn’t like it—I had fantasized about that woman ever since the first time I’d seen her. Something magnetic in her eyes. But up close like this, that wasn’t how I’d pictured something like this happening.

I needed to think this out and I started trying to push her back. This was all happening too quick for my comfort. I couldn’t budge her. I could feel the cords and tendons in her arms. They felt unyielding as steel. Her voice whispered kissing soft.

“Relax. Just close your eyes. I know you want this…” I felt her lips touch my neck.

It felt like tiny needles piercing my skin. I’d been gripped by octopus suckers before, it felt like that. I pushed against her, hard as I could but her grip was too strong.

Suddenly I knew why this had all felt wrong. From somewhere inside me came a surge of strength I could not have imagined I actually had. I broke her grip on me. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see a series of small round marks, like those an octopus’ suckers make on skin.

The woman crouched like some predatory beast. Her fingers became curled claws. But it was her mouth that shocked me most. Something like teeth jutted out of her mouth, but they were too long and thin and sticking out at right angles to her face.

And her face. It was no longer that of the actress who had played Ursula in the serial. How could it be? Julia Chandler had died in the same shipping accident that had taken out the Aqua-marine in 1949.

“What…are you?”

She still had Julie Chandler’s face, but it was like it was some kind of liquid mask and was now slowly rolling off her face. To my horror I saw hers was not the only one. It’s like there was a whole host of them, fighting for their place on her head. It was almost like watching candle wax drip.

Her voice hissed out. “Not exactly the seaweed draped corpse you might be expected to find. I’m surprised you found your strength. I took the Kheft away from you too quickly. Your human self was the weakest link and you’re waking up too quickly.”

“What the hell are you?” I’m not used to using profanity but all this was too much.

“”Follow me to your Prince Thag if you’d find out.” And then she whipped out the room. I’d already had an example of her speed. She had tried to kill me! There was no way I should have been able to fight her off. But I knew where she was going.

The tank Thag floated in was vast—fifty feet by fifty and a thousand feet deep. The outer airlock door was open. No—torn open. How could any living thing be so strong as to tear steel like that? Of course, my friend could do it easily.

The inner door had a window, three feet thick, but clear as crystal. The woman—whatever she was—had gotten in somehow. Her skin was covered by fish scales, fins sprouted from her arms, legs and back. A dark figure floated in the middle of the tank.

It was my friend, Prince Thag of Atlantis, just as I remembered him, completely human, silvery hair moving with the motion of the waters. A face, movie star handsome, just the way I remembered from all our times together.

But even as I watched it was like looking at an image made of smoke and watching the smoke blow away. Julie had said that the kheft made me dream. By God—was the dream fading and was this the reality?

He was no longer the man I remembered. Fish scale. Fins. Armor plate. This couldn’t be Prince Thag of Atlantis, my friend! He looked exactly the way he did in the film, that accursed film!

The woman-thing was attacking him. Her claws was tearing at him. I don’t know what was happening. I didn’t know why Thag was looking like that. I had no idea what had changed him, but he was still my friend, and I had to help him, somehow.

But how?

In fury I punched at the inner door. Futile. Even if I could smash the door open I’d drown. I wasn’t an amphibian like Aqua-Marine. Nonetheless, I kept on punching. It was the only thing I could think of to do.

And suddenly I felt like I was floating. I opened my eyes and saw a face. But what looked at me through hate-filled eyes was only human in the vaguest fashion. There was a lust there that was more dangerous than any I could have ever have conceived. I moved suddenly, striking at her, defending myself to the best of my ability. The woman-thing drew back. I had won a brief breathing space.

But I wasn’t breathing! The shock hit me immediately. Water was coming into me through the sides of my throat. I looked at my arm. My hand raised before my eyes. Scales like a fish. Skin hard as a rock. I was in the water tank! Somehow I had awoken in the body of my friend. This was Thag’s body!

But Thag was completely human in appearance. He couldn’t look like this! Webs between his fingers. And still the She-thing kept attacking me. Why was Thag so helpless? Why was I in his body. If I was in here, where was he? No time to think, this woman was intent on murdering him—me—and all I could do was fight. Waves of her hatred washed over me, and her thoughts—such malice and loathing!

“The only one of your kind. The only male. Oh, how long we’ve hunted you, you would have brought death to the Siren Race. They finally bred you, nothing but a killing machine. Killed your fifty brothers in battle, mindless, brainless.”

All the while these insane thoughts flowed from her mind to mine, she kept on striking, ripping and tearing but Thagimasidas’ armor held.

“But you had to develop a soul—needed to be weak, vulnerable, learn humanity. Spawned a human from your side. Developed a mind, feelings, emotions—a soul!”

Her madness was worse than her physical attack. And I had had just about enough of it! I was taught to never hit a woman—but this was no lady!

“Captain Nefartat lied to you, boy—told you a comic book story. Kept you locked up here for over a hundred years. You’ll never get to see what they’ve done to the world—I’ll see to that!”

Killing machine. Despite the swiftness of her attack I seized her in an iron grip. I could feel the cracking beginning in her armor. Was that panic showing on that fish-like face. With a great surge of strength she suddenly broke free and darted toward the airlock door. She had manipulated the lock from the outside but in her panic tore through the steel door. Three feet of reinforced steel!

I followed her out but she was gone, probably out the same way she had somehow found to get inside. Thousands of gallons of water poured out from the ruined doors. The entire bunker might be flooded. But at least I had escaped her madness.

The human body I had lived in for I had no idea even for how long had been washed into a corner. Dead. There would be no returning to it. I hadn’t believed the story she had mentally thrown at me. How could I look at it as anything but a psychic attack?

But I looked at the face—formerly my face—of the man I’d once been. The truth was even now fully seeping in. I had been the Aqua-Marine, no hero, but a mindless killing machine who had spawned a human body to learn kindness and compassion. But it had served its purpose. I had kept young for decades and not even known it. But the body before me had attained its true age. A man that must have been over a hundred fifty years old.

The voice yells, “That’s not the right answer!” I feel the world shake before I’m hurdling upwards at a breakneck pace. My limbs dangle and my torso rises as if an invisible entity is pulling me. Faces appear all around me. Many cry, and some laugh. Some are males and some are females. They morph into different faces as my upward barrage hastens.

What is this?

“Consequences.”

Consequences?

“Do not be so coy!” demands the voice as if berating the child. “You know what is happening, you just have to stop fighting it!” A speck of light appears, growing larger and larger.

The faces fade away and are replaced by a singular face directly above me. This is the face of a young man with a mustache and a head of curly red hair. Terror consumes his darting blue eyes. Almost as soon as the face appears, it vanishes.

That was strange.

“Was it?” The voice asks. “Is this strange?”

As the light grows brighter still, the blueness of the depths around me becomes lighter and lighter shades. Swirls of reds, yellows, and greens, like a sheen, materialize where the young man’s face was. It morphs into the scene of—a window in the sky looking at the Earth below, perhaps—a man lying face up in a fast food restaurant lobby in a pool of blood. He has three bullet holes in his chest, just like I do. This is the same young man that I saw just moments before.

Is that me?

The voice scoffs.

As I rise, the blueness becomes so vivid and the light so intense that my suspicions are confirmed; I am underwater. But why and how? I’m still unsure of the meaning of any of this.

“All will be unveiled in due time.”

The scene fades away as soon as I break the ocean’s surface. I gasp for air as I shoot out of the water like a whale. I catch a brief glimpse of an infinite sea before splashing back into the ocean. Once I’m underwater, I sink at a slow, steady pace, like a dormant rollercoaster just before it blasts off.

Before I can think about what just happened, another sheen materializes directly above me; yellows, greens, and blues wax and wane before morphing into another window, this one looking into a toddler’s bedroom as he walks towards a man and a woman standing at a door. They’re clapping and cheering the baby on. The child reaches the feet of the woman. She scoops him up and brings him to her face. She says, “You did it! You’re such a big boy! Yay!” The man leans in and grins at the toddler, “Way to go, buddy!”

This is adorable!

“I’m glad you think so,” says the ethereal voice coming at me from every direction.

The toddler coos before the scene fades away.

I can feel my heart palpitating. What was that?

“You have to remember. This should help you. Something is stirring within you, I can see it.”

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

As my descent continues, a few moments go by before another sheen appears. Purples, reds, and greys morph into a scene of a boy and a girl sitting on a couch, holding video game controllers in their hands, in front of a tube TV. The boy, who appears to be five or six years old, leans to his left with a concentrated look on his face. The girl, the sister, maybe, who looks to be about nine or ten years old, encourages her brother to reach the finish line. On the TV is a split screen of a platformer game. An overlay that says, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” appears on the screen. The boy and girl high-five and congratulate each other. Again, the scene fades away. I notice that the light from the water’s surface has grown slightly dimmer.

I’m falling deeper and deeper.

Again, I try communicating with this entity. Who are you and what do you want with me? Why are you showing me these things? In this moment, I realize something even more terrifying: I have no idea who I am. Another eery thought occurs: I have just awoken, teleported, that much I know, but I have no idea where from.

“YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER!”

Remember what? I don’t understand what’s happening.

Suddenly, I am shooting deeper and deeper at a rapid pace, the light above shrinking as blackness consumes my surroundings. A sense of serenity washes over me. No matter how hard I try to shut my eyes, they remain slightly open. All I can do is squint. The voice laughs as another sheen appears.

Greys, blacks, and browns morph into a scene of five boys, some with faces full of acne, standing in a half-circle against a red brick wall. The boy from the previous scene—he appears to be in middle school now—stands in the middle of the semi-circle. He is crying and hugging himself for warmth as it is raining, and his jacket lies on the blacktop in front of him.

“I don’t want to be your friend anymore,” the boys surrounding him all chant in between bouts of laughter.

A tall boy steps forward from the semi-circle and punches the sobbing boy in the face. Upon making contact, the scene fades to black.

Yet another sheen forms. Red, blues, and oranges morph into a scene of the boy from before, the same age, sitting in the back of a car as firefighters outside attempt to cut open his door. He is screaming as he reaches over the seat in front of him and taps on the shoulder of the driver, the woman from the first scene, as she lies slumped over the steering wheel, blood trickling down her forehead. “Wake up, mom! Wake up!” She does not react. In the passenger seat is the boy’s sister. Her legs are crushed, and she is pushed at an odd angle into the center console. The firefighters manage to bend the door enough to get to the boy. One of the firefighters grabs him.

This is fucked!

“I’m glad you see that.”

The scene doesn’t fade to black this time. Instead, it merely shifts to a hospital room where the sister is lying in a bed. A ventilator is protruding from her mouth. The boy is sitting in a chair against the window with a somber expression; he is staring off into space. The man from the first scene is standing, leaning against the wall. He watches the girl sleep with a fist resting underneath his chin.

Suddenly, each of the characters looks at me. Even the girl sits up, rips the tube out of her throat, and stares at me judgmentally. That’s when their heads explode into a bloody mess, painting the walls crimson. Alarms blare. The screens beside the hospital bed blink. The nurse runs in and screams before her head, too, explodes. The doctor rushes in. He looks around at the corpses and yells, “Code—” His head explodes. Finally, the scene fades to black. The light above me is but a distant speck, like a single crumb of bread on an otherwise spotless dining table. I move my head on a swivel: everything else, save for the light glowing from behind me, is pitch black.

What the fuck? Why are you doing this? Stop. Please, stop. I can’t take this anymore.

“You have to know.”

Know what? What do you want me to know? Confusion washes over me. I try once more to scream, but, just as before, only garbled groans come out. I don’t understand! What do you want with me?

“All should be unveiled in time, but it depends on your willingness to understand. The problem of whether or not your soul is worth saving depends on how it responds to the truth. A receptive soul can be salvaged and rehabilitated, but a hardened soul is despicable and belongs in the abyss forevermore. Now, no more questions. You are interfering with the process.”

Swaths of whites, dull yellows and browns, and blacks morph into a window looking into a hotel room. The boy from the previous scenes, a year or two older than before, sits on a bed. He wears black basketball shorts and a yellow tank top. He stares at the ground and swings his feet back and forth. A door opens. The boy looks up to see an overweight man step out of the bathroom. The man approaches the boy.

“You ready, kid?” asks the man. The boy nods, but his face is blank.

“All right. You know what to do.”

The boy begins to lift his tank top over his head when his phone buzzes. He pauses and lets it fall back over his chest. He removes his phone from his pocket.

“Hey, what are you doing?” barks the man.

The boy holds up his finger and opens his phone. The screen shows a message that reads, “FROM SISTER: Hey where u at? Dad is asleep and I need help going to the bathroom. Wheelchair isnt working. I need you to come help me.”

The boy lowers his phone back into his pocket and looks at the man as he stands up, “Sorry. I gotta go.” He starts toward the door.

“You’re not going anywhere,” says the man as he grabs the boy’s arm, pulling on him.

“You’re hurting me. Please, let me go!”

With an evil grin, the man says, “Good.” He throws the boy back to the bed.

I move my head from left to right, hoping it will make the scene disappear. Instead, the scene follows me wherever I turn my head. Please! No more! I don’t want to watch this anymore. This isn’t right! That boy’s just a kid! His sister needs him!” Thankfully, the window fades away.

“Ah. This is good. Your soul is nearly ready.”

Nearly?

“Yes. You are progressing better than we hoped.”

Another sheen appears above me before I have a chance to question who “we” are. Swirls of whites, blues, and dark greens morph into the front yard of a small mobile home. There is a makeshift ramp leading to the porch next to the stairs. The door opens and reveals the boy, who now has a mustache, pushing his sister in her wheelchair. They are in a hurry out the door. The father from before follows them, holding a bottle in his hands. He staggers.

Slurring his words, the man says, “Don’t come back! Ya ain’t welcome! Y’all are a bunch of useless leaches, and I hate you!”

The boy looks back as his dad slams the door shut. The girl begins to sob, “What are we going to do now, Noah?”

Noah, fighting tears, moves to the side of her wheelchair, kneels, and gives her a hug, “We’ll be okay, Sarah, I promise. We’re going to take care of each other.”

The scene fades to black. The light from the ocean’s surface has been consumed by darkness, the light behind me now my only savior from also becoming lost to the void.

I think I understand.

I am immediately transported inside a sandwich shop. Strangely, I am looking downwards at an angle, as if I’m viewing from a security camera. However, this feels too real—everything is crystal clear yet feels so distant, like I’m actually there but not there at the same time—to be just a security camera.

A line forms in front of the register. The young man, the one who I’m assuming is me, Noah, walks up to the counter and smiles at the androgynous person standing behind the register. They smile back and say, “Hi there! How can I help you today?”

Noah says, “Hello. Can I get… uhh…” He pulls out his phone, “…two six-inch italian sandwiches on cheddar cheese sour dough?”

The worker, still grinning, starts, “Of course! Will—”

“Oh, for fuck sake!” says an angry man in the middle of the line. He’s wearing camo cargo shorts and a hoodie with the logo of a death metal band. “That’s going to take twice as long to make!”

Noah turns around, “You got a problem? Be patient, bro. No one’s dying today.”

The angry man steps forward, and the people in the line stare at him, “Yeah, I do have a problem. One, I’m not your ‘bro,’ you scrawny twink. Second, only a fatass orders two sandwiches.”

Anger washes over me, over Noah, as his face reddens, “One of them is for my sister, dickwad.”

The impatient man approaches Noah, stopping inches from his face, “The fuck did you call me,”—he pushes him to the floor—“bitch? You did not just call me that.”

Clambering as he stands up, Noah rises back to his feet and hits the man in the face. The people in line at the register begin to slowly walk away. The impatient man staggers backward before pulling a handgun out of his hoodie and aiming it at Noah. Everyone in line runs to the exit. The patrons and the workers stuck where they are duck.

Noah stands tall and looks from the man to the gun. He gulps, “Go ahead. Shoot me! My life can’t get any worse!”

“I should shoot you! The world has too many spoiled little cunts like you.” He clicks off the safety.

Noah laughs, “You don’t have the balls. Come on man, make—” the impatient man fires three times. He looks at Noah, who stares at the ceiling with his eyes open as blood pools around him. The other people inside the restaurant cry and scream. The man lowers his gun.

I find myself back in my body and realize that I’m lying on sand again, which means I’ve completed my descent and reached the bottom of the ocean.

Wait, so I’m dead? You showed me all of that just to show me I’m dead?

“You fool!” The world around me trembles again, “How can you be so stubborn? You must understand! Do you want to suffer eternally in the lake of fire?”

The scene materializes again. The man with the gun is kneeling at the side of Noah before he gets up and runs out the door. I follow the man as if controlling him in a video game. The sound of sirens fade in as a police car with flashing lights approaches him. The man grabs a woman on a bench and holds the gun to her head. She screams and squirms.

A police officer steps out with her gun drawn, “Let the lady go and drop your weapon! You don’t want this to get any worse!”

“Get back,” yells the man. “I will kill her if you come any closer!”

The officer speaks into her radio as she maintains her aim on the man, “Responding units, be advised: suspect has a hostage and is threatening to kill her if we approach him.” Suddenly, the woman breaks free from the man’s grasp.

The man points his gun at the officer, but not before the female officer fires three shots at him. He collapses.

I am transported back to my body and notice that I am again lying on the sand. I lift my neck and cry, surprised to feel tears streaming down my cheeks and wails coming up my throat.

“Do you see the error in your ways? Have you learned? Are you ready to try again?”

“Yes! Yes, I have!” I say in a weak voice, like I haven’t had a drink of water in years.

“What have you learned?”

I think about what I have learned. Suddenly, once again, I hurdle upwards. As I break the ocean’s surface, I notice people wearing masks, scrubs, and gloves grabbing at and pulling me out of a wet cavern.