6. The Hole

Cade fiddled with her charm bracelet, focusing on the dopamine charm Sam had given her. With it added to her bracelet, she now had thirty-three charms. She often wondered how many she would have if her mother hadn't died. Would she need multiple bracelets to fit them all? It seemed likely given the speed at which her mother brought home charms for her. What other parts of her life would be different if she still had her parents? Would she even be on this insane adventure, literally sailing towards Death?

The small boat they had rented rocked back and forth as it pushed through the rough waters. It was a miracle the old charter boat had stayed together this long. It was anything but sturdy. The white paint had all but flaked completely off and the deck creaked with every step they took. However, it had managed to do its job. They'd been at sea for almost five hours now and the sun had set hours ago. They would be at their destination soon.

The three girls sat around inside the bridge taking turns at the helm. Currently it was Kairi's turn since they were close to the portal and she knew what they were looking for. Cade and Sydney were sitting on the floor behind her, both lost in their own thoughts.

"So how does this whole coming back from the dead thing work?" Cade asked, attempting to draw the room into conversation. It had been quiet for too long, making the tension in the air seem thicker.

"It depends," Kairi answered. "In my case I was the first to die of the bubonic plague. Death likes reminders of the deaths he's proud of, so people like me are brought back and serve as his servants. There's a lot of us. Death and his brothers are very creative when it comes to killing."

"His brothers?" Cade tilted her head. After she had gotten over the shock of Kairi's life, or lack thereof, she had grown increasingly curious about the whole ordeal. Her inner scientist wanted to know every detail. Could anyone come back? What was being dead like?

"The four horsemen," Kairi again responded. "Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. Anyway, another way to come back is to do something similar to selling your soul to Death and in that case you become a Reaper and go around the entire space-time continuum collecting and delivering souls. The only other way to be brought back from Death is if you weren't supposed to die in the first place. If that happens, you become Shadowed. Like what happened with Sydney when she died." Kairi flinched, realizing too late that she had said too much.

Sydney didn't seem to notice however. She was concentrating on her phone, the dim glow the only source of light in their tiny room.

Cade blinked and turned to Sydney in surprise. "You died too?"

"Hmm?" Sydney glanced up from her phone and noticed Cade staring at her. "Sorry, I'm concerned about the amount of blush my daughter thinks I wear." She showed Cade the picture Joe had sent her of Riley's face covered in paint. She pulled her phone back and slowly traced the outline of Riley's young face. "I'm going to miss them."

Cade was about to point out that Sydney would see them again and this wasn't a one-way trip, but Sydney quickly changed the subject.

"What did you say?" Sydney asked.

Cade examined her closely, as if she wanted to read her thoughts. "Kairi just said that you died."

"She did?" Sydney's lips turned down and she looked to Kairi. "Kairi..."

"Sorry!" Kairi apologized. "It accidentally slipped out. But I didn't say anything else, I swear!"

"Why don't you have a debt to pay?" Cade leaned forward, an inquisitive look on her face.

Sydney quickly looked away. "My debt was paid years ago. I still pay for it every day."

"How did you end your debt?" Cade continued to question her.

Sydney fidgeted uncomfortably under Cade's stare, refusing to make eye contact. Her hand drifted to her wrist. "Why does it matter?"

Cade tilted her head, her curiosity turning into confusion. "Because it could help us with Kairi's situation?"

"It won't. My debt was paid the hard way." Sydney pulled her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around them, her hand now scratching at her wrist.

"Oh." Cade studied her two friends. "Are there any other secrets about you two that I should know about? I feel like I just met you."

"Probably." They answered at the same time.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"No," Sydney said, while Kairi said, "Maybe."

"Okay then..." Cade frowned. What had happened to them? Why were they being so secretive about their pasts?

Cade shook her head to clear her thoughts. She wasn't going to force it out of them. If they wanted to tell her, they'd do it on their own. "So how much longer until-"

Crack!

A sudden clap of thunder resounded from outside, immediately cutting off Cade's words. The room lit up from a bright flash of lightning that struck down a little too close to the ship for comfort. The girls' heads snapped to the windows and they tensed up in fear.

"Wasn't the sky clear two seconds ago?" Sydney tentatively stood up and walked to the front of the room. She stood next to Cade and gazed out the window. "I definitely remember seeing stars."

The night sky was now cloudy, not a single star in sight. It was impossible to see anything beyond the ship. The only light came from the occasional lightning strikes shooting down in the distance. The ocean turned rough, batting them around like a cat playing with a ball of yarn.

Each girl found something to latch onto inside the room. They all held on for dear life. Even still, they managed to get pushed around and slammed into walls.

"Kairi! What the hell did you steer us into?" Cade and Sydney yelped as their heads bonked together. They tried to pull themselves away from each other, but ended up getting slammed back together two seconds later.

"Nothing! I mean, I didn't intend to steer us into anything. I just followed the compass in the direction of the portal and it led us here. We must be close to the entrance!" Kairi desperately clung to the steering wheel, trying and failing to put the ship back on course.

"How close is close?"

The ship violently rocked to one side. The girls screamed and collided into the surrounding wall as the boat nearly tipped over, going vertical. It managed to right itself, but just barely. It landed back into the water with a splash, coating the window in water and making it even harder to see the outside, not that there was much to see.

"Very close," Kairi moaned. She found temporary stability and gazed out the front window. "I'd say about one hundred feet actually."

"What?!" Sydney and Cade bolted to the window and tried to find what Kairi was staring at it, which proved to be an easy task. Their boat may not have been tall, but it rose high above the water enough to see the impending doom before them.

"Wow... It's actually a hole." Cade went slack-jawed, and her eyes went so wide she was actually worried they would fall out of her head.

"I was kind of hoping it was just a metaphor," Sydney added, matching Cade's expression of trauma.

The ocean ended a few yards in front of the ship. At least, it appeared that way. A gaping hole the size of several football fields spread out in front of them. The water surrounding it poured over the edge like a circular waterfall.

The ship lurched and picked up speed as it was dragged forward by the rushing current. The short moment of calm they had experienced ended, and the severe swaying and bouncing returned. The girls found something new to grab onto.

"So what? We just drive into it?"

"That's the plan." Kairi let go of the wheel. There was no use in trying to control the boat anymore. They were at the mercy of the ocean now.

"That's a terrible plan."

An immense wave crashed into the side of the boat. It pushed them underwater and sent them tumbling and spinning through the turbulent waters.

The girls screamed as they were flung against the metal wall again. They landed with a sickening crack and fell onto the floor.

Cade groaned and lifted her head. Her vision was blurry and she had trouble focusing. She pushed off the ground and tried to clear her head. Her sight slowly returned and she noticed the ceiling had become the floor and their new floor was wet. Cade's head was spinning and she was more disoriented than she had ever been in her life, but she had enough sense to lift herself out of the rising water.

She looked around the room, not really taking anything in. The ship was completely submerged. It's old body creaking more than ever. One of the windows had an expansive crack running through it, letting water pour inside the cabin. That caught Cade's attention and she promptly snapped out of her haze.

Her eyes scanned the room again, but this time she actually paid attention to what she was seeing. Kairi and Sydney were sprawled out on the ceiling/floor unconscious, blood trailing down from their temples. Cade scurried over to them and set them up against the wall, not wanting her friends to drown. She couldn't do anything about the bleeding, but it didn't look like they were losing too much blood. Then again, Cade's sister Adrienne was the doctor of the family, not her. Still, she had managed to pick up a few important medical skills along the way.

Cade ran a hand down her face. "We're supposed to enter the Land of the Dead alive, not die to get there."

The boat jerked and Cade fell forward, her face splashing down in the flooding water. She sat back up and wiped off her face, but she was so soaked at this point that it didn't really make much of a difference. She regretted not bringing something to keep her hair back. She was having difficulties keeping her voluminous red curls out of her face.

The water was now six inches deep and rising fast. Cade frantically searched around the bridge for something stop up the broken glass with. She thought she remembered seeing towels earlier, but they had been outside on the back deck. They weren't going to do her any good now.

"Come on," Cade muttered to herself. "There has to be something. Think. There's always a solution, you just have to find it."

Luckily for Cade, the water soon stopped increasing and she was spared from her search for an impromptu plug. It had risen to almost a foot and Kairi and Sydney's heads were dangerously close to falling below the surface. Cade's relief was short lived and she paused, puzzled as to why the water would cease all of a sudden. She glanced back at the damaged window. Water was no longer flooding the cabin. In fact, water was no longer in front of them at all as far as she could tell.

"What the..." Cade wearily moved to the window. The ship pitched forward out of nowhere and Cade soon realized why the water was gone.

They had arrived at the entrance to the Land of the Dead.

Water cascaded down around their boat and over top of it. The angle the vessel was at progressed more and more, sending Cade and her unconscious friends sliding forward. A vast void of darkness opened up underneath them. The water disappeared from view and it was if someone had shut off all the lights in the world.

Cade didn't even have time to scream before the boat plunged into the depths of darkness.


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