Marco Polo

Chapter 1: Waves of stress

At the small oakwood lakehouse near Smith Lake AL, Mark lay floating out in the shallow waters of the lake staring into the lifeless white and dark grey clouds, a storm was starting to swell up in the evening sky but Mark hadn't seem to care- he lay still floating and drifting off into the lake without a thought in the world. Twenty minutes went by in the blink of an eye and mark arose from what had seemed like a trance at the time but in light of what was about to occure was a curse, mark jumped up in the icy waters and looked around in a panicked manner, In the midst of his relaxation he had drifted away from the lakehouse and into the middle of the mellow-green colored lake that felt seemingly hot and cold at the same time. The clouds had gotten darker and sprinkles of rain started to shoot down out of the sky hitting Mark's sunburnt back like needles of poison. The lakehouse was still in Mark's range of vision and as he squinted his eyes he could see his older cousins laughing at his misfortune, Mark finally mustered up the courage to start swimming back towards the house, he threw his arms back and forth rapidly and kicked his legs up and down in flutter-kick motions. The sky only grew darker, the rain started to shoot down faster and faster, and winds started to breeze faster and harder which made it harder and more tiresome for mark. Mark was almost in reach of a boating dock but to mark's dissapointment- as he reached out his sopping wet and trembling hand he had only touched a bit of wet moss and had slipped off falling deeper and deeper into the water. Only then did his older cousins get serious, they went to get uncle jim's Pacific Cruiser fishing boat and against the raging storm went to go check on "Marco Polo" as they would call him due to his deep love for water and swimming, -But only to find nothing but marks soggy clothes-.

That was 20 years ago the year was now 2002, Mark had died in 1982 at the young age of 11 years old. His cousin Eric Hughes had grown up to be a wealthy business man owning around 608 shopping centers over all the States. He still lived in alabama, and over the years forgot all about Mark, not a single trace of him crossed Eric's mind It was almost as if the waves wiped his brain completely over the weeks after Mark's death, In a strange way they calmed and soothed his mind, which is most likely the reason Eric had bought a lakehouse of his own after he retired at the age of 58 and as Mark's son grew up he had also bought a house on the lake. "Im going on a boat ride christopher"! Eric yelled to his 23 year old son.