I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 70: Entrance

About 150 humans later... the tiny group made it what was labelled as a top priority, yet most of this group had no clue where exactly they were going.

Only Stacey knew where one of these hidden dens are supposed to be, which labelled the blue lady as the prime tool of navigation.

The hidden den had an unique entrance, thankfully it didn't require a special word to pass through it but it sure was different.

In this group, Stacey was the only one who could open it and as a brag, she asked her friends to stay a foot away just to get a bit more attention.

Afterwards the parrotfish swam straight up and then took a sharp 180 turn downwards, her narrow head making against the flat and in a way, polished looking coral.

What forced the rest of the group to shake their fins, was an abnormal sudden fact. Stacey disappeared, just like that!

For a split second it seemed like the coral arose in a perfect mater upon contact, made a 360 turn and swallowed the blue fish whole.

And then, the group could see Stacey arise from the coral as if a zombie fish who came back from the depths of the oceans.

When she came out again, they could see a round shaped piece of coral flipping against the water like a tossed coin, that seemed to act like an entrance and exit.

"That really is hidden." Timmy pointed out the obvious, intending it as a compliment of course. "But you didn't tell me anything about this place. What fish can we expect to deal with?"

Unwilling to become specific about it, Stacey stretched. "Oh, about that..."

"What?" The stingray weighed in such a question, giving her an awkward eye.

Feeling a bit pressured, she pushed all conclusions away by partially clearing out. "It's full of diamond stingrays, at least it was but..."

"But?" The boy repeated, dumb enough to still stand with suspicion towards the lady.

Using the boy's short attention span, the parrotfish weighed in another burden. "You know, the shark invasion. They are probably all dead so I hope you don't mind seeing dead stingrays."

"Let's hope they are alive." Tim answered and tried to mimic the same procedure the blue fish did but inevitably failed.

He belly flopped on the coral and felt the entrance barely shift, but being just 7 centimetres wide doesn't really give the opportunity to shift a 30 centimeter wide entrance.

Giving an aid, Osira swam a couple of feet up and then bashed the hell out of the coral. Barely took any effort for her considering just how tough she proved herself throughout the recent battles, the entrance flipped twice which shows whom was the true bull here.

Timmy fell victim to such power, he spun along with the coral before landing on the other side. Embarrassing enough, he almost landed over Osira.

As they waited for the last one of the group to swim in, the young stingray took time to appreciate the architectural values here, the most important one being width.

The tunnel was half a meter wide, most definitely equal to the entrance's size. In other words, it was nothing snug for anyone in the group and granted the luxury of moving around freely.

The only thing difficult about this place was the lack of illumination, it couldn't seep out of any hole here, the area was sealed shut.

One thing he could tell apart from this darkness was the yellow coral spreading its short and limited branches across the semi-smooth cobblestone.

"I can't see a thing." The youngest one here complained and swam right next to Osira's backside after.

"I can." The orange fish assured and slapped Timmy with her fin. "Follow me, there is a one way tunnel going straight down."

Well the area was dark indeed but at least it was easy to see a string of orange in the midst of deafening darkness, so the boy followed Osira and Stacey followed the blue dots in front of her.

They swam about 30 meters deep and then took a slight turn to the right, which led to a tunnel that no longer pointed down but straight ahead instead, it felt easier to swim over this portion.

With about 40 more meters of travel, they could see the tunnel expanding, at this point it had become 2 meters wide.

Right as they met the end of this tunnel, their vision was captured by what seemed like an under the sea cavern, stretching about 15 meters wide and long, this might be the biggest den they have found yet.

"Where are the stingrays already? This place looks so dead." Tim asked, losing his patience and dripping away hope as well.

"We're here." A female but yet masculine tone illuminated in this strong darkness, and afterwards their vision was blinded by a red light.

There seemed to have been some gems on these walls, and somehow they have lit up in an area filled with water, right when that woman spoke out.

After they adapted half way to this blinding light, they were forced to take a glimpse of what seemed like a large pancake, swimming 2 meters high above the ground.

That same female tone echoed across the waters, strong enough to barge fear in these smaller souls, refusing to experience even a single mumble. "What are you doing here? Usually we eat intruders alive but you're one of our kind... a stingray."

Swimming in front of Osira so she doesn't get hurt by what seemed to be a pitch black stingray who was covered with white dots equal to Timmy's size, the boy cited. "We need you to join our village."

Feeling that this was like a command and quite hating it, the female almost shook the sand as she contradicted. "You can not command us little one, so think twice about what you think. But furthermore, why would we need to join your tribe?"

"We?" Stacey asked from the background.

"Yes, we." A truly manly tone echoed from the background afterwards and the ground itself began to crumble.

It made the little group think that the cavern was collapsing but no that wasn't the case. Instead, 2 more stingrays of the same form and size had emerged, demanding. "Now answer her question!"