In the abyssal darkness of the sea, something vast began to move. Its head resembled a colossal cephalopod, sheathed in layered plates that looked like ancient armor. Pale tendrils trailed behind it, drifting like drowned banners. Its faint blue eyes shimmered in the void, casting a ghostly glint against the black water.
Drawn by a primal instinct, the creature glided toward a narrow outlet carved into the seabed. The passage was far too small for something of its size, yet its body twisted and compressed with unsettling ease. Bones bent, plates scraped, and sinew folded until it forced itself through.
Within the chamber lay a cocoon. It pulsed softly like a trapped heart. Inside was a small figure, humanoid in shape, but the skin was not skin at all. Smooth metal plating covered its fragile form, each segment gleaming with a faint inner glow. The child floated in suspended stillness, as if waiting for a world that would never come.
The cephalopod monster drifted closer. One trembling tendril reached out and brushed the cocoon's surface. The touch was gentle, almost reverent, as if the creature remembered something precious it once lost. A soft creasing caress lingered there, filled with a strange and ancient affection.
Then its posture changed.
A ripple of violent emotion traveled through its limbs. Its eyes dimmed. Its fangs unfurled from beneath armored plates. Before hesitation could awaken, it lunged forward and sank its teeth into the cocoon.
The water shook.
Dark red blood spilled into the chamber, blooming across the ocean floor like a spreading flower of ruin. The glow inside the cocoon flickered, then faded, swallowed by the cold and hungry deep.
A little farther away, another cocoon drifted in the quiet dark, carried gently by the deep ocean currents. It hovered alone, untouched and unnoticed, its faint glow pulsing with a distant heartbeat.
This one was different.
Its shell was forged from smooth metallic hulls, shaped with unnatural precision. A narrow slit marked the place where its eyes would one day open, and from its head rose two curved horns, sharply defined, giving the dormant child an ominous silhouette even in stillness.
The light within it flickered. At first it glinted with a soft purple hue, almost serene. But as the ocean pressed silently around it, the color began to change. The glow deepened, shifting from violet to a simmering crimson. Then darker still, saturating into a shade of deep red so intense it bordered on black. Only the faintest pulse of light betrayed that something inside was alive.
Alone in the abyss, it floated like a forgotten ember of violence waiting to awaken.
Suddenly, the ocean floor cracked open. From the widening fissure, a creature began to emerge, its long tentacles whipping through the water with desperate force. Only the limbs were visible. The body remained hidden deep within the rupture, as if it refused or was unable to leave the abyss below. It thrashed violently, trying to pry the crack wider, struggling to create a greater passage for itself.
Each strike shook the seabed.
The powerful currents produced by its frenzy sent the smaller lifeforms spiraling upward, torn from the safety of the depths and forced toward the distant surface. Stones, sand, and drifting creatures all ascended in a chaotic storm.
The cocoon followed as well.
Light as a seed and trembling with a dim pulse, it was caught in the rising current and carried upward, helpless against the ocean's force.
Near the surface, predators scattered. Larger creatures fled in panic from the disturbance below, so none had the chance to feast on the drifting cocoon. It rose untouched, glimmering faintly, climbing toward a world it had never seen.
Soon, the bare sunlight touched the drifting cocoon, warming its metal shell. The moment was ripe. Something inside stirred.
A thin crack formed.
From within, a pair of narrow wings sliced outward, cutting through the cocoon's plating with precise, blade-like edges. The shell split apart. A dark shape pushed through, forcing itself free. First the wings emerged, flexing like living steel. Then, slowly, the body followed.
In the dazzling sunlight, the creature birthed itself into the world.
The wings folded back at once, retracting and reshaping into metallic plates that locked neatly across its chest, forming a natural armor. Its entire form was clad in a full suit of living metal, jagged at the edges, smooth at the joints, shaped like a knight forged in a dying star.
It lifted its head toward the sun for the first time.
A single word escaped its lips, a greeting perhaps forgotten by the world long ago.
"Good morning."
"Damn it, I almost got killed down there. What was that weird tentacle monster? It looked like some kind of mythical creature."
He exhaled sharply, releasing a huge breath.
"I'd better swim toward the shore. No time to dwindle here. Oscar Seal."
While swimming toward the shore, he tried calling out to something inside himself.
"Come on, monster… come out. I really need you now. I can't keep flapping my legs in the ocean forever…"
A voice finally growled from within.
"I am your servant now, you runt!"
It snarled again, louder this time.
"I will kill you if you disturb my sleep once more. And use the damn wings! Do not get yourself killed before I wake up. I will kill you myself if you do."
Oscar made a sour face and muttered inwardly, "Useless old man."
The voice rumbled back immediately."I am still hearing you."
Oscar did not reply.
His armor began to shift. The plates thinned, sliding and folding like molten metal until the wings reformed on his back. They emerged in a stark crimson hue, sharp at the edges, with bony ridges protruding like the frame of a skeletal beast.
With a sudden burst, he launched upward. The ocean split beneath him as he shot through the surface, tearing through the clouds in a crimson streak. Deep below, the creature in the abyss scurried back into the crack it had made. There would be no peace in the ocean today.
Oscar exhaled softly as he slowly took the magnificent view of the world through the skies.
"Looks like my memories are finally complete..."