Cancer Mercury's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

She woke to tracks in the sand. Pale blue light spread from the shipwreck's entrance across the seafloor, forming lines that stretched away into the darkness. The spilled memories had started to crystallize overnight, leaking from bottles she thought were sealed. Cancer Mercury followed the nearest trail. The crystallized memories had formed shapes as they hardened—a navigator's tool with brass rings and a compass rose, half-buried in silt. Further out, a helmet fused with tentacles rose from the sand like a monument to someone's fear of drowning. She recognized neither memory. They weren't hers to deliver anymore, but they were pointing straight back to where she'd hidden the rest of the cargo. Anyone could follow these trails now. She tried to cover the formations with sand, but more light leaked from the shipwreck behind her. A new trail was forming even as she worked. Where the brightest memories had settled, a turtle made of starlight and gold had crystallized into the seafloor, its shell catching every bit of ambient light and throwing it outward. The thing was beautiful. It made her angry. She couldn't hide what was already announcing itself. Cancer Mercury stopped covering the trails and walked back to the shipwreck. She pulled the remaining bottles from their shelter and arranged them outside in a wide circle around the wreck's entrance. If the memories were going to crystallize and mark her location anyway, she could at least control what they revealed. She opened each bottle carefully and poured the contents into the sand in deliberate patterns—paths that led nowhere, false trails that curved back on themselves. By the time the sun cycle shifted, anyone following the light would find only loops and dead ends. The real shelter, and what little cargo she had left intact, she moved deeper into the wreck where no light could reach.