Chapter 2 Critical Thinking [Sam's POV]
Flint had the right idea. Manny handed us helmets and we dived in with him. Flint looked around, then saw a door with 78% of its screws out. Flint took out a large toothpick and unscrewed just enough screws for us to get through the door.
Once we did, it was pitch black. Flint shook a flashlight and led the way.
"Did you practice all this, Flint?" I asked, wondering if he did.
I remembered he couldn't speak. He stopped swimming and gave me a thumbs up, which was a yes.
I noticed something wasn't right as we went on, then realized the water was being drained. We stood up, since the water was up to our waists now. Flint coughed; I then noticed he coughed up blood. Manny took off his helmet and said, "If he keeps coughing up that much blood, he'll become dangerously anemic before we can take him to a hospital!"
I gasped, then walked into a tank of water. We appeared to be walking in a marine tank. A woman ran to us and said, "I'm sorry, you can't swim here."
Tim didn't care. "Can you take my son to a hospital, please?! He's coughing up blood!"
The woman frowned. "I can call 911, but it won't do anything, since emergency crews can't get this far."
Another woman came up, overhearing the situation. "They can, however, take a boat to Swallow Falls. They can seek medical attention there!"
That was music to my ears. "When's the next boat coming?"
The second woman took out her phone. "4 hours from now."
"4 HOURS!?" I exclaimed. "Flint doesn't have 4 hours!"
The first woman looked at her clipboard. "Maybe he can write down what happened on here," She said, giving the clipboard to Flint. He look the pen and wrote 1.5 pages of writing down on that paper.
The first woman took the paper and read it aloud. "'My invention, the' FL- FLA- FLU-... wha...? '-is trying to kill me. It force-fed me very harshly when it caught me escaping, and damaged my knee and my throat. I have been coughing up blood since then. The' FLIMIDI- whatever- 'put a tracking device on my arm-'" She got caught off as she observed Flint ripping off a watch-like item off of his wrist, and then a button-like thing from the inside of his wrist. I cringed; this would make him more anemic than ever!
The woman continued reading, "'If what you are saying is true, we're going to swim to Swallow Falls and get help there. I can smell the Atlantic Ocean from here, so all we need to do is either get someone's attention or get to the docks and go to Swallow Falls' hospital.'"
The second woman nodded, eyes wide. "I'm going to make sure this man gets to a hospital," She said as she slipped on an eletric blue helmet similar to ours.
"Me too," The other woman agreed, putting on her neon pink helmet. She picked up a sky blue helmet for Flint, but he shook his head. The woman handed the helmet to Manny, who put it in his bag.
The two women dived into the water, and we all went into the Atlantic Ocean.