Only a Game (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Chapter 68: Ocean

Teddy

For about two seconds I stare at the beach. Then I hear the scrabble of claws behind me.

I throw off my backpack and comm, and charge headlong into the ocean. The monster is right behind me, panting, crying angrily, running on all fours as those claws get desperately close to my neck.

I run straight into the water, dive into it. it's deliciously cold and seems to swallow me.

I remember I cannot swim.

I realize it doesn't matter. The water wants to tug me in, then back up for air, I barely have to kick. And it's cold and I was so hot from running. The ocean doesn't seek to kill me.

The monster does.

And apparently the monster can swim.

It reaches me nearly, before the waves pull us apart and I'm deposited not at all gracefully back on the soft beach. The monster suffers similar treatment. Okay, so being in the water was better than not. I run back in.

And now, I should take a moment to say, I didn't really fantasize about meeting SurferDude©. I mean, it kind of crossed my mind that someday I might meet him. I guess I figured it would be awkward, or maybe he'd be meeting me at some meet and greet and I'd be super rich and he'd be all surprised and proud of me. You know. Something typical like that.

I did NOT expect to be running from my life from some sort of cave monster, down a white sanded beach, in Greece, screaming, holding a glass dagger, pursued by said cave monster (I know I said it twice it's because it's important to me you remember that part). And I most definitely did not expect SurferDude© to be standing there, in the flesh, all two meters of his gloriously tanned and toned self, staring at me with obvious bemusement, saying:

"What are you doing? Why are you running from a monster? Why did you run into the ocean? Why can't you swim? Why did you think the monster couldn't swim? Why are you even here? I have so many questions?" with no urgency, whatsoever, just staring, like he's picking me up from school because the teacher called because I ate play-doe in class.

Needless to say, neither I nor the monster respond. Instead we tumble back into the ocean, not at all efficiently trying to kill each other, only for a wave to toss us back out and onto the beach to try to kill each other there.

At this point we're locked together, wrestling. Me trying to stab some major artery, said bog-cave-monster trying to tear my throat out and eat it. It is not going well for either of us. It's going slightly better for the monster, however, as its teeth are dangerously nearing my throat.

A man leaps on the monster's back, putting a staff across the monster's neck, chocking it. this is not SurferDude©, by the way. This is a person not at all like him. A helpful person, who is wearing normal monster slaying clothes and is armed with a weapon and is attempting to help me not to die. 

The monster tumbles off of me, and throws the man off of its back. The man raises the staff to protect himself, but the monster slashes across his stomach, ripping him open. He looks more annoyed than anything, slapping the monster's claws away from doing more damaging using his golden staff.

SurferDude©, meanwhile: "Whose side are we on? How do you know whose side to take? Why are they fighting each other? I have questions."

I take the opportunity to charge the monster, digging the dagger into its neck. The creature screams and grabs me, trying to shove my head in its mouth, only for the man to brain it in between the eyes with the staff.

I remove my dagger and duck to safety while the monster rounds on me. The man and I both flank it, panting and bleeding, too tired and short of breath for introductions. We both charge at once, and the monster flails to stop us. It knocks him to the ground and has me around the middle again, prepared to dash me on the rocks. The man is there though, back up and smacking the monster's arms with the staff, loosening it's grip so I can dive to stab at its belly.

A wave knocks us all apart, smashing us into the soft sand once more. I gasp, sitting up painfully as blood drips down my shirt.

SurferDude© is casually strolling up, as the monster is being bound up with kelp. It screams angrily.

"Took you long enough," the man growls at SurferDude©. He climbs to his feet as well, with the help of the staff.

"What---the –fuck?" oh those are my last words. Oh good. I look down. I am losing blood. A lot of blood.

"Shit," the man catches me before I fall, packing his hands to my wounds, "He's bleeding out."

"Give him to me," SurferDude© takes me in his arms easily as if I were a kitten.

"Tell my mum--," I mumble, (better last words).

"Oh your mother doesn't need to know about any of this," he's walking, and I realize just as I black out, that he's walking directly into the ocean. He's going to kill me. I'm dying and he's going to drown me.

Then I pass out.