Rise from the Abyss

Torrent Tide watched out the window with bated breath as the brass bubble began to descend, realization slowly dawning on her as she took notice of markers passing by her vision.

10 FATHOMS

Tide quickly realized she made a slight miscalculation.

18 FATHOMS

This wasn’t an elevator.

26 FATHOMS

It was a submarine.

Tide was distracted from her mounting dread by the sudden lowering of a large projector screen from above. She stared patiently at the aging white paper as a film began to play.

In front of her was a picture of the being she had come to recognize as Andrew Ryan, comfortably seated behind an ornate wooden desk.

Tide’s ears swiveled towards the sound of words erupting from some hidden speaker above her.

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I’m here to ask you a question.” The narration began simply.

“Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?” The question was followed by a new image, this one a depiction of a so-called ‘man’ seemingly a farmer standing in his field, wiping his forehead with a rag.

““No,” says the man in Washington, "it belongs to the poor!”” The narration continued, now accompanied by a picture of the farmer, running in terror from an impossibly large bald eagle, soaring from a rounded towering stone building, talons posed as if ready to whisk the farmer away to some unseen nightmarish fate.

““No,” says the man in the Vatican, “it belongs to God!”” This time the screen depicted one ginormous hand, reaching down from the clouds above. Palm outstretched, beckoning to the still terrified farmer.

““No,” says the man in Moscow, "it belongs to everyone!”” Once more the image changed, now ushering a hammer and sickle descending from the sky above some sort of foreign palace. Tide wasn’t sure what they were trying to do to the farmer this time. But he was still horrified nonetheless.

“I rejected those answers, instead I chose something different. I chose the impossible! I chose…” Tide watched with undivided attention as the projector screen pulled away. For a moment her vision was filled with nothing but rocks and coral, but as the submarine rose over the surrounding terrain, she saw it.

“Rapture.” Tide couldn’t believe her eyes.

In front of her was what she could only describe as a metropolis. An entire city, sprawling across the seafloor.

As the submarine began to glide and weave between monolithic skyscrapers and the clear glass tunnels that connected them, the voice piped up again.

“A city where the artist would not fear the censor.” Tide tore her focus from the grandiose speech for a moment as she noticed that the craft was growing closer to one of the buildings.

“Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality.” The narration once again grabbed Tide’s attention.

“Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city, as well.” With that the spiel finally came to a close.

Tide watched as her vessel effortlessly soared through the water, slowly approaching a small tunnel of metal rings. She could see something written out on each one and quickly began to read them.

ALL GOOD THINGS

OF THIS EARTH

FLOW

INTO THE CITY

As she made out the writing on the final ring the submarine came to a sudden stop. Tide stared at the beautifully chiseled wall in front of her, for a moment she thought her vessel had reached a dead end, Tide realized she was wrong as the craft began to rise.

As the submarine breached the top of the chamber, Tide could see from inside as the vessel broke the surface of the water.

With a hiss from somewhere within the brass bubble, Tide felt nearly weightless for a moment before the craft hissed once more and the feeling completely turned Tide now felt like she was made of lead, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she also felt a splitting headache begin pounding in her head.

After what felt like an eternity, her headache seemed to quell and with that her focus returned to the world around her.

The first thing she took notice of was the sound of static from somewhere near her head, looking up and to the left, her eyes landed on a small device covered in knobs levers and buttons, for a moment she thought it was some sort of control panel, but turning her eyes just a bit higher she noticed a sign reading ‘SERVICE RADIO’.

Carefully sitting back on her haunches, as to avoid crushing her ocean blue tail, Tide reached up with her front hooves and unhooked the radio from the wall of the submarine.

Tide reached for one of the knobs at random and, after a moment of trying and failing to turn it with her hooves, twisted it with her mouth and much to her surprise, the static cleared slightly, turning the knob even more revealed a voice trying, and nearly failing to be heard.

“Whoev- static -in the- static -sphere- static -get movin-” it ordered, barely piercing through the scratching and buzzing of the static.

Despite the fact she could barley make out what had come through the speaker, Tide was intuitive enough to understand what it meant by 'sphere' she quickly hung the radio on the neck of her armor, located, and turned a lever on the side of the glass door.

With the hiss of releasing pressure it swung open to reveal what Tide could only recognize as a grand hall of some kind and she took a moment to register the state of the cavernous expanse as she stepped out.

The room appeared to be a station of some kind. Tide weaved between the benches and schedule charts that adorned the area, the only sound was the clacking of her armored hooves on the off white tile floor as she carefully dodged between the scattered suitcases, duffel bags, and even the occasional dog cage or two.

A ceiling of glass stretched down along the wall in strips, broken up by whatever gray stone the rest of the building was made of.

But what was most off putting to Tide, was just how abandoned the lobby was. It looked like nopony had been here for at least a decade. The outside of the glass walls were covered in overgrown algae and she could make out the occasional starfish stuck to their surface.

The once plush leather benches were now torn and cracked from years of neglect, and every single schedule on the charts read ‘CANCELED’ in bold red letters.

Tide took in the smell of dust and saltwater as she traversed through the maze of abandoned luggage, occasionally stopping to gaze at the colorful deep sea creatures that swam just outside the windows. Tide stopped as she noticed something sitting on the sill of the window just outside, she took a seat on the cold tile floor and craned her neck downwards to study the specimen.

It appeared to be a sea slug of some kind, dark almost gray in color with small glowing bright red dots lining its sides. On top of its wide squatty head was an exceptionally large red bulb, yet its eyes were a dark empty orange. Tide had never heard of a slug like this before, but considering Equestria’s lacking submersible technology it wasn’t shocking that some underwater species had yet to be discovered.

Now there was a thought. Technically, Tide was the first pony to ever discover the underwater city of Rapture. Her mind slowly began to swim with possibilities as she stood up and continued through the deserted station.

When Tide returned to the surface and made Princess Celestia aware of Rapture’s existence, she would be awarded a medal, or a promotion, or maybe she would task Tide with discovering other forgotten civilizations. Her heart fluttered at the idea of navigating through old ruins, dodging traps and solving ancient puzzles.

Tide quickly shook her head clear of all her fantasies, she had been reading too many Daring Do novels.

Tide absentmindedly fiddled with the radio hung from her neck guard as she reached the end of the lobby. Turning the same dial that had lessened the static earlier, she waited patiently to hear any more from the voice on the other end of her impromptu accessory.

As Tide approached a large archway set into the wall in front of her, she turned her attention to the sizable gold sculpture of a bull mounted above the it, hung between the bovine’s frighteningly long horns was a limp red banner, the yellow words inscribed onto it proudly proclaimed:

WELCOME TO THE

TARTARUS CLUB

Tide could feel the lump form in her throat as she stopped dead. It took a long moment of struggle before she finally managed to swallow it. Looking through the doorway she could see nothing but darkness. Steeling herself, she slowly made her way into the abyss.