The following story is my entry into the 17th Steem Monsters Common Card Fantasy Story Fiction Contest.

From my own Steem Monsters collection.
Artwork owned by @steemmonsters

I may be slow, but I am strong. You'll have a devil of a time killing me.

Tale of the Spineback Turtle

It was in the age of the giants. I was an ordinary turtle, swimming the deep blue waters of ΛZMΛRÉ, feasting on scallops and other critters of the sea. Our peace was interrupted with the cataclysmic quake, the one that shook the world. My paltry existence would never be the same.

I swam. I ate. I swam and ate in peace, living for the tranquility of the waters, scurrying from time to time from some predator who wanted me as his meal. But then it came, that great quake that shook the world and froze my home into a giant block of ice. What once was a peaceful deep blue sea became a turbulent squall, a torrent of chaos I thought would never end. And then it froze solid over my head.

All I wanted was to feel the ray of sun on my back, to once again taste its warmth on my shell. I nosed at it from underneath hoping to shatter the wall of ice that became my prison. To no avail. The more I thrust my nose upon the solid sheet of frozen cover above my head, the thicker the slab grew putting greater distance between me and the world outside. Days, weeks, months crawled by. I thought this new way of life would permanently seal me in, and I dove to the bottom of the sea.

There, I thought myself safe. There, I thought for certain I could rest and forget about the trap I found myself in. But weeks and months turned into years and the solid slab of hardened molecules that locked me in reached to the floor of the sea.

It finally wrapped around my shell, pinning me to the ocean floor where I thought I'd lie for eternity.

Then one day, a crack broke through. It ripped through the solid tide of ice-wall that had once been a fluid universe rich in diversity and strong in character. Split wide open. A flood of sunlight burst through the seam and into my head like a swordthrust from the sky. And I could feel the pain sharp as a thousand needles penetrate every cell of my being from the hard crust of my exoskeleton to the soft nerves of my inner self. Only by the grace of the mighty giants did I live through, only by the peace and tranquility of ΛZMΛRÉ.

When I came to my senses, I pushed my flippers into the crack, began to crawl upwards between the two slabs of ice. I didn't get far. On both sides, the walls began to sweat. Moisture seeped from the ice and ran like trickles down the cheek of the giant wedge. And I slipped, fell to the pallid floor of my eternal home where I'd stay until I could swim again.

Having lost my grip, I waited. Stuck on the bottom of the dry seabed, drops of water dripped from the slabs of ice that slowly widened above me. I do not know how long this lasted. The hours turned into days, the days turned into weeks, the weeks turned into months, and it seemed like years before I could swim again. Mucus from the melting ice continued to splatter upon my back like a weak faucet or a sputumous snout. And I chafed. The scales of my back chafed like a dry riverbed receiving the love of its once lost ale.

Puddled on a sea floor recovering the texture of its muddy pool, I sought to think of ways I could reach upward toward the sky. The wall of ice began to crack. Splinters fell atop me from above. The ocean floor sank, and squishy things crawled beneath me. Some of it I could garner for a meal. And I could move. I could once again move in a slow creep. Eventually, I'd be able to swim.

Many years passed. I do not know how many. Over time, like stalagmites in a dank and moist cave, the drops of water that had once been ice began to form into spikes on my back. How this happened, if by some arcane magick or some natural process of which I am unaware, I do not know. I only know that life, for me, has been restored. Though I am not the ordinary turtle I used to be, I am free, independent, and chase adventure on the free and open of sea of ΛZMΛRÉ. Let no one come between me and the life I was meant to live.

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While you're here, check out my other Steem Monsters tales:

• Giant Roc: Born of Wind, Hard as Stone
• Skeleton Assassin
• Free Range Rexxie
• From Common Thief to Goblin Shaman
• Haunted Spider
• Feral Spirit
• Feet of Clay, Heart of Flesh
• The Ballad of the Crustacean King
• How Magic Was Born
• Enkidu the Fire Beetle

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