Blobby's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Blobby stood at the black edge of the pool where the creature had swallowed Bobby. Blobby could not breathe underwater. A god who drowned trying would worship no one. So Blobby needed a way down. Blobby remembered the traders who passed the ridge, and the strange gear they carried. Blobby waddled back to the temple, dug through a crate of odd things, and found it. The diving mask sat there, round glass lenses staring up. Two hoses curled from its base like sleeping snakes. Blobby pressed the mask over the soft front of their body. The straps stretched tight. The breathing part sealed. Blobby sucked in air and it worked. Cool air, dry and clean. Blobby's chest filled and did not sink. Blobby rolled back to the water. The pool was silent now. Down there, somewhere, Bobby waited inside the thing. Blobby's whole marshmallow body shook. Blobby was not brave. Bobby was the brave one, the one who always walked first. But Bobby was gone, and no one else would go. "I'm coming," Blobby said into the mask. The words fogged the glass. Blobby jumped. The cold hit hard. Water pressed in from every side. Blobby's soft shape squished thin, then bounced back round. Through the glass lenses, the pool glowed faint blue. Stones still sat on the bottom, dim now. Blobby kicked downward, clumsy, arms flailing. The hoses trailed behind. Air hissed steady into the mask. Blobby sank past the shallow shelf into the deep dark center. Down here the glow died. Blobby squinted. Shapes drifted. A long shadow slid below, wide as the temple door. The creature. Blobby froze, then forced their body lower. Bobby was inside that shadow. Blobby had to see it, had to know. Blobby drifted close. The creature lay still on the mud, jaws half open. Between its jagged teeth, something small and white was wedged. A triangle sat on top of it. Bobby. Blobby's heart slammed. Bobby was not sinking into the belly. Bobby was stuck in the teeth, caught at the very front of the mouth, one arm still gripping the biggest glowing stone. Alive. Trapped. Not swallowed all the way after all. Blobby reached out. The creature's eye rolled open, huge and yellow. It saw Blobby. The jaws twitched. Blobby yanked. Bobby did not budge. The teeth held him tight. The creature shuddered and began to rise off the mud, dragging Bobby with it, straight up toward the surface. Blobby grabbed the nearest hose of the mask with one hand and Bobby's arm with the other and held on. Blobby did not save Bobby. Not yet. But Blobby knew the truth now. Bobby lived. The creature knew Blobby was here. And the whole thing was surging up, hungry and awake, with both blobs caught in its rush toward the light.