RUBY WATER
(chapter 1)
Imagine a little fish.
A little, orange, harmless fish that was swimming in the crystalline water of the ocean.
The fish lost his school and was wandering near the rocks of Californian coast. The water over its head was blue as a sapphire. The fish stopped near a block of white coral and begun to spin around it. He saw a multitude of other fish, red fish, blue and green fish, diamond bubbles, big seaweeds and then a strange thing. A black fish with two tails and two ending fins with two yellow cylinders on his back. It emitted bubbles from its mouth.
Then the orange fish got scared from another thing, a grey shark that obscured the light of the sun coming from above. It saw that the black thing was unaware of what was happening.
The little fish hided behind a rock when the great shark moved quickly towards the black thing.
The water that was blue as a sapphire was turned to red as a ruby.
*
"Killed by a shark? Are you sure?" said a nurse of the local city clinic.
"Yes he was…the poor diver." answered the doctor who made the autopsy.
"But, he wasn't so far of the coast. Is it possible that a shark come near the coast?"
"It's possible I'd say."
"That's not the answer I want! I'd prefer hearing you say Oh, it's absolutely impossible!"
"Miss, I'm not a marine biologist."
"Do you know who will investigate on what happened?"
"Miss, do you remember that I pay you for working, right? Anyway I've heard that the mayor sent two coast guards to control the situation."
*
The two guards (whose names were Evelyn and Gary) were out in the sea with their boat.
Gary was a young man with brown hair and green eyes, he was thin and quite tall. He was 31. Evelyn had brown hair too but her eyes was blue as ice and she could be called a "beautiful girl", she was 30. Even if they were dressed in the same way (of white) the two differed in their personalities: Gary wasn't what you call a brave and zealous man, on the contrary Evelyn was a determined woman that always did her duties without fail.
The two were on a medium size boat of the Coast Guard.
"I don't understand the reason why we are here in the middle of nothing…" asked Gary.
"Because we must find out if it's true that there is a shark in our waters…" answered Evenlyn, bored of her colleague's laziness.
Gary looked at the glimmering light on the surface of the green water.
"What kind of shark is it?"
Evelyn knew what reaction Gary would have had, she breathed in an then said "A great white."
"What?! And you want us to fish a monster like that? We haven't anything against sharks in this boat!"
"Calm down, today we'll simply attract it with a bait."
"Great idea. And tomorrow we'll be eaten!"
Evelyn went down the dock and came back with a bucket in which there was a lamb leg attached to a rope.
"Take it and throw it."
Gary took the leg and threw it as far as possible with disgust.
"Darn, my hands are all dirty of blood!"
"You can always wash them in the sea if you want…" laughed Evelyn.
"Very amusing."
The two sat down and waited. Evelyn stopped the boat engine and Gary watched the rope.
Nothing.
The leg was sinking and releasing its blood.
Nothing.
Gary yawned.
Nothing.
"So?"
The rope was pulled so strongly that the boat was pulled too.
"Finally!" shouted Evelyn.
"Finally?"
She turned on the engine and directed the boat to the coast.
As if they were in a film a black fin came out of the water and started to pursuit them.
"God, it's a real big…fish! Why is it following us?"
"Because we have its prey attached to the rope."
"I knew I should have become a mountain ranger…" said Gary.
The boat was struck again and after some seconds the shark emerged from the water swallowing the bait and cutting the rope in a great water and foam choreography. After that the shark disapperared in the depths of the ocean.
"It was at least five meters long!" shouted Gary.
"Ok, we have a problem…" said Evelyn coming back to the city.