Chapter 2: Sink or Swim

Justin and Sadie made their way down the tunnel until they saw a bright light up ahead. It was the entrance into the Aqua Dome itself. Justin could feel how deep they were under water. When they finally made it they were both surprised at the size of the dome. It was incredible large in height, length, and width. It must have been at least as long as two football fields. The walls were mainly glass so that people could see the things outside the dome. Justin was surprised to see schools of different fish swimming around it. Artificial coral covered most of the lake's bottom outside the dome. Sadie looked around the dome with her mouth wide open in amazement.

On the ground of the Aqua Dome there were dozens of different stands with different things. Some of them were just information booths about the different kinds of undersea life. There were also dozens of huge models of animals such as turtles, squids, fish, and even jellyfish. Speaking of jellyfish, Justin looked out and saw a group of jellyfish floating in the water outside the dome. They were all brightly colorful, and they all swam slowly, but in perfect unison.

Sadie looked above her and her eyes widened.

"Hey Justin look up."

Justin looked above him and saw an enormous full scale model of a narwhal. A narwhal is a type of whale that has a long horn on its face. It was supported by what appeared to be a metal wire rope. The wire rope went up to a pulley system, and from there the wire led down all the way near bottom level to another pulley which was next to the entrance. The wire was coiled up in the pulley, and next to that was a control box with different switches. Justin assumed that it was to control the rope pulley system, whether it should go up or down.

The whole place was amazing. It was a pure work of art in architecture.

Sadie nudged Justin's shoulder to grab his attention.

"Come on let's check out the different booths."

Justin smiled and said, "Sure."

So for the next five or six minutes the looked around the different information booths, and the various models. Then the observed the different kinds of fish that swam by.

"This is incredible," said Justin.

"I know. It really shows you how beautiful life is under the sea."

"Yeah it does."

All of sudden Justin felt a small brush cold wind from behind him. It felt so chilling that the hairs on his neck stood up straight. He turned around quickly to see where it came from, but saw nothing unusual.

As Justin looked confused he turned his attention to Sadie.

"Did you just feel that?"

Sadie looked at him in a puzzled way.

"Feel what?"

"That wind. There was wind and it was so cold and -"

Justin stopped when he stared at Sadie and realized that she had no idea what he was talking about.

"You know what nevermind. I-It's nothing."

Sadie then looked worried.

"Justin, are you okay? Do you feel sick or something?"

Sadie put her hand against his head to check his temperature.

"Well you do feel a little cold. Maybe we should just head home if you're sick."

"No no I'm fine. Really I am it's just…"

Justin paused for a second trying to think of what to say without sounding totally paranoid.

"It's just I thought I felt something….weird."

"Are you sure you don't want to leave? Honestly I'm okay if you want to go."

"No I'm fine Sadie. Just forget about it."

"Okay."

The both stopped talking for a moment until they heard someone shouting on their right side.

"Whoa look at that!"

They both looked and saw that it was Nolan who was looking up at a great white shark that was swimming outside the glass. Another one was following it from behind. Brianna and Tori came up from behind Nolan. Tori looked kind of worried.

"Sharks are so creepy," she said. "And the way their eyes are so black it's like you're looking into a deep bottomless pit."

Brianna chuckled a little.

"Don't be such a chicken shit," she said.

Tori shoved Brianna.

"I'm not," said Tori.

"Oww. Bitch!"

"Ladies, ladies," said Nolan, "don't fight over something as stupid as this. Come on let's go. There're about to give the speech."

Justin was confused as the three of them walked away.

"Speech? What speech?"

"Oh yeah I forgot to tell you. Apparently the head of Novak Corporations is coming here to make a speech on the Aqua's Dome opening day."

Sadie looked and pointed her finger towards the center of the dome.

"See right there in the middle."

Justin looked and saw a crowd of people gathering around the center. He noticed that a lot of them had cameras and microphones. So he assumed they were reporters.

"Yeah I see it. Let's get closer to hear better."

They walked towards the huge crowd when suddenly someone bumped into Justin.

"Oh I'm sorry I didn't mean to," said Justin.

When he looked he saw an average looking man with messy brown hair, and bright brown eyes.

"No it's okay," he said, "I guess I should see where I'm walking next time."

"Yeah same here."

They both stood there for a moment.

"Well again I'm sorry."

"No problem."

Justin and Sadie began walking through the large crowd until they finally made to the front of the crowd where all the reporters were at.

He saw that they gathered around a wooden podium where two security guards were standing in front of. One of them was a bulky looking man with a shaved hair cut with a serious look on his face. The other one was a young looking blond woman with fair skin. She also had a serious look on her face. Justin noticed name tags on them and as he stared hard at them he saw that the man's tag said "Joe P." and the women's said "Debbie R."

The cameras began flashing, and Justin saw why. There was a man coming up to the podium. He was old looking with a very large bald spot on his head and wore big glasses.

"Yeesh," said Justin, "Check out the specs on that guy. I haven't seen glasses that big on anyone except my great grandpa. And could his head look anymore bald."

Sadie laughed at the joke, and so did Justin.

Suddenly Justin felt the same cold chill he did before only this time it was stronger. His whole spine felt the harsh chill, and his body shook from it. Justin looked around, and saw that no one else seemed to feel it. Justin was really starting to get suspicious about these weird feelings.

"How come I'm the only one who feels something strange, and no one else?" he thought in his head. And it was unusual that he was the only one who was experiencing it.

"Hello everybody," said the old man which broke Justin out of his train of thought.

"My name is Edward Novak, and today is a day for greatness. Today is a day where everyday people can witness the beautiful and magnificence that is the Aqua Dome. With the hard work and dedications of everyone in Novak Corporations, and to the men and women that spent every waking minute building this great structure, people like you can see all the glorious creatures of the sea in a brand new way. I've even brought my lovely wife, Lynette, and my daughter, Cheryl, to witness this dream come true. They inspire me everyday to work hard and build the unthinkable. So please give them a round of applause."

Justin looked to the man's right and saw his wife and daughter standing there. The wife smiled and blushed as the crowd applauded them. The daughter had a look of embarrassment on her face, as do all children who are humiliated by their parents.

Suddenly, Justin started hearing something. It was very faint, but he could hear something. At first he didn't know what it was. Every other sound around him began to fade as the strange noise started to get louder.

Justin looked around again, and noticed that next to him was the same man he bumped into. He was glaring angrily at Edward Novak, almost as if he was about to beat the man to a pulp. Justin found this odd.

The noise continued to get louder until Justin realized what it was. It was a ticking noise.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock," he would hear.

The ticking grew louder and louder, and all of a sudden everyone around him began moving slowly. It was as if time was slowing down but had no effect on him.

Justin was really getting worried by that time, and he had no idea what was going on. The ticking was no so loud it was starting to hurt his ears. He covered and winced in pain which caught the attention of Sadie.

"Justin," she said in a very slow motion. "Are you okay Justin? Justin, what's wrong?"

He opened his eyes and looked straight at the podium in front of him. In an instant the ticking stopped completely, and the other noises came back and were going at a regular pace.

"Justin!" screamed Sadie, "What's wrong?"

Justin looked at Sadie with his eyes widened completely. He was sweating lightly, and was silent.

Everyone stopped applauding and turned their attention back to Edward.

"Now then," he continued, "are there any questions?"

The reporters were talking in unison about different things.

One shoved forward with his microphone and said, "Mr. Novak, are you taking any safety precautions regarding any incidents that may or may not happen?"

"Let me answer that by saying that we are just as safe down here as we would be in the surface. The glass walls you see here are completely bulletproof. The only way you could possibly break through it is if you fire a torpedo at it. And even so we have built an emergency escape in the unlikely case of an incident. On my right you will see a long ladder which leads all the way up to a large emergency door to the roof of the structure where a small portion of the dome reaches the surface. There will be a platform where those of you could stand on it. When the door opens and signal is sent to the main office which alerts the staff of the emergency. A helicopter would arrive shortly after the signal is released. But as a family man I can honestly say that there will never….

Justin suddenly heard the ticking sound again, only this time it didn't increase in volume.

"…come a day…."

Justin looked around quickly to see where the ticking was coming from.

"…where any kind of incident…"

He didn't know where it was coming from and now he was scared out of his wits.

"….will ever occur…"

He was about to shout out in frustration when something clicked in his head. In that moment, he realized where it was coming from.

"….I can say for certain that this monument…."

Justin slowly turned his head forward where he finally realized where the source of the ticking was. It was coming from the podium.

"Justin," said Sadie who was really concerned by now, "what's wrong?"

Justin stared at podium as his heart started racing; fearing of what was going to happen.

"Oh my God," he said quietly. The ticking stops again, and everything falls silent.

"….will never fall."

Just as he said that the podium exploded in a small fiery blast. The explosion killed Edward Novak, his wife and daughter instantly as well as the two security guards, Joe and Debbie, as they were all consumed by the blast.

People screamed as the explosion occurred, including Sadie. Luckily the explosion was somehow small enough to where it only reached those people closest to the podium.

The force of the blast caused the narwhal model above the shake and swerve around uncontrollably.

Suddenly out of the flames came a long, sharp, wooden piece of debris from the podium, spiraling towards the crowd. It was coming right at Justin, so he ducked to avoid it. Instead the wooden shard went straight to the person behind Justin. It impaled that person right in his head as blood splattered everywhere. Justin looked behind him and saw that it was Jamal who was hit. The shard went deep into his head as it quickly bled. Jamal collapsed to the ground dead. Another wooden shard went flying into the air and hit the control box that was next to the entrance, creating sparks as it impaled it.

"Jamal!" screamed Sadie as she looked at his bloodied corpse.

By that time everyone began to panic and started running around like crazy. Most of them headed towards the entrance but the sliding metal doors quickly shut completely, leaving everyone trapped inside. The broken control panel sent out more sparks and then it made a clicking sound.

The wire rope next to it got loose, and soon the rope just started uncoiling itself quickly as the narwhal came falling down. It was still swerving as it came down. When it came close enough to the ground it flew straight forward towards two teenagers. One was Nolan; the other was girl standing behind him. The narwhal came straight at them, and it's sharp horn impaled the both of them like a shish kabob.

There blood splattered onto the only witnesses, Justin and Sadie. Sadie screamed in terror.

The blood soaked horn then went straight through the glass wall with the two teenagers still attached to it. Large cracks began to appear on the glass wall. This caused more panic among the trapped tourists as they all gathered around the entrance desperately trying to pry the metal doors to open.

Justin was in shock by this time, but looked around to see if there was another way to escape. Then he saw the escape ladder that Edward mentioned earlier.

"The ladder! The ladder! Come on Sadie we got to go up the ladder!"

He grabbed Sadie's hand and pulled her to the ladder. She was crying after witnessing all these terrible things, especially Jamal's death.

Justin went up first; he looked down and saw Sadie frozen in place.

"Sadie! Look at me! Come on we got to go!"

Sadie heard him that time, and she followed him up the ladder. When he got half way up he stopped and looked at the crowd of people.

"Guys come on! This way is better!"

He failed to get any of their attention except for one man. It was the man he bumped into earlier. He saw them, and ran to the ladder. He hurriedly climbed up behind Justin and Sadie.

The wall was cracking even more by that point. Almost that entire side was cracked.

Meanwhile, outside the dome where part of the narwhal's horn had made it through, the blood on it attracted the unwanted attention of the two sharks Nolan saw before. When the spotted the blood the sharks swam fast without even thinking.

The trio continued to climb up the ladder when Justin heard a girl scream extremely loud. He stopped and looked to see what it was. He watched in horror as the two sharks swarm straight into the cracked glass wall, causing it the break completely. A huge rush of water came crashing in, which wiped out everyone on the bottom including the large crowd trying to escape. This left Justin, Sadie, and the other guy who were now climbing up even faster.

The water quickly began to rise as Justin finally made it to the emergency door. He tried to pull on the knob, but for some reason it was jammed and he couldn't move it.

"Hurry Justin!" shouted Sadie. "The water's getting higher."

"I-I can't. The door's jammed. I can't open it."

The guy behind Sadie quickly climbed up, grabbed her ankle, and tried to pull her off.

"Get out of my way bitch!"

Sadie tried to pull her ankle out of his grip.

"Hey what the hell are doing?"

"Let her go you fucking son of a bitch!" yelled Justin. "Let her go!"

When the guy leaned back he inadvertedly slipped on the step, and fell off the ladder. He held onto Sadie, so she fell down with him into the rising water. Sadie screamed as she fell.

"Noooooooooo," screamed Justin.

In the water the guy opened his eyes and looked around. He was panicking when he saw one of the great white sharks charging at him. He screamed as it took a huge bite out of him with its massive jaws. His blood was everywhere as the shark viciously tore him to pieces.

Justin kept looking down, hoping that Sadie was alright. He was relieved when he saw her emerging from the water and swam towards the ladder.

"Oh thank God," he said as he cried with joy. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I think so-"

She stopped and screamed in pain. Then she was dragged under water as blood started splurging out. Justin screamed at the sight. He lost his best friend. Her disembodied hand floated to the surface as the water continued to rise.

Justin, who was balling in tears, desperately tried to get to emergency exit to open but was unsuccessful.

"Come on you lousy mother fucker! Open! Open!"

He started banging on the door when he slipped off the step as well, and plunged into the water. He screamed as he was falling, and out of the water came a huge shark. It opened its jaws wide open, ready to eat. He screamed louder as the shark came at him, and chomped down.

Then suddenly everything stopped, and Justin found himself back where was before. He was standing in the large crowd as they applauded Edward Novak's wife and daughter. A tear went down his eye, and his whole face was sweating.

"Justin!" yelled Sadie who was right next to him. He jumped in panic when he heard her.

"What's wrong?"

He slowly turned his head to her, and stared at her with a frightened look on his face.

"Oh my God. Justin, are you okay?"

He then heard Edward talk more about the safety measures, which made him realize that it was almost going to happen. He looked at the podium with fearful eyes, knowing of what it was going to do.

"We have to get out of here."

Wow! Incredible huh! Hoped you liked my opening disaster! Write some reviews, and tell me what you think of it so far.