What we call reality has a habit of slipping through our fingers very quickly in Second Life, so when I washed up upon the shores of the Jellylands & Sea, Eluthera, I already knew the rules: keep your socks dry… check nothing has climbed into your eye, and whatever you do, don’t eat the local food. From my very first step, the place felt utterly alien. Towering mushrooms dripped with an eerie amber glow, emerald rings swept endlessly across the sky, and the landscape seemed to exist somewhere between dream and memory. What was this place…
The colours all around me, as I walked along the small sea inlet, were almost overwhelming. With the towering flowers, I felt like I’d just done acid a few moments earlier and it was only now starting to take effect.
Then I saw her.
Standing out in the water… a mysterious figure.. part woman, part sea spirit… a statue… And this raised an important question:
Do the people of Jellylands worship a sea goddess?
Whatever was going on in Jellylands, I was fairly certain without any evidence or reason to think it, outside of my own paranoia.. that the locals were in on it. Finding no obvious escape route along the shoreline, I was forced to cross the bridge towards what, from the hillside, appeared to be some sort of town. Crossing over, I found myself approaching what I could only assume was the centre of Jellylands — a place that somehow felt completely out of time.
There was a distinctly hippie feel to the place, colourful decorations, curious little buildings and an assortment of things that looked as though they had been rescued from three different decades and given a second life. Then the smell of food caught me. The stove was steaming, food looked freshly prepared, and suddenly I had flashbacks to Spirited Away, the little girl’s parents sitting down to eat the food mysteriously laid out for them.
I wasn’t falling for it.
Rule Three: Don’t eat the food.
As I sat down to rest my legs, the smell of food continued to tempt me, till I spotted the poster. Jelly Mondays. Every Monday, around 10am. Come be jelly with us.
Suddenly, I had a horrible thought.
Was this some kind of human sacrifice?
A weekly gathering, strange food, an underwater deity… and unsuspecting visitors being invited to “come be jelly”? I was beginning to think I hadn’t stumbled upon a community event. I had stumbled upon a cult.
But before I could put much more thought into it…Without warning, I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head. As consciousness slipped in and out, everything around me became a blur. I caught flashes of movement… darkness… then water.
Closer.
Closer.
With every flicker of consciousness, the water seemed to be rising around me.
What was happening?
And more importantly…
Where the hell was I being taken?
I awoke beneath the waves. Around me lay the remains of a sunken town, swallowed by the sea and slowly being reclaimed by something far older.
A chill ran through me. Then I heard it. A haunting song!!!
It seemed to drift through the water from somewhere in the darkness — beautiful, distant, and utterly wrong.
I couldn’t see who.. or what…. was singing. But my mind was suddenly flooded with images I didn’t understand.. who was she?? what was she trying to tell me! what had the townfolk of JellyLands done… or awoken!!! It got louder and louder… it hurt!!!
I must have passed out again, because when I opened my eyes, I was lying on the bench in the centre of town. Had it been a dream? my sore head would say otherwise…
I dragged my sorry ass of the bench and got back onto my feet, stumbling across the cobble stones… Had what I’d seen actually happened? All them images that had flashed in my mind… and the girl! Whatever I had seen… I knew right there and then… this town of jellylands was not done with me.. not by a long shot…. 
The Wandering Pen, is a blog segment by Pen, an explorer for the Natural Collective SL, who ventures deep into member created sims in search of hidden path, overlooked details, and untold stories.