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I hadn’t even realized I had walked into the water up to my knees until that moment. I screamed. I couldn’t even stop it. I knew that was him, but it was not him! It was a giant shark that wanted to eat me. I ran, or tried to. I fell. The water pulled me in deeper rather than letting me go. I tried to breathe, but got a mouthful of saltwater. It burned my throat, my nose, my lungs.
I was reaching, grasping every grain of pink sand and stone in an attempt to stop spinning as the water sucked me deeper and I fought to get back to land. Nothing was holding. The dots began to flash before my eyes. I was about to lose consciousness.
Then, with one last attempt, I reached forward. I felt it. A… rope or something? Didn’t matter. It could be seaweed for all I knew. I gripped. Not caring where the aid was coming from, I allowed it to pull me. I just needed to get to shore. To air. Once my hands and knees were able to stick on the sandy ground enough to pull myself forward, I began vomiting up water. I choked, gasped, realized my hero was not the shark that did this to me in the first place.
My hero was a two-foot-tall cosmetic case. I hadn’t grabbed a rope, but a ribbon. An endless ribbon my grandfather had given me as a gift when I was younger. This magical creature was full of surprises. Everything important to me, Case kept safe. Like my grandmother had said, it would keep my secrets and me as safe as possible. I wasn’t sure she meant literally, but I was really grateful again for my constant companion, Case.
“Thank you.” I smiled, and then collapsed on the shore to the feel of the ocean lapping at the very tips of my toes.
CHAPTER 4
Thurst
When the sun began to set, I decided it would be good to eat something. I had been in the water all day. I showed off a few of my talents to the lady as a thank you for presenting me with this unimaginable and exceptional gift of ocean water and then I scoped out the whole of the small island.
As I climbed out of the water, I noticed something on the beach, laying in the pink sand. The glimmer of golden hair from the moonlight let me know exactly who it was. I smiled. Had she been out here waiting for me this whole time? No way. Not Maxine Mayhem. Maybe she had dinner ready for us and was taking a break to soak up the moonlight. It was as if this place was designed for nothing but beauty and perfection.
I strolled toward her casually until I caught the reflection of something else near her. It seemed to be moving as if to get my attention, reflecting moonlight off a mirror or something.
“I’m back. I get it. I’m coming.” I imagined that thing had endless space and a grill in there. Oh yeah. I could go for some grilled meat. Nothing in those waters but plantlife and me. I hadn’t always been a meat eater, but sharing a room with a gargoyle-demon hybrid and being banned from my homewaters ensured I tried lots of things I probably would have never considered before.
Feeling satisfied this was turning out to be a pretty decent day after all, I picked up my clothes which were on the way to where she was still lying. Why was she still in the prone position?
“Maxine? You sleeping out here under the stars or what?” Why wasn’t she face up? My brow furrowed as I stepped into my shorts and moved closer.
No response.
Everything inside of me flipped from being the most relaxed I had been in years to being on the verge of panic. I ran the remaining distance toward her and slid to my knees next to her in that sand.
I touched her neck, put my head down low and my ear next to her nose and lips. She was breathing, heart thundering. I looked at the case and the ribbon streaming out of it. I followed its path to her hand, wrapped, grasping. Followed the fading imprint in the sand where this case must have… I shook my head. “Max?”
I pulled her up and into my arms. “Maxine? Wake up.”
I pushed her damp, blonde hair away from her face. It was like she was paralyzed or something. I didn’t understand. I tapped at her cheeks and that got the case moving. It ran into my elbow. I didn’t know how this little fucker could cause me to feel actual pain with a tap, but it could. I’d had other monsters punch me harder than it tapped and I barely felt their hit, but winced when this tiny tower of terror touched me. I spoke to it like she would. “Hey! I’m trying to wake her up here.”
The lid popped up on the top and a drawer lifted. There were some kinds of bottles there. I reminded the… well, Case, “I don’t know potions.”
It shook itself until all but one had fallen down. I reached for it and said, “I guess you do.”
Before I could look at anything else in that drawer, it snapped back and then closed and locked. Okay, so now I wanted to know all about this mystery box of hers. I bit the top of the cap on that potion bottle and slid it back and forth under her nose.
Nothing. I looked at the case and I swear if metal could sigh, it would have. It wheeled forward in a nudge that I understood and did not cause me pain so I also understood it knew what it was doing. Case was sentient. “Okay. I’ll put it in her mouth. Make her swallow it.”
I gulped. This was not the time to have any of those thoughts, but I had dreams of those actions since the first day I saw her. Maxine had entered my life right after it had imploded. I didn’t stand a chance with her then. I shouldn’t stand a chance with her now.
Still, I wanted to know why I had to force potion down her throat to get her animated again after she spent some time in the water. She was only up to her knees for crying out loud. How did she end up soaked and sandy from head to toe with her companion cosmetic case roping her in with a ribbon? A pink ribbon. I remembered that ribbon.
I couldn’t focus on that too much because when she opened her eyes, she scowled at me. Then she pushed out of my arms and to her feet as she screamed, “Are you trying to kill me, asshole?”
I sat there like a confused idiot with the evidence of just the opposite. “Uh, hello. I just saved you.” I think.
“Saved me?” I watched her laugh go from a giggle to a bit maniacal, to downright frightening as her eyes began to glow and her blonde hair expanded as if I just plugged her into a light socket and electrocuted her. “You almost killed me!”
“What?” I climbed to my feet, but she was… wild looking. It was… doing wild things to my insides. I wanted to run right over there and wrap her glow-in-the-dark body in my arms, kiss her full lips, see if I would burst into flames or get electrocuted.
“You scared me half to death and then left me tumbling in a… a… what the hell is it called a…?”
Realization dawned on me and I said, “Oh shit. Did that cause a rip current?”
