Open Water

Quiet. 

All was quiet. 

Ariana had settled into the cart with Sophie and Ellie for the night. 

Her thoughts drifted to Hayden. 

She sat up slowly, being careful not to wake the girls, and sneaked free of the cart. 

She found Hayden looking out over the starlit bay. 

"Everything alright?" She inquired.

Hayden glanced at her for a second. "Yeah, I'm good. Better than good. Been a while since I saw a hoedown like that, just taking in the fresh air." 

Ariana smiled and stood next to him. 

She saw something splash out in the water. 

She was excited for a second by the possibility of whale watching. She grabbed Hayden's arm. 

And then a red sharpness invaded her vision. 

She gasped and pulled Hayden away, narrowly avoiding the jaws of a massive creature. 

The ferry rocked and shook everyone awake. There were screams at the sudden shift. Ariana quickly tossed out a seed that burst into a car-sized pumpkin. It jammed into the creature’s mouth and tangled its vines around the head.

The creature reared up, struggling and flailing against the gag. It had a long, serpentine body. The beast bit down hard and crushed the pumpkin.

Ellie and Sophie quickly joined Ariana and Hayden. Sophie started chanting, and Ellie pulled a spike that she claimed from the Reddenton attack. 

Ariana considered her options as Hayden brandished his club and ran his free hand along it, imbuing it with a clear white glow that seemed to thump against reality itself. She recalled earlier that day, bringing her hands low and curling them upwards. 

From the depths of the bay came several fronds of kelp to wrap around the serpent. They tangled tighter around it as it struggled. 

Ellie leapt over the railing of the ferry and morphed into her crow form. She flew up over the serpent before reverting with spike poised. She landed hard on top of it and slammed the spike into its eye with a grunt of effort. The monster flailed and threw her off. As she was airborne, she transformed again and flew away. 

Sophie managed to finish chanting. She thrust her staff forward, and a bolt of lightning ripped the sky in half right down the serpent’s body. The creature writhed and fell towards the ferry. 

Hayden took a wide, ready stance with both hands on his club. As soon as the serpent’s head was close enough, he swung hard. On contact, there was a flash that nearly changed the sky to day, and a thundering pressure wave that pushed the ferry backwards. The serpent reeled and was pulled under by the kelp.

Ellie landed on Ariana’s shoulder.

Sophie slowly lowered her staff. “Did we get it?” 

Hayden looked out over the water again. “I reckon so. 

Ellie squawked, and Ariana gave her a gentle pet on the head. “That was a very impressive move!” 

The people around them began to cheer and clap. 

Then red sharpness came from below.

A chill ran up Ariana’s spine. 

She grabbed hold of Ellie’s tiny feathered form, and as she tossed her like a baseball at Hayden, the gaping maw of the serpent crashed through the floor beneath her feet. Ellie’s tiny form barely cleared the beast’s jaws. The monster’s teeth snapped shut and pulled Ariana under. 

She struggled to think, let alone breathe, as the teeth buried deeper into her stomach and back and dragged her further under. 

She could barely see the moonlight through the hole in the ship above her. The water’s murky blackness slowly closed around her mind. 

Water. 

She was surrounded by water.

Her hand pressed down, and a pressure wave forced the serpent’s jaws open. She was launched back up through the hole, tumbling back onto the deck of the slowly flooding ferry. She felt incredibly weak and couldn’t feel her legs. Hayden and Sophie screamed her name in unison, sliding to her side and rushing to put as much healing magic into her as they could. 

The pain didn’t matter to her. What mattered was that everyone on this ferry was in danger, all of her friends, and all of these wonderful people, her people. 

This was her family. 

Her family was in danger. 

Her nails dug into the decking of the ferry, razor claws of righteous fury. She felt the red spike of danger coming from below once more, but this time she was ready. 

Her hand dragged claw marks back across the deck, and the whole ferry listed hard to the side as the tide forced it off course. 

Everyone did their best to grab hold of anything they could and screamed. The serpent clipped the side of the ship and ended up with a mouthful of railing. Some people were flung over the side, but she gripped up at the air, and kelp shot up from the torrent to catch them and throw them back aboard. 

The serpent rose back up on the opposite side of the ship, ready to strike once more, but Ellie took flight and transformed again to stab and slash at its head with Hayden’s knife. She was again thrown off and reverted to crow form, this time narrowly avoiding its jaws. 

Sophie and Hayden were finally able to heal Ariana. She shot back up to her feet and launched a water mass into the side of the serpent's head. With her teeth grit and claws poised. She hurled one water mass after another into its head. 

The serpent roared out. Specks and lines of fluorescent yellow formed up its body. The glow it produced light in a significant area around it, like a neon display. From its maw released a high-pressure torrent of water. It tilted its head slowly up, and the beam of water tore through the ferry towards her. 

She threw her hands up to try to divert it with her magic. Hayden stood firmly against her back with both hands swirling his clear white energy outward, and Sophie pressed against her from the left, her staff thrust forward to project a glittering golden barrier. 

All of that diverting power, and Sophie’s barrier was being forced inward like cheap plastic wrap. The blast forced the barrier in hard enough that it pushed against Ariana’s chest. It stung as it beat against her, and the pressure threatened to crack in her sternum. She screamed out and forced as much magic as she could into the defense. With maximum effort, she was able to barely stop the beam from breaking through. 

After what felt like an eternity, the beam lost pressure. The three were nearly exhausted and dropped their defenses. 

The serpent seemed to be recovering, but the ferry was sinking fast to the side. The screams around them echoed into Ariana’s veins. Despite the bruise beaten through her chest, she summoned any magic she could muster to lash massive kelp bladders across the gaps in the deck of the ferry. The ship lurched back to a more stable position. 

Running on fumes, Ariana pulled in all the water she could from the deck of the ship into a great mass over her head. 

Ellie, meanwhile, had been waiting for a moment to strike. She flew up high over the beast and transformed. She plunged fast and slashed deep into its other eye. Blinded, the beast started flailing. It struck Ellie brutally, knocking the wind out of her. Ellie splashed hard into the waves. 

Ariana packed every last drop of water she could collect into a dangerously dense mass and unleashed a high-pressure beam of her own. It struck true and through into the neck of the screaming serpent and swept across, slicing the head clean from the body. It collapsed below the water, the head still floating on the surface. 

Everything was deathly silent.

After a moment of relief, she scanned the water for Ellie. 

Panic set in as Ariana saw no signs of her.

She stumbled her way to the edge of the ship, running frantically and gasping for air. She tried to pull at the water, but she didn’t have enough magic. 

She pulled up her status screen. Her level hadn’t changed since the Reddenton attack, now 14, but she hadn’t spent any of the points since then. She funneled them all into her magic pool once more, and with that boost, she focused on the water to try to pull up anything. 

She worked herself to near exhaustion again by forcing a gigantic mass of kelp up from around where the serpent was. She finally spotted Ellie there next to the serpent’s head. She screamed for Ellie, but there was no response. She staggered and almost passed out. She gripped the air as hard as she could and pulled back towards herself. A wave pushed the kelp raft over to the barely afloat ferry. 

She collapsed, light-headed. 

Hayden ran past her and to the kelp float. Sophie rushed to Ariana’s side. Several more people hurried to the side of the ferry to help reel Ellie and the serpent head back in. Sophie placed her hand onto Ariana’s shoulder, and Ariana felt some magic flow into her. She shook herself back to awareness and screamed for Ellie again. She stumbled, crawled, and ran over to Ellie's side. 

They rolled Ellie onto her side, and Ariana placed her hand on Ellie's chest. She could sense the water trapped in her. She carefully pushed her hand up into Ellie's neck. Ellie made a wretching sound as water spilled out of her mouth. She spluttered and coughed hard. 

Ariana pulled her into a desperate hug and sobbed openly. 

Ellie kept coughing. The only sounds around were the murmur of the people, Ellie's coughing, and the splash of the waves. 

There... were no other sounds... 

...No triumphant sound...

...Danger spiked at all corners of her vision.