Phrontistery Of Monster Kind - Six Feet Deep

Chapter 30

My eyes shot open and looked over to the side, Sam nudging my face. I went wide eyed, sitting up. I was on the ground of the lake. The bottom was dark. Caught in the deep zone, I saw the light coming from above. The zone I was in was bare, the nearest plants were the tape grass a way up.

I scooted him to the side. My eyes caught the glimpse of gold simmering below. Any fish that were swimming were drifting lazily, the rest laying on the ground. They couldn't be dead, otherwise, they would be floating.

Next to one fish sat a golden hairpin weighing one of its fins down. I grabbed it, placing it on my aching hand. The fish lifted, floating to the surface.

Sam slithered onto my shoulder, snapping at the fish, trying to catch itself a snack. I tried to stop him, snapping the same hand with a pin in it around the snake's mouth before recoiling in pain. No air bubbles disturbed the tinted water, nor when I tried to paddle to the surface.

With my wound reopened, the water surrounding me redden and seemed to follow my personal bubble, not drifting far though it was magnetised to by body.

I dragged myself up on the dirt, through the cattails, merging through the lily pads, where one claimed its home on my head. The only creatures in a close radius of the lake were the otters and a muskrat-looking creature, who were annoyed at my disturbance until I moved my injured hand onto the land and whimpered as I used it to drag my body out of the water. I choked, coughing up the water in my lungs. One of the creatures came up to me and left its paw on my good arm and offered me its fish. I told them to keep it.

Caution tape surrounded the edge of the meadow, right where the dirt breaks into the lake area.

Above, loud yells from a herd of deer. The sun was bright, so it was either a free period or lunch. I thought about calling them, but couldn't get a word out through bouts of coughing water. My skin was blueish, and I couldn't tell if it was due to the cold water or the lack of oxygen I could get in.

The fabric that clothed me anchored me to the ground and mixed with the dirt, only making my clothes heavier. I wormed over to the log, slumping against it and resting my eyes until the school's bell echoed on the grounds, and I heard a student yelling goodbye to 'Ms'. The greenhouse teachers and the male PDHPE teacher were the only ones to come to the meadow for lessons. The male teacher, holding his theory classes right before Chiro's lunch duties, claimed not all our students deserve to be Vitamin D deficient because one teacher can't go out under the moon without getting a tan.

I crawled like a snail up from the meadow, the flowers holding me back and urging me back to the tainted comfort zone of the lake. Students were still lurking when I managed to stand. They eyed me as I passed. Marchella was unfazed by my presence, barely recognising that I was there. I glared at them, the students. My right arm was held close to my body. My body thawed out as I limped. Joints were rigid and for once I knew what it felt like to be made of stone.

Amongst them was the wolf himself, jaw unhinged to the floor. His stupid smug dropped as though he saw a ghost. That could be what was running through his mind. The teacher was missing for hours and crawled out of a lake bleeding and blue. Liquid still flowed from my mouth, though I couldn't tell if it was blood, saliva, or water.

"You better hope the ward has good pain-relief medication," I snarled.

Trashing my classroom was fine, objects are disposable and now I have a classroom that truly feels like mine, but attacking a teacher and then nearly drowning her- if it was anyone else, I'd hate to think what would happen.

"You're dead," a student directed to Simon as I hobbled away.

Sam slipped around my neck, his scales colder than my own flesh. Any warmth he normally carried was void when he spent the same period in the icy crater.