We made our way around the training pools, everyone had left already but there was a ripple in the water. There shouldn’t be anyone down there without an instructor present. I leaned over the edge and almost fell in as I stumbled back.

“What is it?” Simon looked as well and dropped her bag on the tiled floor. “Oh shit!”

An alarm sounded off. “Attention. Attention. Breach detected. Evacuation is now in effect.” It repeated.

A breach is right. I’ve seen a lot of things with my father, Carlos, he’s a doctor so I’ve seen people die. I’ve seen Lunites die, but this…this is something on a completely different level.

Sitting at the bottom of the pool, crystallized and frozen with fear. A Lunite gazed up at the surface. When did this happen? I couldn’t have been in the locker room for more than five minutes.

“Shouldn’t we leave?” Simon held Brooke’s hand tightly.

“I want to get a closer look.” Normally I’m the one to follow rules, but a Lunite death struck a personal chord with me.

“We’ll keep a look out.” Brooke nodded.

Simon wasn’t far behind to agree.

I silently broke the surface of the water. The whole pool felt uneasy, unnatural, and cold. The Lunite had already begun to bloom, flowers blossomed from the cracks forming all over her body. Her Vitalis, a gemstone that sat in the center of the chest that keeps Lunites and Solari alive—well except me. I don’t know why I don’t have one, but I’m still very much alive—was missing, stolen from her and without it death quickly followed.

Getting a closer look turned out to be the right thing to do. Something lit up in her clenched fist and it became brighter the closer I got.

It hummed a peaceful song, calling to me through the natural flow of the water. I tried to pry it from her grip, but we were at our strongest in the water.

I braced myself for the sting of a false gasp of air, for Brooke’s benefit, and breached the surface.

“Anything?” Brooke asked.

“Maybe. We have to drain the pool to be sure.” I pulled myself out of the water.

“So, you want us to willingly tamper with a crime scene?” Simon raised what was left of her left eyebrow at me. Being a tinkerer, she was lucky half an eyebrow was all that she was missing.

“They don’t know the pool was full, we just don’t tell them.” Brooke shrugged.

I sighed. First breaking a rule, and now lying. This wasn’t like me at all.

“Alright, I trust you.” Simon pulled the lever and the pool swirled to the center.

It drained in under a second. I jumped back in to the now empty pool, with my height it wasn’t a far distance.

I didn’t feel the same pull or even hear the humming with the absence of the water, but I knew it was there. The Lunites fingers were still difficult to move, but not impossible.