I was in the pool, listening to "Get Set" by this band called Taxiride. I was not really swimming, which was something my brother was doing. I just lying down on the pool's floor. Zac too was listening to music in these waterproof music players.
"Blair." I heard Zac's voice in my head. Being underwater and talking with minds was kind of creepy and I was still trying to get used to it. Animals of the sea in my head I could handle, but people? It was like I had another person in me.
"What?" I answered.
"Our friends are here." He said, pointing his finger upward to the surface of the poo
l.
"What friends?" I asked.
"Santos' nieces." Zac replied.
"Do they, you know. Know of us?" I asked in concern.
"Yep. I told them about you." Zac smiled sheepishly.
"ZAC!" I mentally screamed.
"Hey I leveled with them, by accident." Zac said, putting his hands in surrender. "So we can trust them."
Blowing out some bubbles out of my mouth, I popped up my head to the surface to find 2 blond chicks and the same raven haired girl from my first day of school.
"So you're Zac's little sister?" The light bblond girl asked.
"Yep." I replied. "What's your name?"
"I'm Sirena." She replied. "That's Lyla on my left." She gestured to the honey blond girl.
"You don't look like him for a ginger." Lyla snapped.
"And what is that supposed to mean, "for a ginger"?" I asked putting hand air quotations at the "for a ginger" part.
"Nothing." Lyla said, putting her hands up in surrender. "Just throwing it out there."
"Seriously?" Zac asked Lyla. "You met my sister and you're already referring her by her hair?"
"That's just Lyla." Nixie said. "She's just jealous cause she's being the snappy blondie she is."
Unable to hold it in, we all burst out laughing at Nixie's outburst before me and my bro got dry and walked to Zac's room. It actually used to be a boathouse until Zac begged and pleaded his parents even with his infamous "Pouty Zac face."
"It's much easier to think underwater." Zac said openly.
"Sure is." I heard Sirena sigh in wonder. "I mean it must be so peaceful down there." I raised an eyebrow.
"I can see things very clearly." Zac said. "That's why I'm going back to Mako. I've got to find out how I got this way."
"But what if something else happens to you?" Lyla asked. "It's not a place to be on your own."
"You're welcome to come with me." Zac reminded them.
"Uh yeah, we're going to have to think about that one." Nixie stated, trailing off at the last part of the sentence.
"Sure. I understand." Zac said understanding. "I appreciate everything you've done for me, but I'm going back to Mako today."
"I'm coming too." I said out loud.
"No Blair!" Sirena cried, grabbing my arm. "It's too dangerous!"
Nixie must have known that I was going to ask questions. "What she means in her well meaning way, is that even though we've only met you, you seem too cool to go out there."
"Besides Blair, why? What's there to see?" asked Lyla.
"I was thinking." I explained. "Since I'm half mermaid, maybe Mako has some sort of clue as to who one of my parents was." I had already explained to Zac about my past and he was quite shocked about it. He swore he would do anything to help me.
"What if you get hurt?" Sirena asked me with worry. "Mako's a dangerous place full of strange things."
"I'll take my chances." I said, standing my gorund. "I'll be right back." I ran to my room and got the neccasary stuff for an island expedition: A waterproof backpack of water bottles, towels, a camera and a whistle. The whistle was for if I got lost.
I ran back to Zac's garage only to see Lyla and Zac there.
I asked what she was doing alone. She said that she can do whatever she wants.
"Cool, we can go in Cam's tinny." Zac said with hope.
"We can't. We'll get hit by the spray." I interjected.
"So we get tails." Zac said to me. "It's not like we have to hide it from each other anymore."
"Zac, I have actually tried going in a boat, and the next thing that happened, I was stuck on the bottom of the boat flapping around with a tail." I said, crossing my arms. "Not something you want to experience."
"Blair's right." Lyla stepped in. "I'll take the boat, you two will swim and I'll meet the both of you there in an hour." I couldn't put my finger on it but something didn't seem right about this girl.
We arrived on the very spot Zac, Cam and I went camping that night. It was like I came for the first time.
"Looks pretty spooky, even in daylight." Zac said.
"Why did you camp here then?" Lyla asked.
"I never thought of that before the weird stuff that changed me." Zac mused.
"That only happens when there's a full moon." Lyla said. "I hope."
"Ok. So we stick together and look after each other, okay?" He said looking at me. Having Zac as an overprotective brother, was a little creepy. Even to this day he still is a little overprotective. "I can't remember which way I walked from here." He said standing up.
"Hey Zac." Lyla said. "We should go this way."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"It looks like someone's been through there." Lyla explained.
"I guess." I said.
"It's worth a try right?" She asked.
We arrived at a bunch of rocks. So far, I didn't see anything strange.
"I think that this is the spot." Zac said.
"So where's the cave that you went into?" I asked.
"I don't know." Zac replied. "Maybe it wasn't here."
"No trust your first instincts." Lyla said. "They're usually right." Zac looked around before stopping, as if to recall a memory.
"This is the place." He finally said. "That's where it happened." We approached a narrow wall of rock where Zac touched it, as if to find something like a secret lever. "But I don't understand. There should be an entrance here." What should I do? I wondered if there was a way to get in at all. I didn't see how we were going to get inside.
"Well we're not getting through that in a hurry." Zac said.
"Why don't you try your powers on it?" Lyla asked. Why didn't I think of that?! Zac stretched out his hand and his face turned into a mask of concentration. I wonder if he had the same powers I had. The only power I've seen him do was super speed swim, and transforming into a sea creature. Sighing, he gave up.
"I'm going." I repeated what Zac did only to have my face turn pale as I noticed that on my finger my ring was gone. I was never without it. Well there was no sense in turning back then.
I stopped in desperation.
"Keep going." Lyla said.
"Let me help." Zac said, raising his hand as I did with mine. And sure enough, the door opened, revealing a tunnel with golden light.
"Did I do that?" we both asked at the same time.
"How else could it have happened?" Lyla asked.
"I'm taking everything I said about you being crazy on that Sunday morning." I said.
"So what now?" Zac asked me.
"We enter." Lyla boldly said. We walked into the cave. For a moment, I thought everything was made of gold before I realized that it was just the light. Behind me, I heard a light rumble.
"No!" Lyla cried in fear. I looked behind only to gasp in horror as I realized too late that the door closed by itself.
"This isn't good." Zac remarked.
"Oh you think?" I snapped.
"What if we used our powers again?" He asked. We held our hands out and concentrated. Nothing was happening.
"We're trapped." He finally said.
Zac tried to push against the wall. I didn't see how brute force was going to make it budge.
"Sorry." Zac said. "I guess I got us into a pretty tight spot."
"I'm the one to blame Zac." I said.
"No you're not." He said putting a hand on my shoulder.
"Yes I am." I declared firmly. "I came to look for my missing mom and I sort of encouraged you to come because I know how protective you are."
"That's cause it's my job Blair." Zac said assuring. "I'm the big brother, you're my little sister. None of this is your fault."
"No, it's my fault." Lyla interjected.
"Why say that?" I asked.
"I encouraged you Zac, which encouraged Blair." She said. "And I chose to come."
"Why did you?" Zac asked.
"You couldn't come by yourself." She said. "What if something happened to either of you?"
"You worry about us that much?" Zac asked. Lyla hesitated for a bit before saying, "There's gotta be another way out of here."
We walked around the cave. It seemed pretty standard: One way in, no way out.
"There's no way out." Lyla said dejectedly.
"Well that's kind of a defeatist attitude don't you think?" I asked. "What about that?" I pointed to a large brass circle. It had a symbol on it which seemed really familiar. I didn't mean as in déjà vu. I meant as in it was so familiar, I felt I had seen this before. I opened up my bag and took a picture of it with my camera.
"What is that?" Lyla asked.
"I've seen it before." Zac explained. "But it was glowing like there was this bright light behind it. When I touched it, the floor must have opened up and I fell."
"This vanished?" Lyla asked. Then out of nowhere, Zac grabbed Lyla's waist and mine. "What are you doing?" Lyla asked confused.
"Don't worry, I've got you both. In case it happens again." Zac said before taking a breath. "Here goes nothing." He stretched out his hand, and I do the same thing. Nothing happened.
"This day can't get any weirder" I said out loud. Suddenly the symbol glowed as Zac walked towards it. "And it just did." I said taking back my words.
"You're affecting it." Lyla theorized. "It's glowing because of you."
"I remember I did that when I touched it." He did said thing and suddenly the door disappeared, revealing a swirling vortex of water.
"What is that?" I asked.
"I don't know." Zac answered.
"Do you remember this?" Lyla asked.
"No." Zac replied, unsure of what was going on.
"It's almost as if it's alive." Zac and I walked toward it, eager to see what was on the other side.
"No you'll get a tail." Lyla cried stepping in front of us to stop us. "Maybe even something worse. What if we get sucked into the depths for good?"
"This is what we came for." Zac said, holding my hand. "I have to find out what happened to us, Lyla."
"I'm with him." I declared as Zac gave me a look that said, "Are you ready?". I replied by nodding to him, meaning "I'm ready." We stepped into the "portal", like heroes taking the next step to their journey. The next thing I knew, I was in what looked like this universe of water with a tail along Zac. As I looked around, the "door" seemed to close.
" The door's gone! We're trapped!"I screamed in my mind to Zac.
"Calm down sis!" Zac said. "Let's just find a way out."
"In case if you haven't noticed, there IS no way out." I snapped.
"Wait what is that?" Zac asked me.
"What is what?" Zac tapped my shoulder and I turned around to see something that I could swear was made of gold, shimmering in the distance. Zac, being the curious lad he was, swam toward it, his powerful blue tail propelling him foward, and I followed him. Just as we were about a foot away, we heard Lyla's voice saying, "Zac! Blair! Come back! Guys! Can you hear me? Guys! Hurry! We don't have much time!" We swam back as fast as we could. We reach the door coming out with legs. I heard Zac say something, but I couldn't hear it because I screamed, "We have to get out of here, now!" We ran to the door, and all of us are out, but the door closes. To my surprise, I saw Sirena and Nixie standing there.
"What are you guys doing here?" Lyla asked.
"Looking for you." retorted Nixie. "What was that?"
"It's the tunnel I told you about." Zac answered as he turned around only to realize the door closed. "It's gone! It's the one I went into the night everything happened to me." He tried to open it but no luck prevailed. "I did it before. Why can't I do it now?"
"Who cares? Let's just go." Lyla said.
"I wanna know what that thing I saw was." Zac protested.
"Whatever it was, we can't go back in now, that way to close." Lyla argued.
"But I wanna know what it all means." Zac whined.
"It means, this is a dangerous place and we're lucky." I shot back. "We'll swim back, and meet all of you back at home."
We journeyed back home where Lyla was waiting for us. We told her about what we saw. "There was water all around us, high above and deep below." Zac explained. "I can't explain it. This object was floating in the distance. I should have just kept going. I should have taken it."
"Maybe you weren't meant to." Lyla interjected.
"Why do you say that?" I asked.
"Just a thought." Lyla said.
"I'm gonna go back. And I'm gonna get it this time." Zac announced.
"No." Lyla said.
"But I have to do it." Zac protested.
"Just don't go back there without me. It's too dangerous. Promise?" Lyla asked.
"Ok. I promise." Zac said. "Hey we make a pretty good team, even for you Blair."
"Thanks." I smiled sweetly. "Can I get you something to drink Lyla?"
"No I should be going." She spoke standing up.
"You sure?" Zac asked. "I mean I could talk about this for hours."
"I've got some things I need to do. Bye." With that note she left.
"Zac, we don't know what we're dealing with here." I spoke out loud. "Maybe we should study this object before searching for it."
"Or we could just get it like we almost did." Zac suggested.
"Yeah when we almost died." I snapped. "Look, Zac, what you know you're doing is okay. What you think you know is dangerous. My point is this: I think you're a little too curious about this. You're just jumping to a conclusion too soon."
Zac then put his hand on my shoulder, and walked me to a large mirror next to his bed. "Blair, Blair, Blair." He said. "We're merpeople. I mean, you, my sister who is a fish hybrid, and I'm a merman. We're basically that awesome to handle anything including this object. So what I'm saying is that, what's the worst that can happen?"
"Ok first off: I'm a halfling." I stated. "And second all I'm saying is that if this object is a deadly weapon and it falls into the wrong hands, we could be in serious trouble." Oops. I probably shouldn't have jinxed it.
"Blair, it's only an object in water. I mean how much trouble could it be?" He would have no idea how gravely mistaken he was for being so arrogant.