Do magical beings only exist in story books?
The story of a heartwarming friendship between a child and a lonely baby dragon.
[ONC 2020]
[Prompt No. 2]
As soon as Meara goes underwater, WuJi holds her hand and nods at her.
Meara is surprised to find that the salty seawater is not bothering her eyes at all. She gives WuJi's hand a gentle squeeze, informing him that she is fine.
Thereafter, WuJi takes out his mother's emerald from his backpack and holds it in his palm.
The water around them stills and starts glowing. It takes the shape of a bubble. Fishes and other sea creatures exit the bubble of water that is now housing the two friends inside it.
The bubble of water starts moving vertically down and Meara watches in wonder the various exotic sea creatures that she had only ever seen in ocean life documentaries.
The lower they travel, the more and more strange looking creatures pass Meara's field of vision. They continue to descend till Meara can't see anything beyond the glow of the bubble.
"Are we there yet, WuJi?" Meara asks, to which, the baby dragon just shrugs his shoulder.
Barely a few seconds later, the bubble stops moving and a second or two after that, everything goes dark.
"WuJi!" Meara exclaims and holds her friend's hand tighter but before WuJi can reassure Meara of their safety, bright light floods the bubble and it disintegrates, dropping the two occupants, bum first, on the what looks like a blue marble floor.
"Are you alright, Meara!?" WuJi asks, in a concerned tone, helping the human child back on her feet.
Meara nods and looks around. Beautifully carved marble pillars, waves carved out of blue rocks and statues a regal looking dragons, take Meara's breath away and leave her speechless. The human child feels like she has been transported to a fairy kingdom.
WuJi knows how it must feel to be transported to a place like this and experiencing it all for the first time. After all, hadn't WuJi felt the same way all those millennia ago when he had gazed upon what Meara had told him were called dinosaurs, for the first time!?
The baby dragon follows Meara closely as she takes in her surroundings and touches the various statues and carvings.
Finally, Meara's eyes fall upon a relatively smaller statue, a statue almost hidden behind a familiar-looking dragon's statue, and she gasps.
"WuJi! That's you." She blurts out, pointing at the smaller statue.
WuJi, who up until now, had been walking behind Meara, walks forward and exactly as his friend had done, he too gasps, "Ohhhh...It surely looks like me!" He observers, completely taken aback by the similarities between him and the statue.
The baby dragon touches the blue marble statue with is almost a life-sized replica of him and mutters, "Wow."
In the meanwhile, Meara crouches down next to the statue. She is about to read the inscription on it when there is a loud boom just behind them.
A second later, water floods the area with such a great force that Meara and WuJi are flung away from each other.
"WuuuuJiiiiii!" The little girl yells swimming towards her friend who is yelling her name in a panicked voice.
Meara almost breathes a sigh of relief when the two friends finally find each other.
"What just happened?" Meara questions, looking at WuJi's terrified expression.
"Cra...Cracken!" WuJi screams in a trembling voice, pointing his finger at the humongous pale yellow coloured creature swimming towards them.
Meara takes in a sharp breath before remembering the lines in the poem. She shakes WuJi's shoulder, urging him to snap out of his terror, "WuJi, the emerald... Hold it out to me." She orders and luckily, WuJi snaps ouT of his terror-filled daze and holds out the emerald next to Meara's face. Meara puts her palm on top of WuJi's, successfully trapping the emerald jewel between their palms.
Once again, the water around them starts glowing and the two of them are pushed apart by a strong water current.
The words in the poem come true, as the emerald splits into two parts. And both WuJi and Meara, find themselves holding an emerald each, in the palm of their hands with a bright blue string like glow connecting both the pieces.
"Quick, hold it tight Meara!" WuJi instructs and almost at the same time, Meara hears a voice that she can sense is coming from the emerald, "Make the creature cross the barrier." And the little girl knows exactly what she needs to do.
In the meanwhile, the Cracken who seems to be half-blind starts to snap his jaws randomly, barely missing WuJi and Meara.
After a few minutes of playing hide and seek with the terrifying monster, WuJi gets an idea. He swims over to Meara and whispers, "You stay here and I will go yell at his face. He will pounce at me, but since I can easily blend with the carvings on the walls, he will get confused. I will swim to that end" He says, pointing to the other end of the hall. "And he will cross the string!" Meara finishes his sentence.
The two friends nod to each other and Meara hides behind one of the pillars while WuJi swims towards now aimlessly roaming Cracken and yells, "Dum dum!" Before swiftly swimming to the other end.
As expected, the Cracken snaps its jaws and swims forward, completely blind to the bright blue string.
Boooommmm! A thunder-like sound echoes through the long corridor and the Cracken vanishes, leaving behind a handful of harmless-looking tiny fish who scurry towards a big beautiful door that has now appeared at the end of the corridor.
The tiny fish, surprisingly pass through the closed door and vanish. And a moment later, the giant elegant door swings open.
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