Chapter 54

Over the years, Cleo and the dolphins at the marine park had personal relationships. Cleo had an especially close bond with Ronnie. Ronnie was twenty-seven years old, being ten when Cleo was fifteen. It had been fifteen years since Cleo had first began Once Cleo had found out mermaids could communicate with dolphins, she hadn't let that go to waste. She was friends with them and would swim and chat with them when no one was around – or when Will was watching out for her. Cleo was not sure how the conversation would go with a dolphin her first time but was pleasantly surprised to find that because they were so intelligent she could hold a decent conversation. Unfortunately, often it was about the quality of the water or how the fish had tasted that day.

One day, on her way home from work, Cleo encountered a pod of dolphins swimming quickly. She could tell they were scared. She called out via her mind.

'What's wrong?' At first they seemed startled - mermaids didn't talk to them often (and there weren't many of them)

The pod leader swum up to her.

'Poison, poison, swim away!' the dolphin said pointing her nose in the direction they were heading for emphasis.

'What? Where?' Cleo replied.

The dolphin projected a picture of cloudy water with a dark plume of smoke.

'Swim away' it said again. With a nod, it sped off with its pod who were waiting anxiously. They were gone. Was it killing off animals? This was no joke.

Cleo decided to come back tomorrow to find and figure out what to do about this 'poison' the dolphins were scared of. Now that she thought about it, the usual schools of fish were not there. It seemed like she was the only one in the ocean. She turbo sped the rest of the way home.

OoOoO

Conveniently, Cleo had a day off the following day. The Marine institute staff had noticed a decline in fish life over the past few days and Lewis, also conveniently, was the one who was charged to take water samples. The inhabitants on Mako were appalled when Cleo told the story of the dolphins. They all wished them good luck.

OoOoO

Lewis anchored the boat and dove into the water to search with Cleo. The couple swum hand in hand, for Cleo, it was painfully slow with Lewis in scuba gear. They noticed there were few signs of life in this area, aside from there being no fish like usual, the coral was looking like it was going black. They looked at each other relaying the thought that they must be close. Up ahead, Cleo saw a plume of black smoke mixing through the water. She shot forward leaving Lewis behind. There was some sort of unnatural carving in the rock – it looked like something not from this earth. There was something shiny and red in the hole – this was where the poison was coming from. Lewis was looking puzzled as he swam forward to meet her. He could see no smoke. He saw a few fish floating on the surface, and darkened coral but no smoke. Cleo became aware that she was beginning to feel nauseous and faint. All of a sudden her tail was burning. Her put her hand out and cautiously touched the smoke. Nothing happened. She saw Lewis still looking puzzled as he made his way over. She touched her tail fin to it gently and pulled away quickly. She hissed with pain. She felt even fainter and now had more pain to boot. Cleo shot to the surface as quickly as her poisoned body could take her. Lewis saw something was wrong and swum as fast he could to the surface. Cleo quickly concluded that only animals and mystical creatures could see this magical poison.

"Lewis-need to, need to go back to land-poison" Cleo gasped out, wincing as another shoot of pain throbbed through her tail.

"Right! At least try make it to the boat!"

Cleo honestly was not sure if she could even do that. Therefore, to make sure she didn't end up drowning Lewis if she passed out, she urgently called Rikki –she could get out of work in an instant.

'Rikki,' she called via mind speak, 'I've been poisoned. I'm not sure whether I can get back to land or the boat in time, and I can't leave Lewis, can I?'

'Oh no! I'll be right there,'

Rikki dashed out of the café only saying "Cleo needs me," to Zane as she passed through.

"Cleo, swim as fast as you can, don't worry about me," Lewis said. The poison was beginning to cloud her mind also.

"Where is the boat?" she asked confused. At this, Lewis decided it would be better to take it slow than to have Cleo turbo speed off to no man's land…or water…

Cleo felt dizzy. She felt disconcerted. She was not 100 percent there anymore. They made their way to the boat while Rikki turbo sped towards them.

A/N: Hey everyone! So sorry for the delay! (But I did tell you the reason...) I had a great time in Aussie but I'm definitely glad to be home. Sorry also about this chapter's cliff hanger - i hope to update soon.

This year is my senior year of high school - 12th grade or NZ year 13,or Aussie yr 12. (pretty much it means i'll be 18 in october and its my last year of school) This means i'll be really busy and updates my be quite far apart, but dont fret another chapter will always be coming some day until I tell you 'THE END' :P

Thanks for all the reviews! Quite a milestone: over 360 :D

Shout outs: Thanks personally to these individuals: Epic Princess, foreverflora16, BellaFlame, Juliet Knighly, Lauren 111, zikki 3, PeacePinkSeddie, Waterlily2002, XxRaindr0pxX, Kat238, jeremygilbert12, Quillcox, Obwan14, mako Island Girl, Tj, YaleAce, and YaleAceBella12. (not sure if the last two are the same person or not...)

Thanks all you Guests! You wrote names for the first time! Amazing!

Thanks for reading, reviewing and bearing with the slow updates. Any story ideas are welcomed - my well is running dry people (i have been doing this over a year...)

Kia Ora koutou