The second school let out, Luca nabbed his chance.

Ditching his blue uniform on Boccadasse shores, Luca dove into the sea for the first time in months, sprint-swimming towards any and everything strange he could find. Whirlpools were now being spotted in Genoa, and that meant that whatever monster had taken Alberto was getting closer.

Luca had to meet it halfway before he lost his chance.

Did he have a plan? Nnnoooo… but he had the element of confidence on his side. The water felt good on his body, growing out his gills, sprouting his scales, freeing his fins. He felt like he could think for the first time in months.

Yep, he thought, spying the swirling torrents in the distance. It's just past the strait.

When Luca finally reached the first whirlpool, it had evolved into a full-blown maelstrom. Lifting his head out of the water, he could hear the shouts of sailors as their boat was being sloshed about and sucked into the sea.

Just like Giacomo and Tommaso. Except these guys weren't so lucky…

"Hey," Luca screamed, swimming around in circles. "Whoever you are! Give me back my friend!" What he saw next made his blood run cold.

It was his friend's back: his purple scaly back. Same clothes, same hair… but he was casting his hands about and creating these vortexes as if in some type of trance.

"Alberto?"

Alberto turned. His eyes were red, and his teeth were sharp… Oh no.

"Well, well," he drawled. "If it isn't Little Luca of Liguria… come to pay me a visit after all this time?"

"Come on," Luca said, his voice quivering. "You know I have school."

His friend laughed a long, creepy laugh. "Okay," he sighed. "But for real though, why are you here?"

"… To save you?"

"To save me," Alberto repeated, a serrated edge on the word "save." "Tell me, Luca. Do I look like I need saving?" He spread his arms out, gesturing to the sea of flotsam and demolished coral reefs behind him.

Luca shook his head, trying to dislodge these frightened, confused thoughts. "I don't get it," he said. "I thought you'd been kidnapped by something horrible. Why are you doing this?"

"Because it's fun?" Alberto responded. "Now get out of my way unless you wanna get sucked in too." He whipped up a whirlpool with one finger, raising up a colorful school of fish and flinging them to the far corners of the sea.

Luca's inner fish-herder came out. "What are you doing?!" he shouted.

Alberto made a big show of digging out his ear fin. "God, you're annoying."

"I don't get it! If you're not in any trouble, then what were all those phone calls about?"

"What phone calls?"

"A few months ago, at midnight? You called me three times."

"No. A few months ago at midnight, I was whipping up whirlpools in the Cinque Terre."

"Why?"

"Because it's fun," Alberto reminded him. With a swipe of his hand, he spun up a bigger maelstrom, grabbed Luca by the shoulders and put him right in the middle of it. "You should try it sometime."

"Whoa. Hey!" Luca got sloshed around and around the water tornado, eventually being spat out in a direction he was too dizzy to determine.

"Buon viaggio!" was the last thing Luca heard as he was swept away.

. . .

Luca woke up on a dark, cold beach without any clothes. All he had was his little algae wrap. In December.

Wherever he was, he was a long way's away from where he'd started. He didn't even know if he was still in Genoa anymore. Or where his undersea home was.

Shivering and soaking wet, Luca did the only thing he could think of; he picked a random road and started walking on it.

He said, "I need your help; I need it now

Give me the strength to go on."

. . .