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Unless the beasts of the Vyessan seas claimed it first.
Chapter3
LAYLA
Iwoke up gasping for air only to swallow a mouthful of water. My feet kicked and my arms flailed but I couldn’t tell what was up or what was down. I needed air.
It was all I could think about. My eyes burned as I looked through the murky water. Pressure clamped down on my chest and panic bled through every one of my nerve endings. A heaviness began to weigh me down and my vision started to waver. I opened my mouth, unable to stop myself in my desperate search for oxygen but just before I inhaled enough to kill me, spindly hands with an iron grip reached down and heaved me out of the water.
“Layla!” Esther cried from a distance, her voice aching with relief and terror.
Albert pounded his bony fists on my back, forcing the salt water from my lungs. My stinging eyes drifted open with my first few lungfuls of cold air and I spotted our spaceship a few yards away, the flames surrounding it were being doused as it sank into the ocean.
“Esth—" I coughed, my lungs burning. “Esther!”
“Over here!” She shouted back, waving frantically from her perch on a floating piece of…something.I kicked my feet, attempting to push through the water. But the waves were heavy, pushing me back. The water seemed turbulent and coupled with the sounds of the burning ship, it was sensory overload.
Albert was the only thing keeping me afloat. His slender arms wrapped around my waist and he rolled me over, forcing me to my back. Then he began towing me backward, toward Esther’s voice. I kicked, trying to aid him as much as I could, but judging by his frustrated grunting in my ear, I was only making things worse.
Through the slow, arduous drag through the water, toward Esther, my brain began to unfog from the shock and I could finally catalog my surroundings. I knew, obviously, we were on an alien planet. And at first glance, I could seesomestrange geographical features that furthered that belief. The color of the sky, for example, was not blue but also not some crazy color that was abruptly noticeable. It was just very, very dark. Almost colorless. As if it were a night sky—you could even see the stars—but it wasbright.The sun over the horizon cast an orange glow around me but even with the light, you could see the stars and eventwomoons so incredibly clearly. It was strange enough to catch my eye and even hold it for a few seconds but then I was quickly distracted by the harrowing experience of being saved from drowning by a much older man than myself.
In between bouts of water shooting up in my face, my eyes were drawn to the color of the water. In small amounts, it was clear just as it was on Earth, but in large amounts, it appeared green from the sky, but I also hadn’t been paying too much attention. Nearly drowning in it, I could now see the vibrant green color of the ocean spread out before me, but what made it truly alien was the colorful sparkles it left on your skin.
It might have been the near-death experience mucking up my mind, or the ADHD…
Regardless, I was affected by shiny object syndrome as I admired the sparkles laying across the skin of my bare arms.
They were multicolored like a beautiful rainbow and so very tiny. I rubbed my skin, watching them shift about. Albert’s rough clearing of his throat startled me, and I shook my head, wincing. We’d finally reached Esther and he was attempting to grab onto the floating chunk of warped metal she was laying on but the waves were making the task extremely difficult. Having my dead weight in his arms certainly wasn’t helping. I rolled to my side, reaching out with the tips of my fingers and they tangled with Esther’s. She was not a weak woman, but she was no match for the turbulent swells and so were ripped apart.
“Swim, Layla!” She cried, panic in her voice.
“I can’t,” I cried back in frustration. She damn well knew I sank like a stone!
“You have to!” She shouted, reaching out her arms, her top half dipping back into the water. She wasn’t looking at me though, or even Albert. She was staring at something over our shoulders with wide eyes churning with apprehension. “There’s something out there!”
Albert swiveled around, nearly losing his grip on me. We both searched the infinite sea spread out before us and at first, I could only see water. So muchfucking water.
But then something strange and brightly colored rose up through a wave and Albert and I both sucked in a startled breath. It was a tail…and it washuge.
“The Lochness monster,” Albert murmured reverently. His first words spoken since the crash. I didn’t bother correcting him or listing all the numerous reasons whatever the hell that was, could not have been from Scotland.
“I don’t care what it is,” I panted, kicking my feet now, forcing myself to the side around. I flipped over and wrapped my arms around the older man’s shoulders, “We have to go,now.”
I kicked and kicked, swiping at the water with my arms and hands, even wiggling. All those times Esther had told me to go to the Y to take a swim lesson…all those times I had chuckled and refused…they were coming back to bite me in the ass now.
“Don’t panic now,” Albert warned. “Panic will only—"
The old man sputtered as I inadvertently dunked him in my panic. We fought each other then but, in the scuffle, we somehow managed to bump into the side of a floating sheet of metal. It wasn’t the one Esther was perched on, or even close to the size of hers, but it would save my sorry ass from drowning. Albert seemed to realize this little piece of metal was not only my only hope, but also his—since I wasnotan easy rescue. So together we boosted my round, curvy, two-hundred-pound ass up. I flailed and screeched while he shoved me aboard and then spread out like a starfish to prevent it from tipping. But I was up and out of the water and so I took a huge breath of relief.
I looked back, expecting to see the old man attempting to heft himself up behind me, but to my surprise, he was swimming away. Pretty dexterously too. And right toward Esther. I blinked the salty water from my eyes, watching in amazement as he glided through the water and swelling waves like a seasoned swimmer. He managed to guide himself right to her—right into her waiting arms…
I rolled my eyes as my friend swooned over the older man, forgetting all about her pseudo-granddaughter. Esther was a serial dater, so though the timing was completely inappropriate, I was not the least bit shocked.
I carefully—fearful of the water—rolled over onto my back. And even more carefully sat up. I hissed in a breath when the sheet of metal dipped into the water on its left side but after carefully readjusting my weight, I managed to sit all the way up to take in my surroundings.
The beast in the water was at first, my immediate priority, but when I could no longer spot its tail or any other part of it, I had no choice but to look elsewhere.
Knowing there was something of that size lurking underneath the water was so debilitatingly scary, the chance of dying of a heart attack was closely becoming a concern. I took in the ship, what was left of it, and had to blink away a sudden rush of tears.
