That was no wave. It was more like an entire mountain collapsing, crashing down with a roar that threatened to grind everything to pieces.
The planks were driven deep underwater. Three figures tumbled through seething foam and surging currents, their world reduced to a dull, omnipresent rumble.
After an unknown length of time, the pressure suddenly eased.
The shattered ship planks surfaced again, carrying three utterly bedraggled "things."
The rag-doll queen coughed violently, even though she no longer needed to breathe.
Together with the plastic guard, she dragged the cloth slug, so swollen with seawater that he was almost a ball, back onto the relative safety of the wood.
"This ability... it makes absolutely no sense."
The doll's voice had lost its usual elegance and trembled with the shock of survival.
The plastic guard rapped his knuckles against the slippery planks, producing hollow tapping sounds. "There's some 'good' news that isn't all that good: seawater can't kill us in these forms."
He paused, his tone sinking. "But what's worse is that once the transformation is complete, we... disappear entirely from everyone else's memories."
That was the truly chilling fact.
They had watched their companions fall victim one after another, then be instantly forgotten by the living and easily subdued in their bewilderment.
"What about Pica?"
The doll-Jora-pressed him, her soaked fabric weighing heavily on her. "Who saw him last?"
The guard, Pica, silently pointed toward the churning, ink-black water beside them. "He was the last one.
"I saw him turn into stone... he sank straight down."
Their materials differed after becoming toys: he was hard plastic, while Jora and the "slug" beside her-
Trebol-were absorbent cloth.
"Pica-!"
The swollen cloth slug let out a distorted wail. Liquid ran down his face, but it was only bitter, salty seawater.
"Calm down,