in other waters

You step out of the waypoint, the mechanical push of your exosuit sounds as you settle in the water, a mix of ultramarine and seafoam green. The stalk-like plants wave in the current, their yellow-gold filling your vision.

The exosuit starts moving, you had told it your destination before you left, and you can’t help but wonder what took it so long to start. What could an AI have to consider? It leaves you curious, but you can’t dwell on it now. You found a signal for Minae’s exosuit 2 days ago, and you’ve finally managed to upgrade the exosuit with jets to send you over the chasm preventing you from reaching her. However, you need to gather samples to fuel them.

Everything is left up to the AI. You can’t do anything from within the exosuit, a strange modification that leaves you puzzled. You had to trust the AI when you first arrived on Gliese 677Cc, your life depending on the exosuit that hadn’t been used in who knows how long, but the AI was functional, it gathered samples when close enough and made sure the oxygen and energy levels never sank to low.

You check to see how many samples you have, and deem it enough. You tell the exosuit to head towards the chasm and to prepare for the flight over the rift. As you float over the abyss, you can’t help but focus on the dark inky water below, the only contrast being the flake-like spores drifting around you. You make it to the other side and notice something immediately.

The water here is wrong. Clouded and muddled, grey particles like a sand storm covering everything. An ecosystem of its own, The Bloom.

You will not be able to use your rebreather here, your only option is stalk samples converted into oxygen. It’s dangerous, but you need to find Minae, she had called you here after all. After years of nothing, how could you leave now?
It’s hard to see or hear in The Bloom, your only saving grace being the AI scanning the ocean floor as you traverse. Every now and then you find a spot inside The Bloom where the water is clear, creatures you get to name sifting in the sand. You find skeletal-like remains in those pockets of fresh water, not human enough, but dreadfully close.

The worst part is when you’re in The Bloom for a moment too long. You see your oxygen rapidly depleting, only saved by the fan-like stalks that blow the effects of The Bloom away. It’s darker the farther you go, The Bloom thickening, its effects worsened.

You, after an hour, reach the location of Minae’s signal. A cave leading down. Inside you find more stalks, like the one’s near your waypoint deemed “home base.” You also find Minae’s research, Minae’s exosuit, torn off and left on the ground, covered in the fungal-like stalk, like an outer layer of protection, but no Minae.