Atlantium Trilogy I: Bride of Atlantis Read Free

when Alexis finally
came to, she thought she might have gone blind. She lifted her
hand, felt around her. Something soft and yielding surrounded her.
A deep cold penetrated it and she shivered, realizing suddenly that
she was wet.
    It took several moments to recall her
last conscious moments, but when she did, she was inclined to think
she’d had the world’s worst nightmare.
    But, she was wet.
    Maybe she’d fainted in the shower,
bumped her head?
    She was moving, though. She couldn’t
see much of anything, but she could feel that she was
moving.
    She could also feel the thin membrane
that she recalled exploring.
    If she’d dreamed it, would she still
feel that? Could it possibly be anything else that her mind had
interpreted as a bubble?
    She became aware of a soft glow of
light and turned toward it.
    Beneath her, she could see what
appeared to be a coral reef. She was guessing, naturally. She’d
never had the least inclination to go diving and had never actually
seen one, except in pictures, but it did look like one, except for
the cave-like entrance and the soft glow of light spilling forth
from it.
    Maybe she was dreaming? Eating seafood
usually resulted her in dreaming some really bizarre things. Had
she eaten seafood, though? She decided she must have, even though
she couldn’t remember having done so.
    Or was she floating mindlessly on the
surface of the ocean, hallucinating while her life slowly slipped
away?
    The man—merman—that was pushing her
along in the strange bubble, headed directly for the
light.
    Once they’d passed the opening, she
realized it couldn’t possibly be a cave. It was a tube-like
corridor that seemed to go on forever, and it was man made because
it was as straight as an arrow … or made by something, in any
event. It most certainly was not a natural cave.
    It must have been at least two or
three miles long, maybe more, because it seemed they traveled
through it for a very long time. They passed, eventually, through
the tube and into what appeared to be a great cove, or, more
likely, a cavern and underground lake, although she could see no
signs of stalactites, which she knew would’ve been in a natural
cave.
    Then, as they moved toward the surface
of the water, she realized the ceiling emitted a faint glow—like a
bright night sky. Faintly, she could just distinguish the twinkle
of stars.
    So they weren’t
underground?
    It didn’t make sense. They should be
underground, but if they had been she wouldn’t be looking at a
night sky.
    She thought it over, trying to add two
and two and coming up with six every time, because it just didn’t
make any sense at all. Before they’d entered the tunnel, they had
been surrounded by the darkness of deep water. She was as certain
of that as she was certain of anything that had happened that
night. Moreover, the tunnel they’d followed had been straight as an
arrow, and just as level as a if it had been laid out with a
contractor’s laser. And, if they hadn’t gone up, then it was a
physical impossibility that this could be anything but a
cave.
    Unless … Maybe it was like the bottom
of an extinct volcano? Maybe this place WAS beneath the sea, but
opened to the sky because the cavern had no roof?
    She abandoned her useless speculation
when they surfaced at last. The bubble disappeared as abruptly as
it had appeared and she found herself being cradled against the
man’s chest. More curious now than frightened, she looked
around.
    They were still perhaps a mile, maybe
two from shore. In the distance, she saw the twinkling lights of a
city, sprawling along the shoreline as far as she could see in
either direction.
    The question was, what
city?
    It could not be the US. Coastal cities
might abound, but they certainly wouldn’t be able to approach the
city as she and her merman had.
    South America? Could they possibly
have gone that far?
    She was no genius when it came to
geography, but it seemed beyond the realms of
possibility.
    But then,