Trapped

19.

My eyelids fluttered open and let the light in. In my line of vision was a olive skinned neck and some gills. I could feel that I was being carried. I shifted my head slightly to see who was carrying me and my eyes landed on Zac's face. He looked down when he noticed my movement and smiled.

"Welcome to the land of the living, sleeping beauty," He said and I blushed. Being called sleeping beauty was a compliment in my books. I yawned a big and long yawn and stretched out my arms. Then I wriggled around letting Zac know that he could put me down and he did. My tail and all my muscles were stiff and sore, probably from sleeping in such a strange position. I noticed that my shoulder was cleaned and bandaged and it had stopped bleeding.

"How long have I been out?" I asked.

"Oh not long, a few hours maybe. I was able to cross over to the Grullo river and we are only a few miles away from the mouth," he informed me.

"What happened after I passed out?" I asked curious to know what I missed.

"Well, Arabella apologized for trying to eat you and said that she would help you by cleaning your wound. She is the one who bandaged you and everything. Then I carried you all they way here," he said, but I could sense that there was something he wasn't telling me. There was just this look in his eye that warned me that he wasn't telling the whole truth. But what could he be hiding?

"Are you sure that's all that happened?" I asked. He looked at the floor and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, then he replied: "Yes I'm sure, nothing else happened. Why?"

"Because I simply can't believe that Arabella would want to eat me the one moment and then bandage me the next," I said.

"Well believe it or not, that's what happened," he said, not budging, but I knew he was lying.

After a few moments of silence he spoke again: "Okay there is one other thing she told me. She said that you were screaming even before she attacked you. She said you tried to trick me into worrying about you and that's why she wanted to eat you."

"I knew it, I knew you were hiding something!"I said, pointing my index finger at him and narrowing my eyes.

"So why did you do it? Why did you want me to worry about you?" he questioned and I frowned. Why did he want to know that?

" Well, I uhm... I was mad that you left me to sleep outside on my own," I said. He looked down and I could see that he genuinely felt bad about it. But he didn't admit it, instead he just kept swimming. I followed him, but none of us said a word for the rest of the trip.

***

We came to the end of the Grullo river and Zac swam to the surface. I was confused at first but I followed him anyway. When I came out on top he spoke to me, but not with his mind like always, he spoke to me like humans normally do. I guess since we were above water it would work better that way.

He said: " Okay listen very carefully, you see those rocks over there?" he pointed to some sharp rocks that acted like a barrier between the river and the ocean. I nodded and he continued: "We are going to have to crawl over it, because there is no other way into the ocean," my eyes widened when he said that and I looked at the rocks again. The rough waves of the sea crashed into the rocks with great force and I was truly terrified of crawling over it.

"Are you crazy! We'll be killed!" I shouted at him and shook my head.

"We have to, there's no other way to get to the other side!" he said and after I shook my head again he held my weakness against me: "It's the only way to save your friends, they need you!"

I groaned and said: "Fine, but if we get hurt, I am going to say I told you so!" I yelled and swam towards the sharp rocks. When I got closer I could see that the rocks were covered in shells and barnacles. This was going to hurt. I was about to hoist myself onto the rock platform when Zac held his arm out to stop me.

He looked at me and gave me one more warning: "When you go up there, you wil feel an overwhelming urge to flop around. Stay focussed on getting to the other side and do not start flopping. "

In some way I did find the image of me flopping on the rocks a bit funny, but I knew that it wouldn't be so funny if it actually happened. I focussed my mind on getting across to the other side and lifted myself onto the rocks and Zac followed. He was right, the moment my whole tail was out of the water I felt the need to lie down and flop around, but I didn't let the urge get the best of me and I started moving by placing my hands ahead of me and dragging my tail behind. It hurt like hell to crawl over those barnacles and I tried my best to move my tail in such a way that it didn't tear off any of my skin on my tail.

After a long struggle I was at the halfway point and I felt some relief wash over me. I was just resting for a bit when a huge wave formed and crashed down onto the rocks taking me with it. I rolled back with the wave and flesh on my tail, back, arms and stomach caught some barnacles on the way, which scraped open my tender skin. The wave then pulled back into the ocean and I swam along with it. I fell into the water of the sea and I felt the salty water burn my already tender flesh.

I went up to the top again to see where Zac was and saw him flopping on the rocks close to the edge. I laughed out loud at the sight of him doing the one thing he warned me not to do, but I soon stopped and went to help him. I reached over the rocks and took his arms. I tried to lift him as high as I could so that he would get damaged by the sharp bits of rock or the barnacles sticking up. But I failed miserably, because I wasn't strong enough to really lift him. At least I was able to save his face and his chest from most of the damage and I dragged him into the water.

As soon as he was submerged in the water his flopping stopped and I laughed wholeheartedly at him. He scolded, but I couldn't stop myself from chuckling.

"Hey, I wouldn't have laughed at you if you started flopping," he said.

"You have no proof that your statement is true," I replied but stopped laughing at him. He was probably so embarrassed, I would be if I were in his shoes.

"Thank you for saving me," he said, his face was serious and mine softened.

"You've saved me many times before Zac, it's the least I could do." I said and smiled at him. He smiled back.

"Let's go get the rest shall we?" I asked, he nodded and with that we were off to find Jason, Jeremy and Angela.