"Goodness Lee, you are so slow today. What's the matter?" Nautica asked, concerned, as her friend came swimming up to her.
"Nothing. Nothing is the matter. I just needed to think a while, that's all. Let's go race now, okay?" Leira dejectedly replied. Nautica grinned. Lee was finally acting like herself with wanting to go race.
"Of course!" Nautica laughed, as she dashed off from the city, her yellow tail beating rapidly.
Despite all of her problems, Leira laughed as well. It was just a regular Saturday morning with her friend, nothing else. It didn't matter if the king of Atlantica had just asked her to call him by his first name, as if she was family. It didn't matter at all. Not at all. Grinning as she forgot her troubles, she sped off in the direction of Nautica.
Before she knew it, they were at the racing grounds. The racing grounds were only about a twenty-minute swim from the city below the palace, but it seemed like another world. There was a path of pure white sand about five miles long, and half a mile wide. On the sides of the track, stunning sea life and plants contrasted greatly with the white. It had to be Leira's favorite place in the whole ocean.
The girls stared at each other, They knew what to do. "Okay, Lee. On the count of three, we will begin the race. One, two…"
They smiled. Nautica then shouted, THREE!" and the friends were off. Leira watched as purple and yellow mixed together and the water rushed around them. The girl felt her tail swish even more furiously as she raced to beat Nautie. The girl looked at the ground below her, turning her head from side to side to avoid any obstacles. White sand and coral flashed below her, a never-ending seam of beauty. Then, she saw a rip in this elegance- a hole, maybe a few feet wide. Leira stopped and swam towards this hole, somehow immediately intrigued. Far off in her brain, she could hear Nautica shouting at her.
Leira was near the opening when Nautie suddenly pulled on her shoulder. "What are you doing, Lee? Why did you stop racing?"
She pointed to the hole. "I want to search in there, if you don't mind," she said to Nautica.
Her friend shook her head. "Why? It could be dangerous. Please, Lee. Don't go in there. What do I tell your mom if you get hurt?"
Leira smirked. "It will be fine, Nautie. I never get to explore anything. This could finally be a chance to discover something no one ever has before!"
Nautica shook her head again. "So you can now just look at a hole and decide that it is going to change your life, Leira? I promise you- it won't. Come on. I want to finish the race. We were doing so well," her friend complained.
Leira looked into her friend's eyes. "Please, Nautica. Just one look."
The girl sighed and motioned towards the hole. "Go in there then. I'll follow you," Nautica reluctantly responded.
Lee hugged her friend and then barely managed to slip herself through the opening. When she got inside, the girl could hardly believe her eyes.
The hole had led to a cave-like place. Around the walls of the round area, there were natural shelves made of obsidian. It was almost like… Leira searched for a word in her mind in vain.
While searching for the name, she inspected the shelves and could smell a faint, foul scent. Looking at the shelves, the girl saw a kind of black type of sand strewn among pieces of rusted, shredded items. She glanced at Nautie, who was sitting on one of the shelves near the exit of the cave. "It looks like everything was destroyed in here, Nautica. What do you think happened?" Leira asked her friend.
Nautie shrugged. "I don't know, Lee. Can we go now?"
Leira weakly grinned. "Soon. I…" A gleaming piece of metal caught her eye. The girl swam down to the bottom of the cave and picked up the object, wide-eyed.
The object was a statue of a human man and woman holding each other. Their feet matched up on the pedestal, like they were about to waltz far away. The girl stared at the sight. She looked around the cave again, and suddenly remembered a story that she had read once about a place like this. She could not recall the tale, but for some unknown reason Leira knew that it was a beautiful one. The girl picked up the statue and gazed at it, smiling at her friend. "Isn't it wonderful, Nautie?"
Nautica looked at Leira. "No, Lee. We really should not be here. I have a bad feeling about this place," the girl said. "Let's leave."
"Why? Why, Nautica? It's so beautiful and mysterious. See, I told you we could discover something! Look at this statue! How could you ever want to leave something so amazing?" Leira whispered to her friend. A she saw the unconvinced face of her friend, she "Come on, Nautie! This… what if… what if this proves that… humans are real? I mean, I've never seen any pictures or statues of humans except for in… in a book I once read. The person who could have created this… they could have seen humans," she said back.
Her friend immediately looked at her. "We are going now, Lee. This… this is just stupid. All of this… human talk," her friend spat out.
Leira sighed. She forgot it was best not to talk to Nautie about the possibility of humans. Her friend got very upset when that subject was brought up. Actually, almost everybody Leira knew got upset when she brought up humans. However, she knew her friend was right. They probably shouldn't be around here. Whatever this place was, it was important. Too important for young, teenage mermaids like themselves.
She stared at her friend and nodded. "You're right, Nautica. I think we should go home," Leira said.
Nautie glared at her. "Why home? I thought we were going to finish our race!"
The girl stared back at her friend. "I don't feel up to it now. I need to go home," she said.
Nautica sputtered in disbelief. "What is wrong with you? First, you take forever to get to the racing grounds. Then, you stop a completely good race so you can explore a ridiculous cave! And then you talk about humans, above all things. What is going on, Leira? Why can't you just tell me?" Her brown hair suddenly got into her eyes as she was arguing, and Nautica blew on it indignantly.
Leira knew she was making her friend angry, but she had to return home. "I am so sorry, Nautie," she replied, "but I must get home."
Before her friend could respond, she swam out of the cave as fast as she could and headed home. Soon, Leira was at her house. She opened the door to find her parents looking at some pictures and some other articles longingly. With a look of surprise at the girl, her parents immediately put the things they were looking at behind the couch, much to Leira's confusion. Her mom looked up at her and nervously pulled a lock of black hair behind her ear. "Hello, Lee. We… weren't expecting you here so early. What happened? Is something wrong?"
Leira weakly simpered at her parents as she headed up to her room in their little white coral home. "Oh no. Nothing happened. Nothing's wrong. Just a usual Saturday, like always," she replied, as she acknowledged the relieved looks on her parents' faces.
As the girl shut the door to her room behind her, Leira began to have a feeling that something strange was going on in this city. There was something interesting going on.
There was something somebody was hiding from her.
Sorry. Another semi-boring chapter. Sometimes, you just got to have a lot of boring, kind of interesting chapters to set the scene, characters, and events before you whip out the whole shebang. In the next chapter, there will be action, I promise. And in the chapter after that, the outcome of Melody and Eric will be uncovered! Just consider those two chapters my (late) Christmas gift to you.
Again, hope you enjoyed! New chapters should be up on December 26. Happy Holidays!