Chapter 2: Resurrection Part 1
The time was passing by, and the friends were still standing there, looking at her lifeless body.
Yes, the great Rikki Chadwick was dead and all the good times they shared with her now floated right there before their eyes like a dark ghosts of their old life that was now completely lost in darkness.
"We have to move her." Lewis' voice pierced the spooky silence. "We can't leave her body here."
Cleo gasped quietly and hugged him. Bella and Emma burst into tears again. Will and Ash just looked helplessly at Rikki's lifeless body and pain was written on their faces. Tears were filling their eyes, but they tried to stay as calm as possible.
Zane quietly kneeled down and took his girlfriend's cold body in his arms. He leaned his head and touched her lips with his own, shivering slightly feeling how cold they were. A tear rolled down his cheek landing on her face, but he gently wiped it away. He held Rikki tight to his chest as if he was trying to warm her, hoping she would wake up. He took a deep breath and quietly whispered into the night, to his friends and most of all to himself, "I wish there was a way to bring her back!"
No one answered him and he knew why. They didn't want to break the parts left of his heart by stating the obvious: there was no way back from death.
"Maybe...maybe there is a way." Lewis said.
Everyone stared at him.
"We can't bring her back from the dead Lewis. We are only humans after all. Humans like her." Ash said.
"She wasn't just a human, she was a mermaid!" Lewis reasoned. "And besides...we can at least try."
"If there is even a slightest chance of her to come back to live, then I'm willing to try anything!" Zane stated.
The others nodded.
"Should we...you know...take the body to her dad, or...?" Emma asked hesitantly.
"No." Zane said. "I want to...I want to take her body with me. That way she'll stay at my place until we figure out how to bring her back."
Bella wanted to correct him with "if" but Will looked at her, mouthing her not to say anything.
"I think we should go." She said eventually.
The others nodded and silently started walking away in the night.
The girls' eyes landed on Rikki's face while they were silently walking. The boys' did too. Then something that once Rikki told them, echoed in their minds, "We are in this together!"
Now they knew what this really meant, but they wished they didn't. Because it was too painful. Walking slowly and in silence, they all remembered their last hours with her.
Flashback:
7 hours earlier
"Let's go to Mako!" Rikki said.
The four girls were at Rikki's talking and laughing not knowing and not caring what would happen later. Zane was still working, but Lewis, Will and Ash were sitting with the girls. They all were just enjoying their time together.
"Rikki, I have to sing!" Bella exclaimed with a playful smile.
"And I have to work." Emma said in response.
"Come on, Em. After all I'm your boss and I say you must come."
"No, Rikki, I can't. You and Zane don't have enough people to serve the clients, I should stay. You go and I'll probably join you later."
Desperate Rikki turned to Cleo.
"Ok." The brunette left a small sigh and smiled to her friend. "I'm in. I'll come with you."
"Thanks." Rikki said smiling back.
The boys laughed a little. After that she made Cleo drink her booster as fast as possible and then she almost pushed her out of Rikki's and ran with her to the water. The two raced to Mako, but as always Rikki was faster. When they got to to the moon pool she teased Cleo:
"Too slow again, Cleo."
"Like duh, I was right behind you." The other girl playfully replied.
End of flashback
Yes, this was the last time they saw their best friend, their sister by heart alive.
Except for one person.
She was walking silently with the others, but she could still hear the last cry of her soul sister mermaid and she would always remember the terror in her eyes. Tears were rolling down her eyes now. She was shivering. No one knew she witnessed Rikki's dead. And she was going to keep it that way, because she was too scared to tell.
"What do you think has happened to Rikki?" Ash was the first to ask.
They all shook their heads meaning they don't know.
"I don't know what happened to her and who killed her, but if I ever find out who her killer is, I swear he will beg to be dead!" Zane said, watching Rikki's cold, motionless face.
Tears rolled down his cheeeks again, but this time he let them be. The pain was too big. He doubted he would ever be able to cope with Rikki's loss. The others were thinking exactly the same.
They were walking in silence for a few minutes when Bella suddenly spoke.
"I think that if there's no chance to bring her back we should...we should throw her body into the sea. She loved the sea and I think she'd want that." She said with tears rolling from her eyes.
The others nodded silently.
That That night when they left Zane with Rikki's body in his house and went home no one said anything. Suddenly, for those 7 friends the colors of their lives had disappeared making life colored in the deepest shade of gray. How was it even possible to be so happy in one moment and so sad and full with pain in the other?!
{ * }
At the next morning the others headed to Zane's house. They all gathered in his room.
Rikki's body was on the bed. Zane had cleaned her from the dry blood and the mud, and had covered her with his blanket. Her curly mess of hair was covering the bigger part of the pillow.
"She looks like she's just...sleeping." Bella said and tears filled her eyes.
Emma hugged Ash and bursted into tears on his shoulder. Tears were rolling down Cleo's cheeks.
"I've been up all night researching, but I think I found a way." Lewis said to all of them, entering the room.
The others looked at him. Hope was written all over their faces. Only one had one other feeling on her face beside hope; fear. Fear of what will happen if they actually succeed. Fear of what will happen if Rikki remembers she had witnessed her death and she was the reason for it.
"We can't do it in here though." Lewis added. It has to be done at Mako, the place she'd died."
Zane nodded in understandment, and took Rikki's body in his hands. She was dressed with one of his shirts, which was long enough to cover her.
The boys took Zane's boat, waving for bye to the girls who jumped in the water.
While Zane was navigating the Zodiac, with Rikki's body still in his hands, tears filled his eyes, looking at her face. Will, Lewis and Ash tried to look everywhere, but her, without any success at all; they always ended up just staring at her lifeless body their eyes water too.
When they arrived at Mako, they left Zane's boat on the beach and went to the moon pool.
Once there, just when Zane was going to put his girlfriend's dead body on the ground, Lewis stopped him.
"Put her in the water and get in yourself."
Zane looked at him with strange expression on his face, but still he obeyed to what he said.
When everyone were in the pool, Zane gently put Rikki's body in the water and slid in himself.
Following Lewis' instructions, they made a circle around her. Still, they couldn't help but notice she didn't grow a tail.
"Now, one of us has to..." Lewis started, when Bella suddenly screamed pointing at Rikki's body.
"LOOK!"
They all gasped. All over Rikki's legs there were a golden threads that were forming the lightest shape of tale.
"Wow." Cleo exclaimed.
"Amazing!" Will said.
"Let's finish what we've started." Zane suddenly interrupted them impatiently.
"We need blood." Lewis announced. "Some of us has to cut his wrist and that of Rikki, making the cuts touch each other."
"I'll do it!" Bella said almost immediately.
"Ok. Take this." And Lewis gave her a small knife. "When you join the cuts we will say a spell and you have to repeat it with us. And no matter what happens remember that you'll be tested somehow!" He added and turned to the others. "No one can break the circle until the test she'll be put through is all over!"
She nodded, along with everyone else and swam closer to Rikki in the circle while the others remade it around them both.
The silver blade sparkled in the dim light and blood started falling off Bella's wrist. She then cut Rikki's cold wrist and took it with her other hand, making the two cuts merge into one another.
As if on que they all repeated the spell.
"Blood goes with blood
Water goes to water.
With the power of
three times three
give her life
let her live."
They repeated the words three times and suddenly Bella started to scream.
There were red blotches on her skin, like something was burning her up and it could be seen she was in great pain. She opened her mouth and through screams a few words got out of her mouth but it was like they were said by someone else.
"Fire makes it hotter,
and it got her."
But no matter in how much pain she was she didn't let go of Rikki's hand. And then suddenly the pain she felt was gone.
A bright blue light appeared curling all over Rikki's body and it hid her for a few seconds from the looks of the others.
Even Bella couldn't see her. She felt Rikki's hand slipped away from hers.
Out of everyone's sight Rikki's body was thrown in the air once, then twice and then it fell into the water and the blue light disappeared.
Everyone looked around but they couldn't see her.
Suddenly she crabbed with all her strength through the surface and that's when they could took a better look at her. Her tail and its matching top were no longer golden, but the darkest shade of black. Her eyes were closed and when she opened them, they were no longer ocean blue, but were black, exactly like her tail.
They all gasped, but still they had big smiles on their faces. Because they did it.
She was back.
Maybe with some little differences, but she was back.
Her resurrection was their most precious gift, and the most dangerous curse.
They still didn't know it, but she came back...wrong.