Another World

The Past Part 7

•---Past Liam---•

"Justin, do you know where we're going?" I questioned.

"Uh yeah totally. Kinda. Not really." He confessed."

"This way." Leila calmly stated.

"How do you... Ohhhh." Justin trailed off with a glance from Niall.

"Oh what?" I questioned.

"Tell yah later." Was the only response I got. What a shocker.

We walked(or kinda swam) in silence for awhile. Leila was distracted by all of the fish. She'd discovered that she could stick her hand outside of the air bubble and touch them, then pull it back in completely dry. Lei was mature for her age, but sometimes she acted childish. It made me happy to see her enjoying herself, because I sadly knew it wouldn't last. I realized that while I'd been lost in thought, I'd caught up to Niall. Leila and Justin were up ahead aways.

"Hey." I said.

"Hi." He glumly said back.

"What's up?" I questioned.

"This... is all my fault. I shouldn't of lied to you guys. I'm a horrible friend. I lied to you and your sister. And because of my stupidity, Justin's whole palace was attacked and his family was endangered. You were right about me all along."

I felt extremely bad. Niall may have given me doubts in the past, but in all honesty, I knew he was a good guy.
"Hey... None of that's true. You're just trying to do the right thing here. That's all anyone could ask for. And about what I said... Well everyone makes mistakes. Mine was assuming we couldn't trust you. But you've proved me wrong."

Niall's eyes lit up. "You mean it?"

"Every word." I genuinely replied.
Niall grinned the cheekiest grin. He was a total kid at heart. I smiled back.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!" I heard a wild scream. I jerked my head forward to see Justin anxiously reaching for Leila, who was in the arms of a octopus which was clearly no ordinary octopus.

It was a shifter.
It had the marking of one.
It was all too clear.
All shifters had a tattoo of a hand with two fingers crossed. It was the only thing that remained when they shifted. After the King, Zayn, got that tattoo, all of the other shifters were cursed with the same one. It wasn't good for them, but it helped us identify who was a shifter and who was just a real animal.

Niall and I had swam frantically to try and catch up, but we were far behind them. Justin was doing all sorts of tricks with the water to stop the octopus, but it still had Leila in its clutches. I squinted for a closer look at the octopus. Sure enough, I saw the all too familiar tattoo saying "Zap!" For some reason the kings "Zap" tattoo also remained..

I'm literally going to murder this guy.

Me and Niall swam even harder and finally caught up, and we could see the strain on Justin. He's weak, and exhausted. All his concentration is on keeping us alive, and I can tell he can't do it much longer.
Uh oh... We'd better get out of here, and quick.

"Justin! You need to relax and stay focused on the air bubbles, we will get Leila!" I cried. Justin nodded and sunk to the ground.

The octopus had started swimming away and Leila was still frantically struggling. This meant Justin was still keeping his bubbles around us up. Thank god.

Me and Niall swam after the octopus as fast as we could.

"Niall, what's the plan?" I yelled.

"Uh, get your sister back from the bad guy!" He replied.

"I MEANT HOW YOU NIMWIT."

"Oh! Right! Uh I'll distract him, you get her! READY?" He asked.

"READY!" I called back.

"OI! YOU THERE! STUPID BIG UGLY FOUL SMELLING GROSS UGLY OCTOPUS!" Niall called out. The word that really triggered Zayn was "ugly." The octopus (which was Zayn) turned around angrily to look at the person yelling the insults. I'd swam down and was hiding behind some coral. As Zayn charged at Niall, I swam up behind him and yanked Leila away from his back tentacles.

As I did this, I felt this weird sensation of being squeezed by pressure. I looked at my arm and noticed that the air bubble was slowly receding up it.

"NIALL! THE AIR BUBBLE! JUSTIN MUST BE TOO WEAK TO HOLD IT ANY LONGER, WE HAVE TO GET TO THE SURFACE NOW!" I yelled as loud as I could. Niall had been fighting Zayn, but he nodded at me and struck Zayn's octopus head and he sank to the ground, still in octopus form. We swam over to where we had last seen Justin.
The air bubble was only left on our necks up now, so our clothes dragged, now heavily filled with water. Justin was laying on the ocean floor, passed out and...

"HES A HUMAN?!" Niall cried.

"Grab him NOW. We have to get out of here!" I yelled back. Niall did just that and we swam up. The bubble now only covered our noses and eyes, and we all kept our mouths shut. Now only our noses... We weren't going to make it...

Then suddenly I felt a whirl of water shoving me up from below. I lost hold of Leila and the others, and suddenly everything went black.