Somewhere out here an island filled with gifted rises from these waters. I stare out into the thin horizon line and imagine it appearing before my eyes. My vision begins to blur in the bright sunlight and I almost miss a hint of a black figure coming up out of the water and then back into it. I blink hard and scan the distant waters again. “Cooper,” I say. “I think I saw something,” I hesitate, not sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me. Then, there it is again. It’s a little closer this time, but I can’t tell what it is. It just grazes the top of the water before diving deeper down. I turn and see Cooper saw it too.
I watch as Cooper’s eyes widen, realizing what he just saw. “Mio,” Cooper starts to say and suddenly the ocean begins to shift from its calm state into wild ripples.
“I figured they’d find us eventually,” Mio says.
“Who?” I ask and I feel the adrenaline bleed into my veins.
“Remember how I told you the waters were cursed with enchanted creatures?” Cooper asks and I nod in response. “Well, they’ve found us.” Just as the words leave his mouth there’s a large thump on the side of the boat. I look over its edge and see a scaly body flopping through the water. It couldn’t be any bigger than a snake.
“That can’t be what you’re afraid of,” I say.
“Oh no, that’s the baby. And where there’s the baby.” Cooper doesn’t need to finish his sentence. The mother creature lurches out of the water, her body as round and wide as the tunnels we were in under Sard. She resembles something of an eel and lets out a low screech as she dives back into the water causing a large wave to crash against the boat, soaking us all.
“Everyone put these on!” Mio yells as he throws neon orange vests to everyone. “It’ll help you float if we go overboard.” There’s another thud against the bottom of the boat that launches me forward against Cooper, and we both crash to the bottom of the boat.
“Sorry,” I mumble, rising to my knees. I wipe my soaked hair from my face and see that Cooper is bleeding from his forehead.
“It’s okay,” he starts to say until we are thrown down again by another thud. The eel continues to knock against the boat repeatedly sending it left and right, up and down.
“You’re bleeding,” I say. Cooper’s hand wipes the red blood down the side of his face.
“I’m fine, I just hit it when we fell,” Cooper mumbles and he tries to stand with wobbly legs. “Everyone, try to sit on the bottom of the boat. Get as close to the center as you can,” Cooper commands over the screeching of the eels.
“The only thing we can do is wait them out,” Mio huffs.
I crawl on my knees to the center of the boat next to Alexander. “Is there anything you can do with your gift?” Alexander asks me. I look out into the water and try to freeze the sea creatures, but as quickly as they come up they go back under and waves crash onto the boat.
“I can’t,” I say. “I can’t see them so I can’t control them!” I yell back to Alexander. Salty water launches at us, drenching us. The water is starting fill the boat. I try and use my gift to lift the water out of the boat, but it just rises and falls back on board. Slowly I’m able to splash some out, but not as quickly as the eels are sending it in.
Wave after wave, and after what seems like an eternity the water returns to its calm nature. We are all coughing up seawater and gasping for air; our hair and clothes soaked in saltwater.
“Are they gone?” Zavy bravely asks. I stand and look around. Somehow we have managed to stay close to Cinder’s boat through the chaos.
“Mio,” I say shocked by what I’m making out off in the distance. “What’s that?” I ask and point out in front of me. It appears to be an island of some sort.
“Well, that’s not Libertas,” he says. “We must have been knocked off course, not really surprised though.” When we finally get our breathing under control I see a large shadow begin to spread across the boat. I glance up and see the mother eel stretching into the sky.
“Watch out!” I hear Mio distantly yell. I watch, as if in a trance, her body crash down on Cinder’s boat, completely demolishing the wooden frame. In the impact, another powerful wave is sent into our boat knocking as all to the ground. I pull myself to the edge of the boat and suck in deep breaths of salty air. I see three or four orange vests bobbing in the water, but there are many I can’t find. The dark figure of the eel weaves under our boat and I look frantically around to see if there’s anything we can use to stop this beast. My sword at my side is the only option I find so I draw it and watch the scaly body launch itself out of the water and over our boat in a clean arc. I swing my sword up and cut a giant gash in the creature.
