Water All Around Me

My oceanic tribe was all I could remember. We lived on a small island in the middle of the ocean, we were known as Ocanim and we worshipped Eialdin, whenever our people did not come back from hunts, it is because the Deep was hungry. We never got visitors, the waters far out from our colony were treacherous, the other people we saw was a crew of pirates led by the pirate king he announced, a construct not unlike the ones on our island, but metal instead of stone, a man named Booj. His crew was colorful as well, my favorite was his construct pet, a walking cannon. He was our first proof at life outside our colony, but we still could not connect, we could not travel and we could not sail past our waters without a flying ship like Booj had, but he said it was one of a kind. Booj did not visit much after that, we occasionally saw his ship in the distance. It was our second visitor who offered us more freedom from our island colony, a cleric of Eialdin, she was humanoid like us, but her lower half was aquatic, like the octopi we hunted. She brought with her other people of similar fashion, though barnacled instead of tentacled, all humanoid like us but more attuned to the Deep we all worshipped. Barnacled Revenants, they were called. We were wary at first, the things she was saying seemed to be... strange, when related to the faith we knew all our lives, but slowly the elders of our village looked into her deal and accepted it, accepted her offer at ascension.

My colony fell that day, our ascension was turning into her Barnacled Revenants, I remember the day it was my turn so vividly it is engraved in my mind. I remember being laid out on that table, strapped to it against my will as her priest performed a chant. And then I was drowning. I spent the next few weeks of my life drowning constantly, my lungs filled with water constantly, I could not speak. I was drowning despite not being in the water. I was something else entirely afterwards, now fueled with an endless hunger for others, under the control of this sea witch. My colony lived in a shipwreck underwater from that point forward, and despite being ascended to live within the ocean, we were always drowning. The witch calls upon us from time to time, we are her servants eternally. We beseige the shores of places we had never heard of, faraway lands we dreamed of one day sailing to.

Always hungry. Always drowning.

This is not how I wanted to see the outside world.