They released the boys after shackling their necks; the amphibians were so tired that they did not attempt to stay afloat; their bodies sank until the bottom.
Alberto was still conscious, but he didn't know how long he could stay awake; his eyes felt heavy, Alberto was making a great effort to keep them open; what the boy could see was Luca, his brother had fallen with his back turned on him, and he wasn't moving.
"L ... Luca," he whispered, extending his hand to his little brother, but he was too far away, and he was too tired, "Luca ..."
His friend did not answer the blood came out of him to the Surface, painting the water red; Alberto began to fear the worst, he wanted to get up, but his wounds burned, he grinned lying down again, he stared at Luca, he seemed so close-
He wanted to stretch out his hand again, but a curtain of blood crossed in front of his eyes; Alberto stopped and looked at his chest; he was also bleeding a lot, he clenched his fists, looking up at the ceiling, a powerful light hit him in the eyes.
"Oh- so it's finally come, Bruno."
Maybe, if he had listened to Bruno, he could have delayed this day even longer.
"But that wouldn't have been fun," He thought with a smile; despite everything, he regretted nothing, except maybe not having been able to take another bite of the bastard Ercole, but other than that, he was fine.
Or so he thought until he laid his head back, and his gaze focused on Luca.
No-
He had no problem about dying there- but what right he had to drag his friend to it? So far from home, away from his parents- the idea that possibly neither Daniela nor Lorenzo would ever see their son again broke his heart, and it was all his fault.
"Just because your father doesn't love you, it doesn't mean Luca's parents don't love him," Bruno spoke.
"Shut up!"
"Is true besides; do you really think Luca's death is the only they'll suffer? Since the start, they treated you like family, as if you were one of them; Luca has always seen you as his big brother, and Daniela and Lorenzo respected that, treating you as their own. And what about grandma? Her heart will be torn into pieces when she hears she lost both of her grandsons. Congratulations, you ended with the only family you ever had. Well done! No wonder why dad left you; you are just the kid who ruins everything."
Bruno was kicking his ass, but he was right; he was always ruining everything, and this time he had done it in such an incredible way that it was impressive.
"L ... u ... c ... Luca," he tried to speak out loud, but he was too tired, barely a whisper came from his lips: "Forgive me."
And after that, he lost consciousness; luckily, the light he had seen was just the ceiling lamp.
...
The last catch had been good, a thing that vibrated making a strange noise, human algae, a strange box, and best of all, a suit that humans used to breathe underwater, the best collection it had had in seasons, exploring the weird fish of metal had paid off.
The fish was behind a wall of rocks, so he was sure no one would try to steal his treasure. Alberto laughed; he was the only fool who ventured near the metal fish anyway; the others were too afraid of it or anything human-related, but not him.
He was Alberto Scorfano, and he had the heart of a shark; he would never be intimidated by those land monsters.
He had left the rest of the things on the other side of the wall while he was trying the suit on; maybe it would have been more convenient to put everything in the cave first and then try the costume, but it looked so cool that he could not resist his urge! And as he had said, no one else came near this area.
That's why he was so surprised when he heard the:
"Wow!" and then the movement of fins.
Without taking off his suit, Alberto walked (the outfit was too heavy to swim with) towards the edge; he placed both hands on the stone and looked out.
Another sea folk, a kid younger than him, was inspecting his treasure; the boy was small, several centimeters shorter than Alberto, his scales were green and blue, and Alberto could tell he was very curious by his gaze.
The boy was checking the algae and the thing that vibrated; at that moment, the machine shuddered, surprising the little fellow who cried in surprise.
Alberto couldn't help but giggle; that boy was funny, maybe-
Without thinking twice, he put on the helmet and took the harpoon he always carried with him, in case things got dangerous; although he didn't believe he had to use it with that lad, it was only to help the illusion.
He jumped off the rocks and walked slowly so not to alert the little one, although that didn't seem so difficult, he had all his attention on the mystery box, as he got closer he stepped harder to be heard, the little one stopped experimenting with the box and turned around.
As soon as he saw Alberto, he screamed and waved his hands violently to the sides; the little one swam backward, without noticing the lad was heading into a cave; in an attempt to shift and escape, he ended up crashing against one of the walls.
"Ouch!" He rubbed his head as he ventured into the cave.
Alberto couldn't help but laugh, this kid was funny, but he better tell his guest that it was all a joke before he had a heart attack.
He followed him inside; the boy was against the wall, looking at him with absolute terror; Alberto approached him, the kid let out a scream of terror and closed his eyes, expecting the worst.
Alberto just got his face closer before saying:
"Boo!"
"Huh?"
The little boy opened his eyes, surprised that he was still alive, he looked at Alberto, and then the older one took off his helmet.
"It's fine. I'm not human," Alberto smiled.
"Oh!" the little one chuckled, putting a hand on his chest, "thank goodness."
Alberto smiled and handed him the harpoon; it would be better if he started to collect his things.
"Here, hold this."
The boy gasped in terror.
Had Alberto seen his new companion, he would have noticed that the harpoon floated above the kid's head; the little one had to jump to dodge it; he slowly raised a hand to hold the weapon, very scared.
...
Luca didn't know what was happening; that day had started like any other, with him watching the fish and mom reminding him the Surface was dangerous; and to hide if he ever saw a boat, but always telling him how much she loved him.
And then he had seen that bright object, it seemed that the light of the big thing that shinned in the sky was hitting the object, and this, in turn, directed the light in Luca's direction.
"How curious, what it's this?" he asked himself.
He approached to examine it, which led him to discover a whole trail of human objects, which ended in the encounter of that boy who almost killed him of fright.
And yet, he wasn't mad at him; it was just a harmless joke, right?
Luca left the cave and returned to the open ground; the boy collected all the objects he had seen before, keeping them in the human suit.
Luca looked at the harpoon and then at the boy.
"Uh... Do you live around here?"
"Nearby. I just came for my stuff," then the boy noted Luca's stick, "Ooh."
He grabbed the cane and swam away.
"Uh, hey! Wait, that's mine!" Luca screamed before going after him.
The boy didn't seem worried nor scared but quite happy.
"Sir? You forgot your harpoon and..."
He stopped when turning in some columns of rocks, he saw where the boy was going, it was another cave, but this one had the shape of a hermit crab shell, it was white, and just like the strange object, the light from above bounced off it making it glow. Luca opened his eyes to such a beautiful creation of nature.
"Mother-of-pearl!" Luca exclaimed.
The boy got through one of the multiple holes that the cave had.
Luca stood still for a moment; should he follow him? What if it was a trap? Did that count as disobeying his parents?
Thousands of questions flew through his head, not knowing what to do, in that he noticed he still had the boy's harpoon, and he still had his cane, so they needed to exchange, was it reasonable, right?
Luca sighed again and swam toward the cave.
"I'm just going to get back my cane, I'll give him his harpoon, and then I can go," he thought.
He stepped into the same opening as the boy, hoping that would be quick, but as soon as his eyes took in everything that was inside, he had no fear. The wall was full of small spaces where the boy had placed several human things, all of which were unknown to him.
"Wow," he said as he swam to check the items.
"Pretty cool, uh?"
Luca turned around and saw that the boy was arranging his new acquisitions.
"Uh... yeah?" he responded.
The boy didn't seem concerned about his presence, as if he already had all his trust in the world, and Luca found it peculiar; in his place, he would be terrified of having a stranger at home. The boy turned to see him and saw that he had his harpoon.
"Ups, my bad."
When they were close, he offered him his staff; Luca nodded, handing him the harpoon; the boy swam to the bottom and placed the weapon against the wall, then returned to Luca.
"Alberto Scorfano," he said, holding out his hand.
Not knowing what to do, Luca placed his hand on top of Alberto's.
"Luca Paguro."
At that, Alberto took Luca's hand with his, waved it sideways, and then back and forth, causing Luca's entire body to shake.
"Piacere, Girolamo, Trombetta," He said while he did it; when finished, he released his guest, Luca looked at him with doubt; "It's a human thing. I'm kind of an expert."
Luca examined his hand before looking at Alberto.
"What does it mean," he was expecting an answer, but Alberto only bit his lower lip; "The thing you just said?"
"Come on. I'll show you some more stuff!"
Completely ignoring his question, Alberto preferred to put an arm around Luca's shoulders and direct him towards one of the walls; Luca wanted to tell him that he had to go now, but he was curious, and it made his stomach prickle with great force.
"Just for a little longer, then I go back home."
"Whoa," he whispered at seeing the collection.
"This is a helmet," Alberto's voice took him out of his thoughts, now he was holding a strange silver plate, which was also deep inside; Alberto placed it on Luca's head.
"Wow," Luca said, admiring the helmet.
Alberto smiled; he swam away from him, then down to grab a glowing ladle, then walked back to Luca.
"And this is a back scratcher," and he went on to do what its name indicated; Alberto smiled with satisfaction.
Luca laughed and began to inspect the rest of the objects.
"Where did you get all this from?"
"There's a whole landfill of human things; my dad and I usually explore it."
"Oh, is he home?"
"No, he's not even here a whole lot, so I pretty much do whatever I want," he added with a shrug.
"So cool," Luca thought.
"Isn't it dangerous?" Luca asked.
"Never has a human come to claim for their things," he replied, laughing before swimming upward, "come on, I still have a lot to show you."
...
After a whole afternoon of looking at Alberto's collection, he had to run home; as expected, mom greeted him with many questions, luckily Grandma came to his rescue, saying she had sent him for sea pickles.
"Thank Big Fish in the sky; what would I do without her?" he asked himself.
So after a good night's sleep, Luca found himself returning to Alberto's lair, so far he was his best chance to learn more about the world above, and it was nice not having to spend the whole day with the fish; he loved the entire flock, but being able to talk to someone of- more or less his age was much better.
So after making a doll of himself to take care of the fish, he ventured into the cave, touched the wall three times.
"Alberto, are you home?"
But he had no answer; he peeked through one of the entrances, no one was inside.
"Where could he have gone?" He asked himself.
"Luca," someone said behind him.
He screamed and turned around; Alberto was there; Luca sighed.
"Oh, hi, Alberto."
He smiled; he seemed very happy that the little one decided to return.
"Come on; I want to show you something."
And with that said, he began to swim to the Surface; Luca watched him go; should he follow him? It was clear to him that Alberto seemed not to be afraid of anything, which also implied that he had to take many risks; would it be appropriate to follow him?
"Just a glance, and if I see that it is too dangerous, I go back," he said to himself; after all, he had already done too much to be there; what difference did it make to risk a little more?
So he went after him; the two swam for a while until Luca began to notice that the water around him- decreased and that a rocky bottom appeared below them; Luca looked up and saw that the water was running out, giving way to the land.
Luca stopped; Alberto couldn't be serious; he noticed that Luca wasn't following him, and he had the look of insecurity on his face; Alberto ceased swimming and went with him.
"What's wrong?"
"I can't go up there," he pointed with a finger at the Surface.
"Why?"
"It's bad!" Luca sighed, "I'm sorry, but I can't do it. Never in a million years."
"Hey, hey, hey," Alberto answered reassuringly; "I know your problem. You've got a Bruno in your head."
"A Bruno?"
"Yeah, I get one, too, sometimes. Alberto, you can't. Alberto, you're gonna die. Alberto, don't put that in your mouth." He laughed before pointing his finger at Luca, showing him an earnest look; "Luca, it's simple. Don't listen to stupid Bruno."
Luca looked sideways before asking:
"Why is his name Bruno?"
"I don't care. It doesn't matter. Call him whatever you want. Shut him up, say, 'Silenzio Bruno'."
"Silenzio, Bruno," Luca repeated in a low voice, looking up with both eyes at his forehead.
"Louder! Silenzio, Bruno." Alberto exclaimed, getting closer to him, with both hands open.
"Silenzio, Bruno," Luca repeated a little louder.
"Silenzio, Bruno!"
"Silenzio, Bruno!" now Luca was screaming.
"Can you still hear him?"
"Nope! Just you!"
"Good! Now, hang on!" And without further warning, he grabbed Luca's arm and pulled him toward the Surface. "Andiamo!"
Luca whimpered.
Alberto whooped.
"Silenzio, Bruno. Silenzio, Bruno. Silenzio, Bruno." Luca repeated himself countless times as they got closer and closer to the ground, closing his eyes and tightening his eyebrows.
And as they arrived, everything was getting brighter until...
...
When Alberto woke up, he hoped to be in heaven, with the Big Fish by his side so that they could swim together for all eternity, in the eternal ocean that the sky was; but he only had to move his neck and listen to the chains to know he was still a prisoner.
"Anchovies," he thought.
He tried to move, but his chest ached; he clenched his teeth and laid his head back on the floor.
"Looks like we'll live to fight another day, Bruno" he laughed a bit and closed his eyes again, now with the certainty that his time wasn't up yet.
The dream- no, not a dream, a memory, the day he met Luca, the day he found his family; it was curious how Alberto remembered a moment like that, after everything he had put poor-
"Luca!"
Remembering his friend, he got up, ignoring the pain he felt throughout his body, Alberto looked around, searching for him, but Luca was nowhere.
"Luca... Luca... where are you?!" He thought, scared.
He looked from left to right but couldn't find his brother; he wasn't there.
"Did they take him? Oh no, no, no, no" Alberto began to worry, luckily and by pure instinct, he looked up and sighed when he saw that Luca was leaning on the shore.
Feeling happier than he had ever, he started his journey upwards; even if the pain did not go away, he told himself to keep going, not to stop; it was the same that shutting up Bruno.
He didn´t want to scare his friend; Luca had suffered enough already, so he floated a few inches from him. Luca had both arms on the ground, with a sad look, his fins were down, but they raised when he heard the splash, he looked to his right and saw Alberto, his eyes opened, he was about to throw himself into a hug, but stopped making a face, and put a hand to his ribs.
"Luca!" Alberto screamed.
But Luca raised a hand, indicating that he was fine.
"Relax- it hurts less now- if I don't move much."
And he leaned against the shore again; Alberto was about to approach him, when his pain reappeared, following the example of his friend; he went to the edge and adopted the same position, it did help to reduce the misery.
"What happened?" Alberto asked.
Luca sighed before answering.
"When I woke up, you were still unconscious, I tried to wake you, but nothing work; and to make matters worse… we were still bleeding."
Alberto clenched his fists; how close had they come to kick the bucket?
"Luckily... the human appeared."
Alberto turned to see him with wide eyes.
"The one who taught us about tears," he clarified, "and brought us a remedy."
Luca took his hand out of the water and grabbed something from the first step; he showed it to Alberto; it was a porcelain container with a top; Luca uncovered it and revealed that inside there was a mixture of green color, they seemed to be crushed algae.
Alberto passed his gaze of the ointment to his friend.
"I know, just like home."
Alberto looked at his chest and saw that he had the mixture on his wounds; he touched it with one hand and noticed that it was hard.
"How did he know? Did he tell you anything?"
"No, just that he was sorry, then he left it here and went outside."
Alberto just nodded, and Luca continued with his explanation:
"I put it on, and it helped to ease the pain, plus it stopped the bleeding, so then I cured you; you didn't wake up, but you were blowing bubbles," he laughed, "you still snore."
Not even Alberto could help laughing there.
"I tried to go back to sleep but... I couldn't; I think I was too anxious."
Luca had his eyes on the door, he wanted to go through them, to get out of the lab and not spend another second in that horrible place, nor with that monster.
"And Giulia? Do you know if she is safe?" Alberto asked.
Luca looked at him worriedly.
"No- when the monster struck me, I fell unconscious; when I woke up, I was in the pool again."
Alberto tried to remember, but Giulia didn't appear in any of them.
They exchanged worried looks and then at the place where their friend had hidden. There seemed to be no traces of a fight nor blood; the laboratory was as if nothing had happened, as if Giulia had done her job; that brought them to hope; maybe their friend did manage to escape.
And then Alberto burst into tears.
"Alberto, what's wrong?" Asked Luca worried.
"Luca... I'm sorry! This is all my fault! We are trapped here because of me!" he punched the water, "You said it was too risky to approach the
human boat, but I didn't listen! If I had, none of this would have happened! We would be safe and-"
"Silenzio, Bruno," Luca interrupted him; "Don't listen to stupid Bruno."
"This isn't about Bruno! You are here because of me!"
Luca shook his head, and ignoring the pain, he approached his brother.
"Alberto, you had never forced me to do anything; if I followed you was because I chose it."
But Alberto didn't want to listen to him; he looked across the room.
"You should be home, with your family and-"
Luca placed his hand on Alberto's fist and squeezed it tightly; the purple one closed his eyes as tears began to roll down his cheeks.
"I am with my family."
Alberto couldn't contain himself any longer, he turned to see Luca, the little boy also had wet eyes, ignoring the pain, they pounced on top of each other, merging in a hug.
"Even if I were home, I couldn't live with myself knowing you are trapped here, all alone."
Alberto just embraced Luca tighter.
"We have gotten out of worse, Alberto, and we will get out of this," Of course, he didn't know that; he wasn't even sure if they´ll live until the end of the week.
But he knew that that was Bruno talking, and if there was ever a moment in their lives when they needed to shut up Bruno, this was.
"Silenzio, Bruno."
