The Summer Anthology ✔

Story #12- The City of the Dead

Written by user melaniepatrick

I instantly knew something was amiss. The moment I stepped onto the boat I could sense the danger as if the water was trying to warn me of the peril that lay ahead.

On normal days, when I could see ten feet in front of me, I felt at peace whenever I was on the water, but something was different. I could feel the boat vibrating as if the water was trembling in fear.

I squinted and gazed ahead, but it was impossible to see anything. Nothing that was in sight, which wasn't much, looked different than normal. I sat down and put my head in my hands as I tried to figure out how I had gotten onto the boat in the first place. Typically I would not be stupid and go boating when you could only see a foot in front of you, due to the thick white fog.

I shivered even though it was humid out. When the fog touched my skin I felt tingles as if my skin was absorbing it and the fog was trying to get inside of me, it wasn't normal fog: it seemed to be alive.

I got up again and looked down at the normally crystal clear, blue water, but it was gray and murky as if it was sick. I clenched the railing so tight that my knuckles were white.

"Em, are you still there?" My sister Sapphire called as she snapped me out of my daze.

"Yeah, are you sure this is a good idea?" I looked over at Sapphire and even her dark blue eyes were almost invisible in the fog.

My parent's seemed to have a thing for gem names. My full name was Emerald, but I preferred to go by Em. They had named Sapphire and I because of our odd coloured eyes. I had bright green eyes, nothing like ordinary green eyes; they were the colour of an emerald; bright green. Sapphire's eyes were a midnight blue, so blue and dark.

"Of course it is. Mom and Dad will never know. They're gone all day golfing and Jasper won't tell them a thing." I wasn't so sure that mom and Dad would be gone all day, due to the fact that no one could see two feet in front of them, which wasn't a good thing for golfing. Then there was our brother Jasper. He was two years older than us at seventeen years old and was named after a stone rather than a gem.

Sapphire, Jasper, and I had an understanding due to events that had happened in the past and agreed to turn a blind eye whenever one of us did something against Mom and Dad's wishes. Normally it was nice that we could do things, but I was definitely regretting the agreement.

"What about the fog?" I sighed again as I continued to try and figure out how I had let Sapphire convince me to join her on the boat. It was probably because we were twins and I always felt bad for letting her do stupid things on her own, because she would have to be punished alone. That meant I normally got convinced into going with her and sharing the punishment.

"Come on, lighten up this is just fun. Don't be such a worry wart." I ran my long thing fingers through my brown hair, which was a habit I had picked up from Dad.

"I guess no one else would be stupid enough to go out in this weather anyways," I muttered. I glanced past Sapphire's jet black hair and gasped as I saw a flash of black and white.

"Stop the boat," I screeched and ran over to Sapphire who was driving. Thankfully Sapphire trusted me enough to slow down and stop the boat. Once it was no longer moving she turned around and glared at me.

"Why did I have to stop the boat? So help me if you just wanted me to stop because you're too scared to keep going. I'm not turning around and if you want to go back sometimes than you can jump out and swim back."

I quickly shook my head, but I wasn't focused on Sapphire. I scanned the area for any traces of movement, but everything was still as if nothing had ever happened. "No, I saw something, over there." I pointed in the direction that I had seen the colour and shook my head.