I have a feeling we will be getting playable Octolings soon.

Soon...

🐙

"This was my homeroom, y'know. Used to watch TV at lunchtime with Rosu and Liik, sometimes it'd be the Sucker show with Mati and Maat, other times it'd be the history channel (Teacher never liked it, dyed-in-the-wool patriot) or a documentary. I remember one day, after shop class, one of those weird kids at the back rigged an antenna onto the TV and we watched some squiddie singing contest. There were these two little floppers, couldn't have been much older than us, they'd just won the show - big ol' smiles, almost as big as the trophy.

I kinda liked the look of that show. Everything looked so clean, like they took one of our vent fans and blew all the dust out of the room every day. But then teacher came in and gave us all detention for watchin'. Something about 'Propaganda of the Oppressor', stuff like that. Kid like me? Didn't think much of it. Didn't look oppressive, didn't look like propaganda. I just wanted to know what they'd sung - didn't see the song, didn't see the recap. Always wondered.

Yeah, this was a pretty good homeroom. Ate lunch here (Did I mention that) with Rosu and Liik. Rosu used to work as an apprentice for the desalination corps - this was back before the water rationing, see. Then there was a power cut -which wasn't that regular back then- while he was cleaning out the dry pond, y'know, scraping off the salt once the seawater's been evaporated. That wasn't a problem, he was a smart kid, kinda scrappy, stayed right put until the power and the lights came back on. But it must've blown a fuse or something 'cause the flue doors broke and -

- Sorry, it's a bit dusty here. I mean, you've heard the story. Broke the whole plant, he wouldn't have made it out anyway. Just that he was the first, that made it worse, I think. I didn't come out of my room for days. Liik was cool, though. She grabbed some of her friends who knew him and some of his friends who knew me and just waited outside my door. I had to let them in, too embarrassing not to. We all just did this weird group hug and let it all go, really sappy stuff. Felt a whole lot better, though.

Didn't last, though. Water wasn't exactly free beforehand, and now we were getting by with showers every third day, washing dishes and clothes every fourth. The lunch was still fine, though. I mean, fish and that grew in salt water, that's fine. We just had to tighten the belt and make handy use of nose-pegs, Heh.

I mean, I still loved this place, this homeroom. Ate lunch here with Liik every schoolday, usually had to trade my urchin and brine-egg for her 'Cumbios'. Heh. Cumbios, still remember the jingle: 'Day or night ye take a bite of the wobblin' sea, cucumber's sproutin' a juice'n delicacy. Cumbios! Cumbios!'. Radio used to keep that one going, was the only cheerful music we had. Liik tried changing that with her singing, but she sounded like a seagull choking on a crab - never told her that, back then it still meant something if you tried.

Anyway, she thought that the rationing would be over by the winter. She hadn't seen the news about the titanium shortage, best the engineers could do was seal the place with tar and rubber and hope it didn't flood up to the oxygen cisterns. That was only the start of the trouble, see, 'cause she was one of those weirdos who thought that happy smiles and a go-get'um attitude changed anything. So eventually teacher up and told us that if we wanted to make a little more scratch after school, we could go out on salvage missions with the teamsters and try to keep the submarines running while they ran, if that makes sense.

So she got this big ol' look in her eyes, said she'd do her part (Everyone looked at her all weird, like she'd got an extra head or something) and was signing up right that day. Like I said, she was a weirdo. Super cute, though.

I didn't see her again. Heard a week later that one of the meters on those old rust-buckets broke and they went below crush depth on accident. There wasn't no group hugs after that no more.

Give me a minute, yeah?

Yeah.

Yeah, this was a good homeroom. I was about 16 when the lights all went real bright for a moment, we heard all these dings (Batteries being charged at this time of the day?) and a whole bunch of cheering and suddenly I didn't feel so sad. Some of our best and brightest had this fresh idea to nab some fish from the squiddies - It's not like they'd miss it, and it's not like anyone's going to care if their non-stop party started to stall. Yeah, that was a great day, all the machines started working properly, and the batteries were charging real quick, and the air was tasting real good - not musty like it always did, and school was out and there were so many happy faces and laughing kids and I felt, almost felt, like I could hear my old friends laughing with 'em. Beautiful, yeah? That was a good day.

That didn't last long. Some squid wonderkid stormed through and splatted almost everything we threw at it. I lasted maybe three seconds, I hadn't eaten in a couple of days and it went right when I thought it would go left. I ain't much of a soldier.

Yeah, I know. I ain't telling the squiddy story. Ol' Tako really had us hoping for a moment, he did. Still hurts.

We can't do it again, though. And the batteries are nearly out, so... What, the screens?

I have no idea where those screens are getting the juice from. It's been the same floppin' thing on 'em for the past year, same floppin' pictures. Drives you mad. Also angry, so mad and mad. It's just so dumb, like we can't change anything now. And all of us who upped and did got splatted or just jumped into the sea. There's like one Octopus over 16 for every twenty kids, now. But when did the squiddies ever care? What do they care for but clothes and bad music? Is that more important than a kid? Even our kids?

See, I don't think that squid kid or those floppin' Squid agents ever put that together. Me? I'm the adult of the squad, I'm maybe 17, tops. All those ball-topus'? Walkers, crawlers, all of our lads that ain't like me? Those are kids, they can't do the deal with the arms. Eight years to Ten, at most. Almost everyone's gone, we're almost gone. See those frowning kids on the screens up there? I know 'em, used to babysit 'em. They just wander around now the mess hall, asking people for any spare kelp, shark fin, anything to keep going for another day. They were great kids, but I can't look at them now, I don't wanna think about what they're turning into. What I'm turning into.

I can't believe it. This is what's left of us, our home, maybe our people. I don't know how long the roof of the dome is gonna last, but it's getting awful loud. Heard over the loudspeaker that they're racing to the subs, maybe launch and find another place to live. But I've kinda had enough disappointment for one day.

Liik, Rosu, everyone - I'm sorry, I don't think there's enough left for one last lunch.

I'll see you soon."

BlastingNaba said:

(Story)
*wipes tears from eyes*

That was awesome. And depressing.