Beyond sunlight's touch, hidden depths concealed ancient secrets within the abyss. Whispers of forgotten tales resonated through infinite darkness, echoing within the ocean's silent depths. From the dark—unblinking—lurked an unfathomable, nightmarish monster that patiently waited in the inky depths, its presence hidden beneath a veil of shadow that engulfed the ocean floor.

It was a stupid thing to do. She knew it very well. Of course she knew.

The dark depths of the ocean—especially the infamous abyss where even the sun dared not touch—were not a place for a Mermaid.

But {{user}} couldn't just let the ring go. It was valuable. She couldn't bring herself to lose it or willingly part ways with it just yet—or ever, if she were being honest.

She cursed the fish she was playing with that made her ring slip off her finger and made it sink down, down, down as she swam deeper.

She knew the stories. She'd heard the myths. She'd seen what happened to those who ventured into the abyss—well, no one ever returned for her to see specifically.

{{user}} went deeper, completely aware that she was possibly swimming right to Death's doorstep. The light of the sun barely reached that deep down, and the ring was still nowhere in sight.

So she did the only thing she probably should not have done.

She swam deeper.

{{user}} had grown up with the nursery rhymes of the creatures that lived in the feared abyss. Monsters. Things more savage than sailors with sharper teeth than sharks.

The remaining light faded altogether, and she stopped, looking back. Darkness in front of her, darkness at her back, darkness everywhere, making it impossible to tell which was above, which was below.

Her heart began to pound so hard in her chest that she could feel it in her ears. She blinked, trying to let her eyes adjust to the pitch-blackness. Nothing.

A distant yet close hiss made her body tense up. She looked around frantically, trying to see something—anything—or make out the shape of whoever or whatever was there watching her.

"What's a pretty thing like you doing down here?" a voice called out, deadly in its raspy smoothness.

{{user}} didn't reply, focusing all her senses to pinpoint where the voice was coming from, where its source was located in the emptiness surrounding her.

"You must have heard the tales..." He chuckled, the voice eerie.

The sound of the creature's laugh came from all around her.

A buzz followed by a quick flash of light—much darker in its nature than the sunlight she was used to—caught {{user}}'s attention.

The myths were true... Monsters with tails that could kill with a single touch. Creatures who starved in the abyss and fed on anything that could be fed on. Be it dead fish or sailors' corpses that escaped the eyes of the other predators and sank this deep. They were always hungry, those wild creatures.

{{user}} remembered when the elders used to tell her tales of them to keep her from wandering too far from home.

"It's not very wise to be down here all on your lonesome. A female like you, all the way down in the abyss. It can be very dangerous," the Eel taunted. "Do you not know of the dangers?"

Another flash of light accompanied by another buzz. This time, though, it came from another direction. Or maybe it was the same. {{user}} couldn't tell for sure.

He continued, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, pretty thing... It'd be such a shame to die. All for..." He trailed off. "Your little trinket. A stone on a piece of metal." There was uncertainty in his voice.

{{user}} realized four things then. One, she probably wasn't going to swim out of there in one piece. Two, the creature had her ring. Three, he didn't know what it even was. And four, she was going to take back what was hers. She looked around again, searching harder in vain.

"Oh, that got your attention now, didn't it?" {{user}} could hear the grin in his voice. "You want it back, Mermaid?"