What Lies Beneath the Waves

Missed How We Got to the Rock?

I’m taking a side trail with fiction that puts the concepts I’ve been talking about this year into practice. If you jumped in the water right now, it’d be confusing without knowing how we got here. You can either click here to go back and read part four if you just missed last week, or you can also click here to see the full chapter list and start from the beginning.

What Lies Beneath the Waves

David had become an animal.

That’s what it looked like, at least. Cole stood in the canoe as it rocked on the rippling water. He lowered himself to his seat with extra care. He not only wanted to keep the boat steady but he also wanted to make as little a disturbance as possible.

David had never really been his friend, but he’d never attacked him like that. Make fun of his grades or call him C-average, sure, but he had never tried to choke the life out of Cole. He’d never reared back and hissed from deep in his gut.

The water around the canoe lapped up its sides. The rock, Tannigath, was only a few yards away. “I may be able to swim for it,” he thought. Though the waves rocked the boat, the water was clear. The rock could be seen deep beneath the water. The side was slanted in a way he could climb up onto it.

Cole lowered his gaze to his feet. “Ok, think. Your friend who isn’t really your friend just flipped out and dove into the water,” he told himself. “It took you forever to get out here, way longer than it should have.” The canoe rocked. Maybe he could pull the canoe up onto the rock, too.

A splash caught Cole’s attention and he turned to his right. The setting Sun flared across the surface of the bat, but an eruption of water broke the glare several canoe lengths away from him. There wasn’t enough time to get back to the dock. Whatever was in the water, whatever happened to David, he didn’t want happening to him.

Cole picked up an oar and put it in the water to begin to paddle. Only a few feet and he could pull the canoe up to the rock.

The boat rocked again and Cole paddled. Something was pulling him backwards. He turned his head to look and more clawed hands than he could count were wrapped over the stern. They were pulling the entire canoe into the water! Cole turned and brought down the flat side of the paddle onto the claws with all his might.

The bow of the canoe slapped the water as it dropped and then the stern was being pulled at again. The starboard side began to dip towards the surface as claws wrapped onto it. Cole swung the oar and hit at his assailants. The canoe was going down.

Cole grabbed the oar and jumped to the bow of the boat. The shift in weight gave him a moment of stability and he leapt from the bow to the rock. He felt the sting of landing on a hard surface. The cold ocean water seeped into his shoes and the tops of his feet felt wet. Cole scrambled up the rock.

The water behind him frothed with hands and claws and scales as the canoe disappeared beneath the surface. The last light of the sun was disappeared beneath the horizon. As the dull glow of the crescent moon reflected off the water, the chaos stilled. Low waves rolled against the base of the rock.

Whispers filled the air where there was an absence of light. They echoed off the hard rock and reverberated in Cole’s ears. “T-a-a-n-n-n-i-g-a-a-t-h-h-h….” Whistling sounds shot from the rock and ethereal pipings of colored light pierced the sky. Cole’s foot lodged in a crevice in the rock as he looked up, and he fell backwards.

Bent shadows slithered out of the dark water. Their shapes and movements were serpentine as the hunched over creatures walked on two legs. The thing closest to Cole stood upright, the size of a man, and sniffed at the air with a lurch. Beneath the pink and blue streaking the air, Cole could make out a forehead that slanted backwards into what looked like a spiked fin. The eye sockets were black and bulbous. A sunken nose drew down into the a mouth full of needle-like teeth. As Cole got his hands behind him to steady himself on the rock, the black orbs followed his movement. He froze.

By this time, five other creatures joined the first. All had similar looks, yet one had the tatters of trousers that looked an awful lot like David’s hanging at his waist. Neither Cole nor the things made a sound. The whisps and whoops of the wind blew around them as it flowed from the rock. The moving air was the only sound. The lights and whistling filled the sky like flaming notes from an ancient pipe organ. The creatures swayed in unison. In one synchronized movement, they bent to the ground on their front claws and arched their back which accentuated a large fin down their spines. All six creatures opened their spiked maws and let out an angelic note.

Cole recoiled at the incongruent beauty that emanated from belly of the beasts. They sang in harmony with the whistling from the rock. Green lights shot straight into the air only to fall back to the earth. The lights splashed like a fluid onto the rock. The splashes collected in a heap and grew into a glowing mound between Cole and the creatures. The tones of the song and size of the light mound swelled in unison. Pink lights bubbled up from the ground.

The intensity of the note made Cole wince and he dared to move by covering his ears. Greens, blues, yellows, purples and pinks flashed and Cole shut his eyes tight. A slight breeze chilled him. He shivered.

When the shaking had passed, Cole felt stillness all around him. As he cracked his eyes open, there were no creatures in sight. The shooting lights were gone. The wind had died down. Beneath the soft light of the moon, Lily Marsh stood on the rock.

“Mom?”

Pacing Going Forward

Ready to read the next chapter? Click here to go to The Ghosts of the Green Glass.

There is a lot of life going on right now. These will still come out on Tuesday but I don’t want to sacrifice the quality under a time crunch. I’m going to slow down from what it’s been during the last month. Plus there are still non-fiction topics that need to be addressed. The story will play out. Don’t worry.

Thank y’all so much for reading.

Talk to y’all soon.

~ J.P. Simons