Info
Article written by DivineAtlas and
Robert Goerman
DivineAtlas's Author Page and Robert Goerman's Author Page
Combined themes created by MC_Crafter_24_7 and
ReyDay
You close your eyes, you hold your breath…
Cold water comes, you're close to death…
Deeper, deeper, you will go…
Darker, darker, it will grow…
You see those trees, find doors shut tight…
You open one, and what a fright!
Nursery rhyme about "The Cursed Mire."
SURVIVAL DIFFICULTY:
Class unknown
- Liminal Space
- Unsecured
- Anomalous Entities
How long can you hold your breath?
Conventional wisdom tells us that drowning is both painful and peaceful. Voluntary apnea is excruciating but temporary, seldom exceeding two minutes as the victim holds their breath. Water is inevitably inhaled, and serenity replaces anguish, followed by the loss of consciousness. Brain death takes ten minutes in warmer waters.
Description
Once thought to be whispered to children to keep them from straying too far into the waves, Level 422.1, known locally as "The Cursed Mire," has been experienced by divers searching for underwater sustenance in Level 422. They speak of a gray, foggy place—an infinite strand of water with beautiful, blossoming cherry trees sprouting from the placid surface.
The water is dark and shallow, only reflecting the ambient gray of the sky. Wanderers who emerge here will find themselves dry and struggling for air, as though they aren't absorbing oxygen into their bloodstream.
Memories of this place are usually foggy at best, but locals have recalled opening ominous wooden doors that have revealed terrifying snapshots of their past.
Latest Information by Cara WhiteHawk
I stared blankly at the putrid, bloated corpse sprawled across the otherwise unsullied sand. The gentle waves lapped softly at its sides as black fluid drained into the sparkling sea.
A woman sobbed behind me, her body shaking as she wept. "H-he was an excellent swimmer. I don't understand how this could have happened!" She continued, "He was just checking out the new fishing spot. It wasn't even that far into the Middle Waters. I only looked away for a moment or two, and…"
I examined his body, and the only cuts were flush with tiny bits of rock and coral, all of which had apparently occurred postmortem. The victim drowned, plain and simple.
Surely an accident, I thought to myself as the other M.E.G. members began to collect the corpse.
"What do you think, Steve?" He had been behind us for some time, probably also contemplating life and death.
Steve thought a bit. "I was on another assignment here months ago." He laid back into the sand, and I could hear the grains shift under his weight. "They were talking about some nursery rhyme, warning about a place in the water here, The Cursed Mire."
I raised an eyebrow. "Nursery rhyme? A place?"
"Yeah, apparently it's like another world, but you have to drown to enter it."
"If you must drown to enter, how would other people know about it, ding-dong?"
"Hey now, I don't make this shit; I'm just telling you what I heard." The warm sand gently pelted my back. I probably deserved it.
"It was in a bar, and folks were arguing about it. Some people said that they knew somebody who knew somebody else who lived to tell the tale."
I laid back on the sand with him, startling myself as my head bumped his. "There have been five drownings this month; I wonder if there's any merit to that poem."
"The locals seem to believe in it; many of them won't venture into the deep water out of fear."
"Okay, Steve. I trust you. Let's visit Outpost Hale Kapu and see what we can dig up."
Original Files
Hale Kapu (Hawaiian for "sanctuary") consisted of 21 large wooden rafts built from Agrugua tree logs and tied to one another with rope. It served to rescue wanderers trapped at sea and housed a current population of 150. Its M.E.G. files were originally held in Sandbar City.
"Oh, you want our information on The Cursed Mire?"
I stood stunned for a moment, surprised at any documentation for a nursery rhyme.
"Yes, please and thank you."
They handed us two laminated documents and a photograph.
[Personal Journal]
From the journal of Roger MacLeod
Peter and I found the fabled Level 422 shipwreck while snorkeling the drop-off between the Shallow Waters and Middle Waters. It was sixty feet down and hidden in plain sight because people looking for a sunken ship expect it to look like a sunken ship. The truth is, wooden structures deteriorate rapidly underwater, and this vessel became a shallow stack of rotting timbers dumped unceremoniously across beautiful coral. The sunken woodpile stands no more than five feet high.
Diving to the wreck, looking around, and returning to the surface had to happen in two minutes or less each time because we were holding our breath. It was during our fifth time down that I noticed a golden shimmer partly wedged under some planks. Snaking my hand through the narrow opening, I wiggled the object around and realized that it was a golden chalice. Something stung me just then, and as I reacted, the pile collapsed on my arm. Did I no-clip at that exact moment?
I was standing in ankle-deep water in a cold world of wooden doors and cherry trees. Air seemed to be in short supply, so desperation drove me to open the nearest door. My childhood bedroom closet greeted me. I felt six years old again, and that creepy walk-in haunt told my inner child that I was in terrible danger. The closet light turned on by itself, like it always did. My mother was hiding in there, like she always was. She kissed my forehead.
Don't smile, mama. Don't smile, mama.
Too late! Her smile grew wider and wider, and her arms grew longer and longer. Fingers became claws. There were so many teeth. My nighttime mother was a monster waiting in the closet or hiding under my bed. Sometimes, she appeared night after night. Pleading with her not to hurt me never helped. I still feel her icy breath in my face before she rips me to shreds, laughing all the while.
Please understand that I loved my daytime mother dearly.
Nothing could save me now. Her fangs scraped bone as she bit me mercilessly. I couldn’t stop coughing up blood.
Not blood, but water.
Peter was hovering over me on the sandy shore, looking worried, using our towels to slow my bleeding.
“You were drowning!” he tells me. “Your arm got caught. You must have been thrashing on the coral. Ha! Those wounds really look like bite marks.”
[Annotation]
Roger MacLeod made a full recovery before he disappeared. On the beach, where first aid saved his life, searchers eventually found the chalice, Roger's journal, and a few personal effects. Tormented by nightmares following the near-drowning incident, Roger is hopefully in a better place.
Golden chalice
recovered by
Roger MacLeod
on Level 422.
M.E.G. Archives
[Miscellaneous]
The Mystery of Charlee Greene
Charlee used to love to draw.
Monsters…
Nightmares…
Her life on Earth was devoted to her art. Give the girl some pencils and paper, and she was good to go for hours. No food. No drinks. No friends.
Try to give Charlee some drawing materials today, and she will scream in terror.
This report begins when we saved Charlee’s life. She was drowning close to shore in the Shallow Waters of Level 422. A non-swimmer, she fell off the raft and panicked in the water over her head. Men on the beach finally saw her distress and swam to the rescue, only to find the girl seriously wounded with deep bite marks on her arms and legs. No attacker was seen, let alone identified.
Charlee tells us a different story.
She remembers going under for the last time and suddenly standing alone in a cold and foggy grove of flowering trees and forbidding wooden doors. She couldn’t catch her breath, as if there was no air in this place. She ran for a door, hoping to escape.
The door opened easily and revealed a nightmare—something that she once drew. The larger-than-life pencil drawing uncoiled its long tentacles and began to squeeze through the narrow doorway. She tried to back away, but couldn’t. She could move left and right, but not forward and back. Charlee Greene became two-dimensional. Everything here turned into sketches and doodles.
The “drawing” attacked! Tentacles and fangs were everywhere. She fought back the best that she could, even breaking off several of the monster’s teeth in the process. The next thing that she knew, she was wrapped in blankets and on her way to medical treatment.
Doctors removed three of the creature’s teeth from Charlee’s left arm. These fangs are razor sharp, paper thin, and have an uncanny resemblance to hand-drawn art. Efforts are underway to determine their composition.
It is what it is.
Mysterious "teeth"
removed from the arm
of Charlee Greene.
M.E.G. Archives
I would have believed it a coincidence, but both of them talked about doors and trees.
"You think they're being influenced because of the nursery rhyme?" Steve asked.
You see those trees, find doors shut tight…
You open one, and what a fright!
"Maybe, but there also might be something here. I mean, they literally pulled anomalous material from the girl's arm. I wonder if Charlee still lives here?"
Our Eyewitness
Charlee, in fact, does live in one of the six dozen huts and cabins in Sandbar City. We rowed our boat over there, the heat of the day pounding on our backs, and approached the well-constructed hut described to us beforehand, one of a few adorned with faded paintings of flowering trees amidst freestanding doors.
A young woman sat on a chair, staring blankly at the rolling waves.
"Uh, Charlee?"
The woman shook her head, snapping away from whatever daydream she was experiencing. "Oh, yes? Do…Do I know you?" She squinted at both of us, her hand blocking the sun. Even in the brightness I could see her lovely blue eyes and golden blonde hair that cascaded down past her shoulders.
"Yeah, hey. My name is Cara, and this is my partner, Steven. We're with the M.E.G. and wanted to ask you about the accident you experienced when you were a child."
Charlee stiffened, the wonder draining from her eyes as they filled with fear. "There's nothing much to say. I almost drowned; I hallucinated as I was dying, and they pulled coral fragments out of my arm." Her right hand moved quickly to cover her scars, but they were indisputably in the shape of a bite mark.
"Charlee, I'm going to level with you. People are dying, and we have to figure out what's going on. I believe you. I think you saw some sort of anomaly that attacked you. I need to know how to find the place with the trees and doors."
She stared up at me for a moment, indecision in her face. She looked around, then briskly moved up to me. She pulled me close, then began to whisper in my ear.
"Find a sandy pocket of water and swim deep. Close your eyes and count to thirty in your head. Keep them closed until you feel cold water around you, then open your eyes. Now, please, leave me alone."
The Experiment
I was jogging towards the beach, Steve desperately trailing me.
"Cara, queen, this is a really bad idea."
"Well, I've got you to save me."
"I can't save you if you no-clip into some dumb, dangerous death level!"
"I believe in you."
"I don't believe in me!"
The water was warm, and I wiggled my toes as I stopped in the shallows. I turned to my partner and said, "Okay, if I'm not out in five minutes, pull me out."
Steve rubbed his palms on his temples. "Why are you being so reckless?"
I looked at him, guilt filling my heart for making him worry. "I'm sorry, I need to know."
Steve gave me the sternest look he could muster. "Three. Minutes."
I nodded, turning towards the water. I quickly dove in the warmth surrounding me. I swam into a sandy pit, like Charlee had said. I closed my eyes, and waited.
I stared into the darkness of my eyelids, counting as the muffled ocean sounds roared around me. After fifteen seconds, my chest began to hurt. After twenty, the darkness deepened. I started to panic, my heart rate fluttering wildly as the pressure of the water made my ears pop.
That's when I felt it, a current of cold water raging past me, enveloping me.
It was real. I stood in the gray landscape, my body shockingly dry. The water at my feet left no moisture, just the weight and viscosity of itself. I looked out upon the blossoming cherry trees and wooden doors, finally able to breathe.
Except, I couldn't. I sucked air in, but there was no relief. Numbness crept into the tips of my fingers as I felt my body struggle from the lack of oxygen. I needed to find a way out, and fast. I began trudging through the waters, glancing at the random doors.
Which one was an exit?
I was desperate and ripped open the closest door. There was a little girl in the hallway; she hid her face in her hands, crying quietly next to another door. Gravity caved, and I dropped to my knees. My head pounded from the lack of oxygen, and my brain reeled as I tried to stand. I blinked, and now I was alone in the hall, salty brine drooling out of the corner of my mouth.
Then, for a moment, I had complete clarity.
I remembered this moment, frozen in time, years ago.
I was the one crying in the hallway. My "new" mother never once tried to comfort me. She teased me because of my nightmares about the monster living in that closet. She laughed and called it the boogeyman, but it was much worse than that. I grimaced as I turned to the closet door. Even in the darkness, I could see a mottled hand slowly sliding out, grasping the edge of the door as the ungreased hinges screamed in protest.
"This can't be happening," I tried to say, but all I could make was gargling noises.
All nine feet of my childhood trauma slunk maliciously from the closet, its insidious glowing white eyes twinkling at me as it spotted its prey. I fell back, my body failing as I desperately tried to crawl away. I looked for a weapon—anything I could use to escape the monstrosity creeping out of the closet. I saw a toy, a plastic doll. It was a gift from my real mother and perhaps my salvation. The creature cackled as it crawled on top of me, pinning me down. Blackness darkened my vision as water gushed out of my mouth from the pressure of its body. The beast pulled its rotten claws back to swing, its paw flying at me full force as I tightly shut my eyes and swung the doll at its hideous visage.
I screamed, flailing my arms around, colliding with something soft.
"Cara, stop! Ow! STOP!"
I opened my eyes as a flood of vomit poured out of me. The brightness of the sun hurt, but probably not as bad as the bloody lip that I had just gifted to Steve.
"What… what happened?"
Steve flopped down, annoyance spattered on his face between the bruises.
"Dammit, Cara, you were drowning. I pulled you out and resuscitated you."
I lay on the sand, helpless and heaving as my body recovered from near death. My right hand still gripped the doll as I reached out with my left, gently holding Steve's fingers, the waves crashing into the soft, luminous sand behind us.
[Summary]
Defining the Level
Sub-layer 422.1, officially designated as "Reflections," exists on a combined physical, temporal, and ethereal level. This place between places is actually a metaphysical mirror for the victim's darkest fears and memories. Time slows as the consciousness of the drowning victim collides with nightmares capable of inflicting physical harm and manifesting reality. We only hear from those who get away.
On a strictly scientific note, this sub-level appears more often in cold water channels, so the M.E.G. has been monitoring water temperatures for cold swells.
Dr. John Rhinehart, PhD
M.E.G. Team "Epiphany"
Entrances And Exits
Entrances
- You enter by drowning1 in the waters of Level 422.
Exits
- Any rescue from your drowning. Always dive with a partner.
