Disappeared once or twice

14. Flowers are in trouble

Nothing new to inform on the boat, both of the boys moods went down quickly after not talking to each other for almost three days. On the first night Alberto had swum almost 16 hours, which Luca felt guilty for since he overslept. Alberto told him he didn't mind at all, yet Luca scolded him for taking too much pressure on his shoulders. Alberto of course disagreed with that statement.

Luca was so frustrated when the older fishboy showed up exactly 8 hours later to take over. Even though his muscles hurt he practically insisted to make the full 12 hour shift. Alberto disagreed with that statement and forced him to go back inside. Where Luca cried out to Giulia about what happened, she sympathized with him. But she could do nothing about it herself.

Soon enough they entered the river close to El Encanto. From there it would only be a matter of hours until they reached the closest point to the small town. Alberto swam like his life depended on it, they practically raced through the water. It was a pleasure for him to swim too. Lots of different kinds of fish and sealife. They had seen dolphins, sharks and clownfishes. Some more beautiful than others, living next to each other in harmony, for most of the time at least.

When Alberto felt like this was about the place they needed to leave the boat, he threw out the anchor and quietly joined the other two in the cabin. Hoping to still enjoy a few good hours of sleep. The one who woke up first that morning was Luca, he had trained himself to not oversleep again and his biological clock was working quite well. Luca saw Alberto laying next to him, his heart immediately warmed up and relief washed over him. They were damn close to their goal.

Giulia was the next to wake up, Luca pretended to be asleep in Alberto's hold. Just to feel the arms around him for a little longer. He slowly opened his eyes for show, Giulia immediately noticed this change in movements and they decided to wake up Alberto to discuss their following plans. The said boy groggily moved away the hands that were trying to wake him, mumbling soft 'go away's. Eventuelly he realized on what point of the journey they were and he shot up straight.

In the process he almost hit Luca's head, so a lot of apologies followed. "It's fine, truly, you didn't hit me after all." Luca put his hands up in defense and as an apology as well. "Then who did I touch?" Alberto asked no one in particular. "Me you dummy." Giulia holded her nose carefully, "it doesn't feel broken  luckily." She sighed, it could've been a big problem if it were broken.

"You OK?" Alberto asked, genuinely concerned about her well-being. "I will be in a minute or so, more important is our plan." Typical Guilia, too practical for her own good. Rather seeing the bigger picture than to take care of herself. "Hmm, what do you mean? We pull the boat on the drylands and we take the backpack with stuff to survive and we walk." Luca assumed. "Sure, let me just check our route." Giulia stated. "Maybe you guys can become familiar with this area?" She suggested and the boys take her advice as they go outside.

The temperature is fairly warm and the climate is completely different, even the biospheres are opposites. Exotic birds fly around freely and wild. They fishmen decided to take a small walk to see what kind of grounds they're dealing with before Giulia called them back to push the boat on the ground. It was very hard to do so, but they did it without complaining. Even making jokes and laughling loudly like the good old times. They gathered their most important stuff and put it in their backpacks. The other things were to be locked up in the cabin and that's how their walk begun. 

On their way to the unknown.