The year is 1788. Not a year easily recalled, for time itself seems to fray at the edges when one delves into the chronicles of Cloison Deborah. She was, ostensibly, a cartographer, a meticulous recorder of coastlines and river systems. But her maps weren’t of this world. They charted the submerged remnants of a civilization known only as the Lumina, a people said to have worshipped the refracted light of dying stars. Her obsession began with a single, iridescent shard – a fragment of what she called the ‘Heart of the Current,’ a pulsating crystal that pulsed with a light unlike any earthly phenomenon.
“The water remembers more than we do. It holds the whispers of forgotten suns.” - Cloison Deborah’s Journal Entry 1787
Deborah’s obsession led her to the coast of Brittany, a place riddled with ancient legends and unsettling tides. She constructed a submersible, a bizarre contraption of brass, glass, and alchemically treated seaweed, driven by a series of meticulously crafted clockwork mechanisms. Her goal: to reach the point where the currents seemed to deepen, to where the sea held a tangible sense of age and sorrow. The descent was… unsettling. The water grew colder, the light dimmer, and a pervasive hum filled the submersible. She recorded the discovery of immense, coral-like structures, etched with glyphs that defied translation, and the skeletal remains of colossal marine creatures, adorned with the same iridescent crystal she’d found on land.
“The Lumina did not drown. They *shifted*. They became one with the current, a chorus of light and silence.”
Her final log entry, dated October 23rd, 1788, is fragmented, almost hallucinatory. She spoke of a city built of light, a metropolis of shimmering towers and flowing canals, inhabited by beings of pure energy. She described a ‘Harmonic Convergence,’ a moment when the currents aligned, allowing passage between dimensions. The submersible, according to her last scribbled notes, was pulled into a vortex of iridescent light, disappearing without a trace. The recovery team, dispatched by the Royal Geographical Society, found nothing but a single, perfectly preserved seashell – a shell that, when held to the ear, emitted a faint, haunting melody.
“The current is not a river. It is a *memory*. And the Lumina are still dreaming within it.”
Today, the legend of Cloison Deborah persists. Sailors whisper of strange lights in the water, of ships that vanish without a trace, and of a haunting melody carried on the wind. Some believe she didn't die, but rather transcended, becoming a part of the current, a guardian of the Lumina’s lost city. Her maps, though incomplete, remain a testament to a reality beyond our comprehension, a reminder that the most profound mysteries lie not on the surface, but in the depths of forgotten time.