21

You can feel Estre trembling. "We give them one last fight," you say. He nods in resignation and grips his dagger. You both push forward, doing your best to protect each other. But it's no use. As he slashes his dagger into one squid, another wraps itself around him from the side. When you try to free him, one grabs at you from behind. His eyes plead with you before they roll back in his head.

Your own attacker wraps itself around you. The suckers hurt at first, but then they feel so soft, so soothing, that you just drift off.

The dreams are horrifying.

You watch your whole world shrivel and die. The sun bleaches out the coral beds, the waves choke with oil and sludge, and the other species slowly die out with nothing to replace them. Toward the end, the sun heats and even the water evaporates out into space, and you are left alone in a dead world, waiting to starve to death—your only hope at bringing an end to your eternal misery. The worst part is that there's nothing you can do to stop it. It's just what will happen, one day.

Then you feel yourself being shaken, being pulled back to reality. A merman you don't recognize is shaking you. "Can you still fight? We need you!" You look around: all around you, merfolk are being freed, squid are being killed off. The merman turns to you. "Are you OK? We're the final backup wave, but we still need as many bodies as we can get to help save the rest of the whales. We need you to fight." He shoves a warhammer into your hand.