The Shard-Wound Dream

The pressure squeezed at Elias, a monstrous fist around his chest, a constant reminder of how thin the line was. He kicked, slow and steady, each exhale a burst of silver bubbles racing toward the distant, sun-dappled surface. Cold seeped into his bones, even through the thick dry suit, a damp chill that was more than just water; it was the deep, the ancient quiet of it all. He was two hundred feet down, maybe more, pushing past the recognized limits, chasing a ghost and a rumor, a city that shouldn’t exist.

His twin sister, Lena, had filled his head with it. Years ago. Before the accident. Her notebooks, filled with frantic sketches and theories, lay scattered in his cramped apartment, water-stained, smelling faintly of salt and ambition. The Sunken City of Lyra, built entirely of some strange, bioluminescent glass, lost to a cataclysm. Most divers laughed. Old mariner’s tale, they'd say, a myth for greenhorns. Lena didn’t laugh. She believed. And now, Elias did too, because it was all he had left of her belief, of *her*.

The sonar had pinged a week ago, a jagged anomaly deep in the trench. Too perfect to be natural rock formations. Too vast to be a simple wreck. Hope, cold and sharp as a sliver of ice, had lodged itself in his gut. He’d ignored the warnings from the old salts at the dock, the shake of their heads. Paid off the boat captain, a grizzled man who just took the money, didn't ask questions. Now, it was just him and the endless blue.

His light cut through the gloom, a focused beam in the infinite murk. Sand, silt, the occasional strange deep-sea creature. Nothing. The ache in his shoulders was a dull roar. His oxygen levels, always on his mind, ticked down. He was burning through it faster than he should, the exertion, the fear, the relentless cold. Doubts clawed at him, whispers like the creak of the hull back on the surface. *You’re an idiot. Chasing a fantasy. Just like her.* The thought made his jaw clench, made him kick harder.

Then, a shimmer. Faint. Not a flash, but a slow, almost imperceptible shift in the black, as if the water itself was bending light in a new way. He adjusted his trajectory, finning toward it. The pressure intensified, a throb behind his eyes. He checked his depth gauge again. He was going deeper, past the safe zone, into the place where mistakes were fatal, where no one came looking. But he couldn't stop. Lena’s face, younger, brighter, flashed in his mind, her eyes alight with discovery.

Closer now. The shimmer solidified, resolved itself into angles, edges. Not rock. Definitely not natural. It was a wall, smooth and sheer, reflecting his light in a thousand tiny refractions. He reached out, his gloved fingers touching the surface. Cold, impossibly smooth, like polished ice. Not stone. Not metal. Glass. It hummed, a low frequency he felt more than heard, a vibration that resonated through the water, through his bones. The Sunken City of Lyra.

He followed the wall, his beam sweeping across its face. Structures emerged from the gloom: spires, arches, domes, all crafted from this strange, obsidian-like glass. They weren’t broken, weren’t ruined. Just… submerged. Preserved in a silence so profound it felt like a presence. He saw carvings now, symbols he couldn't decipher, glowing faintly with an internal light he couldn't explain. The city was alive in its own way, breathing slowly in the deep.

He found an opening, an archway leading into what must have been a plaza. Columns soared, disappearing into the darkness above him, their surfaces etched with intricate patterns. He floated through, weightless, a trespasser in a world that had forgotten the sun. This was it. This was what Lena had believed in, what she had died chasing, in her own reckless pursuit of the impossible. He paused, his breath fogging his mask slightly, the regulator hiss a lonely sound in the monumental silence. Was this enough? Had he found what he came for?

Then he saw it. Nestled in a crystalline alcove, half-buried in silt, was a small, ornate box. Not glass, but something akin to a dark, polished wood, inlaid with the same glowing symbols he’d seen on the city’s walls. It looked alien, ancient, yet utterly perfect. He knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his gut, that this was what Lena had dreamt of. Not just the city, but whatever secret heart beat within it. He extended a trembling hand, the cold metal of his dive knife brushing the box. His air was critically low. His body screamed for the surface. But his gaze was fixed on the box, the key, perhaps, to understanding the impossible.

He wouldn't leave it. Not after all this. Not after coming this far. The box felt heavy, cool, substantial in his grip. The light from his torch caught a faint glint on its lid, a familiar, tiny scratch mark. Lena’s mark. She'd always made one, a little 'L' scrawled haphazardly, on things she claimed as her own. His fingers, numb with cold, traced it. Then, with a grunt, he started to kick, turning back towards the archway, towards the long, impossible climb to the surface, the dark box clutched tight to his chest.