?The Neptune Journey?
Chapter 1
Chelsley looked nervously at the long, sharp needle approaching her arm.
"This won't hurt a bit," Dai told her, but he was clearly lying.
Chelsley closed her eyes and felt the needle poke her flesh. Not that bad, she thought right before her blood seemed to catch on fire. Chelsley couldn't help but let out an ear-splitting screech.
"It isn't that bad," Leah shouted over her screech, but pain glistened in Leah's eyes as she did a pull up.
"Soon, your gill filaments will activate, and you will get in the water." explained Dai.
Chelsley was hardly listening. The pain was blocking her ears.
"This will help with the pain and pass time," Dai told her as he plunged a needle into Chelsley and Leah's arms. Chelsley felt invisible hands pulling her into the inky black darkness that was slowly spreading across her vision. Her eyelids drooped and the world was dark as night.
?
Unlike Chelsley, Leah was looking forward to the needle plunging deep into her veins. She knew the burning pain meant her gills were activating. Still, her dad, Dai, couldn't have prepared Leah for this amount of pain. Immediately after the needle, she started doing pull-ups on a bar and the pain lessened. After yelling at Chelsley to stop whining, Dai clamped a breathing mask on her, told her to rest for a while, and gave her another shot. She almost blacked out straight away, but had enough time to look at her unconscious friend, lock eyes with her dad, and she knew everything from then on was going to be very different.