Chapter Six
The sighting
I woke to a beautiful sunrise, I rose and stretched, working my stiff muscles. Yet at the same time I also anticipated to be very sore every day for at most a month, due to training exercises. Bird song lazed through the air, a light breeze rustled the trees, and the waves gently lapped the shore. Once I was dressed I quietly left the cabin and walked down to the shore. The sun was just over the horizon, putting an orange streak on the water. The moon was behind me, a fat white circle floating in the sky. I took a deep breath feeling my concerns drift away. This was an example of something truly peaceful.
Suddenly the hair on my neck stood up, I was being watched. I was certain of it, I could feel it in my whole being. I scanned the water's surface, I froze when I saw two small lights in the water. They were eyes reflecting the moonlight. Whatever it was had a tapetum, the mirror at the back of the eye of some animals. They just floated there, appearing and disappearing as whatever it was blinked. After several minutes, they sank below the water with a small but deep splash. Then whatever it was swam away quickly enough to create a wake.
The splash and the wake indicated a large animal, very large, and very fast. I didn't know what it was but I could rule out some things. It definitely wasn't a fish; some fish do have tapetums, but none have eyelids. This unknown creature had eyelids because it was blinking. Some amphibians have them, the problem with that idea is that no known living species gets large enough to have made a sound like that. There are some that have eyes on the tops of their heads, but all of them are at most a foot long. I estimated the creature's length to be at least twenty-two feet. The only thing it could have been that I could of was a reptile and something crocodilian.
I decided that was what it was, a crocodile. That wasn't too unlikely of a possibility, sometimes they escape zoos, or are set free by owners when they get too big. It certainly wouldn't survive here for long because the water was too cold. I walked away pushing the sighting to the back of my mind.
Around noon I was in archery class (which I had never been at all good at) and I noticed a commotion on the water. The people on one of the canoes were yelling and pointing at the water. The people in the other boat were hurrying over. Everyone in both of them was definitely focused on something in the water. I didn't think much of it...yet. What none of us knew was that this wasn't a crocodile or any member of that reptile group.
On the way to lunch I heard the people talking to other campers about what they saw. My mind instantly flew back to my sighting.
"We saw a large silhouette in the water, it was around thirty feet long. It swam like an alligator; its tail was about as long as its body. I'm not sure but I think I saw small flippers." One of the campers said.
"Large head; about four feet long, and fast" I interrupted.
"How did you know that?" another person asked, a guy from Hermes.
"Yeah you completed the description of its appearance, how do know that?" the first guy, a Demeter boy, asked.
"Because I saw it too"
After lunch, everyone was heading off to continue their activities, when a loud sound ripped through the air. It was a long medium frequency sound. The way the frequency changed made it sound a lot like a screech and roar combined. The sound faded away, we suddenly realized how silent it was. There was no birdsong, no wind, no sound of any kind except for our own.
"What in Hera's name was that?" someone called out. Nobody answered, none of us had the slightest idea as to what made it.
"Was that a monster in the woods?" Connor Stoll from Hermes called out.
"I doubt it, it came from the beach" someone else put in.
That night at dinner everyone was uneasy, heads kept turning toward the ocean, as if expecting it to be heard again. The normal sounds were all that could be heard however. Dinner passed more quietly than we thought possible. Almost nobody spoke, and virtually no one wanted to be there longer than necessary.
After dinner was campfire, being linked to our emotions and feelings the flames were a greenish color and produced little heat. Stories were told and songs were sung and slowly everyone started to relax. The flames turned an orange color and emitted more heat. As time went by and nothing strange or scary happened the flames reflected our pleasure by being a twenty feet high bright white pillar and producing so much heat that the people who were sitting close had to move back. Everyone was singing and talking and in general having a good time. I thought we'd have a normal night, we were wrong. That's when it happened again.
The cry sliced through the still night air. Heads snapped up or whipped around to face the water. The flames which had been white in color and fiercely hot just a second before shrank to an inch in height, and turned as black as coal. Most creepily though, it seemed like the fire was making anti heat, pulling heat into it, lowering the temperature around us. The howl dissipated only to happen again with just as much volume as the first time. Then there was a scraping dragging sound.
Nobody said it but that meant it was in the forest. A scream ripped through the air. The sound changed to a shuffling sound as whatever it was moved onto the sand. Then there was a series of splashes as it quickly entered the water and swam off.
A dryad hurtled out of the forest, screaming about a thirty-foot snake like beast that had a long paddle shaped tail. I gasped when I heard that, feeling the blood drain out of my face because, you see, only one group of reptiles fit that description.
"No, it can't be" I muttered. "What exactly did you see?" I asked the dryad, praying she was wrong.
She repeated her description exactly, a cold chill went down my spine. You see only one group of reptiles ever to exist matches that description, the mosasaurs. And the mosasaurs are all supposed to have gone extinct with the dinosaurs at the end of the cretaceous.
"Nobody goes anywhere alone, and no one goes in the water no matter how many people are there" I declared.
"May I ask exactly why?" someone asked.
"Trust me you don't want to encounter that predator you simply don't" I snapped.
"But what is it?" Chiron asked.
"I-I can't tell you, sorry, but I can hardly handle the truth myself" I replied.
"Why what is it?" asked an Apollo girl.
"You're really gonna make me say it, aren't you?" I asked.
"Yes" she said.
"It's a mosasaur, a reptile from the age of dinosaurs. Thirty feet of muscled, toothed, and lethal predator." I replied.
"What are you talking about?" someone called out.
"Look the dinosaurs really existed, evidently, and somehow this mosasaur has gotten into our time." I announced.
"And what is it that you suggest we do?" someone else asked.
"First, we need to block of the entrance to Long Island Sound, to prevent it from escaping into the ocean, assuming that is it hasn't already. Next we need to assemble teams to find it and kill it." I suggested.
Chiron spoke up "What you suggest is very difficult, if not impossible. And second just how dangerous is this...mosasaur?"
"More dangerous than any predator alive today. It could bite you in half in an instant Chiron" I stated.