Hooks

Chapter 9: Hooked

I sat up and stared at the wall in front of me as reality started to slowly come back to me. The figures and shadows started to blend back into the walls and door of my room. The nightmare seemed so real.  Did my dream mean something?  I wasn't sure.  Suddenly, the door slowly began creaking open.  I began to question if I had even woke up.  I sat there frozen as I stared at the door hoping that nothing bad would happen.  The door burst open the rest of the way and I flew 20 feet in the air and screamed.

"Daddy! We're going to be late!" yelled Pixie excitedly.

She saw the look of fear on my face and began to look worried. She swam over to me with sorrowful eyes and looked up at me.

"Daddy, are you okay?" she asked me softly.

"Yes sweetheart. I'm great.  Daddy just had a bad dream, that's all," I replied sincerely.

"Oh, okay," she said as she silently wondered why I could have possibly been so scared.

"Is Morgan awake yet?" I asked.

"No, I don't think so," she replied.

This wasn't the first time Morgan has not been up on time.  In fact, he is almost never up on time. We had little time to get ready to leave and he wasn't even awake yet.  I was furious.  I began swimming fiercely to his room and slammed open the door.  I threw the covers off of him and yelled at the top of my lungs.

"MORGAN! WAKE UP! GET YOUR TAIL OUT OF BED NOW!"

As his eyes opened widely, he practically sprung out of bed.

"I'm up dad..." he said sneeringly.

Once Morgan was ready, the three of us headed out the door and I began swimming with them to school again.  The fish in the city seemed even more sad than the day before and Coral City seemed to be falling apart.  The town was still polluted with signs and I noticed that there was a new sign posted.  This sign was much bigger and it towered over the fish of the city.  On it, was a picture of the mayor and it read, "Your town mayor, keeping Coral City safe as can be!" I stared up at the new sign knowing that the mayor had probably made it too. If he had, it wouldn't have surprised me.

After I dropped my kids off at school, I began swimming back towards home.  On my way home I saw another metallic shiny figure dart across the water and disappear out of sight. Another one? I decided that I wasn't going to ignore it this time. I headed towards the direction it had traveled.  As I continued swimming and searching for it, I looked behind me and noticed Coral City slowly disappearing.  The more I swam, the more my town began to fade off.  I started to slow down as I grew tired.  Then, I saw something.  It was a small fish.  He looked lost and scared.  He reminded me of Paul and Joe on that dreadful, terrible day. I started swimming towards him. I wanted to help him. I couldn't just leave him there. I couldn't let this happen again.

"Hey little buddy, you okay? You lost?" I asked.

He didn't respond so I swam closer.

"You don't need to be scared. It's okay. I'm nice," I tried to tell the little fish calmly.

I reached my fin out to him.  I touched him softly and gently and as I went to grab him to bring him back to his home, a sharp pain suddenly raced up my entire fin.  I looked closer at the fish and noticed something I hadn't noticed before. Sticking out of it was not one, but four hooks.  I began to feel dizzy and I could feel blood rushing quickly out of my body.  I began to think back.  I thought back to when Paul and Joe were hooked. I visioned the mayor when he was speaking about how dangerous hooks are. Everything was a blur and I felt so much guilt and sadness being poured on me at once.  I remembered all the signs warning about hooks, including the big one I had seen today with the mayor on it. The pain was excruciating and my fin hurt worse than ever before.  Luckily, I hadn't been hooked in the lip but I was still hurting.  I felt myself slowly being pulled up to the surface of the water and that is when I decided that I wasn't going to let that happen.  I began to fight it and used every bit of energy I had in me to fight the hook back. I felt it rip out of my fin and I began falling slowly back down towards the sea floor. The last thing I remember is hearing a faint voice yelling "It got away!" as I slowly hit the ground and closed my eyes falling into a deep, painful sleep.