It nearly felt like the last time Milford plunged into water, only it was way warmer. The impact felt like an electric shock to him. Once he was underwater, he felt limp. Not from the cold, like before, but from colliding with the liquid blue from such a high distance up. He was holding his breath, but could not move his limbs until the shining reflection of the sun was very far from him and most of the passengers had swam up all the way. If he didn't swim up, there wouldn't be anybody to save him in time.
He forced his limbs to bend so he could swim up. His lungs were starting to feel like fire. His limbs hurt from swimming so much, but he didn't care. he had to make it.
Milford felt his lungs absolutely burning with lack of air. Redness surrounded his cheeks. The closer he got to air, the more frantic he became. He was on the verge of passing out before surroundings changed and there was air, sound and brightness from the sun.
Everyone except Ajax and Max was panicking. Milford drew in big, giant breaths. He'd never been this happy to be able to breathe in his life.
He heard screams of Mondollions who were unprepared to do anything but float in the sea until Ajax, their leader, would tell them to do something. Many splashing came with this factor.
Milford swam to his right to Ajax.
"Well, what do we do now, genius?"
"Easy, smart mouth, we'll get the dragon back."
As soon as they were finished saying this, gigantic bubbles popped out from the water. Milford saw Ajax's eyes widen.
"Get outta th' way!"
Ajax grabbed immediate hold of Milford and pushed him away from their current spot as the golden dragon whooshed out of the water with off-the-charts speed. Thankfully, when he saw it ascend into the sky, Milford didn't see anybody on it.
Milford looked at Ajax with an expression of complete disappointment on his face. "True to your word, Ajax," he said with a load of sarcasm.
"What do we do now, Ajax?" One of the Mondollions called out, terrified. The party then started calling out questions that they thought only Ajax could answer.
"Milford!" Max swam over to him in a panic. "Dude, I'm really starting to lose energy here. Flapping my arms to stay up here is tough," they complained.
"Well, I hope something happens soon," Milfod replied. Although, as the others called out, Ajax didn't look like he was trying to figure a way out of this mess.
Milford looked around for something, anything that could help them before they all lost hope and energy.
Then Milford spotted a boat. A speedboat, to be precise. According to how far away it was, they didn't have much time before it was out of their line of sight.
"Ajax! Pick me and Max up and throw us straight towards that speedboat so we can hijack it and take it to you guys!" He yelled urgently. It sounded like a stupidly rushed plan, but it was still a plan.
Ajax saw where Milford was pointing. "But how are you gonna fit all of us o-"
"No time for questions! Just do it!"
Ajax looked at Milford with uncertainty, but they sighed and picked both he and Max up into their giant, meaty hand. They raised their arm back, trying to get a good trajectory.
"Wait! I'm not ready!" Max cried.
The rush of the roaring wind seemed to come out of nowhere. Milford couldn't open his eyes or else his eyes might have dried up instantly. From what he could see, the speedboat was coming closer and closer every second, and the impact would be headfirst. Quickly, he curled up into a ball without thinking as he and Max landed perfectly near the bow of the boat. Thanks to their armor, there was nothing that hurt too bad.
"The hell?" Milford looked up to see a Hispanic man who looked to be in their early twenties smoking a cigarette jump out of a room. They weren't wearing a shirt, but had proper shorts and sandals. Milford felt the boat take an abrupt halt, but still heard a faint hum come from the engine.
"Did you just fall from the sky?" the man asked.
Milford and Max both stood up shakily. "Why are you both wearing that...armor?" The man asked, obviously noting the equipment they were wearing.
Milford quickly had to think of an excuse before something bad happened, but his mind was completely and utterly blank. He was too nervous. The young man was getting impatient with them.
"Listen," the man said, pointing at the both of them, "I don't know who you are or why you suddenly just landed on my boat, but you better give me some sort of explanation as to where you came from. Now."
Milford felt sweat run down his face. "We were just..." He couldn't think of an excuse that would make any logical sense. "An airplane?" he thought hopelessly. Max looked nervous as well, his face pale and sweaty.
Finally, the man lost patience. "Answer me, dammit!" They cried. Milford saw their hand quickly reach for a switchblade. He and Max backed away slowly, not trying to get gutted. They found themselves shaking.
"Don't move, or I swear I'll do it!" The man cried even louder. Then, Max did the unthinkable. Milford saw him unsheathe their sword and strike the man in the shoulder so fast that they didn't have time to gasp before the man cried out in pain and sank to the floor, their pocket knife falling out of their hand. A look of anger appeared on Max's face during this. They were breathing heavy as if they had just ran half a mile.
"Max! Why'd you do that?" Milford cried.
"You think I was gonna let him hurt us with that? Besides, he's alive, isn't he?"
Milford saw blood coming from the shoulder wound inside the man's shirt. He still found it a wrong act, but if he was going to stop Marcus, then he would have to stop worrying about the simpler enemies he would kill.
Both of them ran to the control room and saw the key inside the ignition with a low hum still coming from the engine. Max sat down on the chair in front of the steering wheel. Milford took notice of the other controls next to the wheel, but didn't pay as much attention to them.
"Oh, this is easy. We just turn the key and start this bad boy," Max said confidently.
Once Max turned the key, an abrupt change of speed occurred. It went from zero to thirty from what Milford could barely see on the speed gauge thanks to the immediate shaking. He had to hold on just barely onto the back of the seat Max was in. Max, apparently, could not steer the boat well, and they almost went flying across the control room. "Slow down!" This was the only thing Milford could think of to say at that moment. Max complied.
They were now going a steady ten miles per hour. Max was now in full control of the boat.
Milford ran outside to see where Max had to steer. He saw out of the corner of his eye the Hispanic man slumped all the way near the back of the boat due to the takeoff. They were cursing because they couldn't get back up, but Milford chose to ignore it entirely.
He looked all around the boat and the sea it was travelling in, but didn't see the group of Mondollions right away. The sun was in his eyes and redness came up as a result. Then, he spotted nearby specks to the right of the boat and knew instantly that it was them. "Max, head right!" He instructed Max, which they did so.
Milford heard the roaring waves pass them by for five minutes until he screamed at Max to stop the boat before they sailed over the Mondollions.
"Took you long enough," Ajax said as he climbed aboard the vessel, no ladder needed. The Hispanic man had stopped struggling to get up and stared in fear at the giant in front of them.
Milford decided to go to the Hispanic man. They were shaking and sweating because of what they'd just been through.
"Don't hurt me, please," they begged. "Don't let your friends know that I'm here anymore, they could kill me."
"Don't worry," Milford comforted. "I'm here to help you, everything's alright."
"Look, this really hurts," the man was complaining about their shoulder now.
Milford thought of what to do, fast this time. "Maybe there's some toilet paper or something that I can use to cover the wound. I don't think there are any antibiotics anywhere on this ship, but just hold on," he told them.
Milford ran back to the control room where the bathroom was, behind where Max was at the steering wheel. The cabinets underneath the sink to the right of the toilet didn't contain anything except for a toothbrush with toothpaste, and some toilet paper. He took the toilet paper in hopes of allowing pressure onto the wound to stop the bleeding.
Milford ran to the back of the ship and heard Ajax talking out loud. He instantly knew that they were talking to the bleeding Hispanic.
"...you doin' here?" Milford caught.
"I'm the guy who owns this ship, but I guess I don't anymore," the Hispanic confessed.
A moment's pause passed. Milford didn't hesitate. He revealed himself to Ajax.
"Don't do anything to him. He's an innocent man and I couldn't live with myself if anyone innocent was dead because of me," said Milford.
"Relax," Ajax replied almost instantly. "I wasn't gonna do anything to him. I just want some info from him so that I can gain his trust a little more," they explained.
The Hispanic looked up at Milford, shaking. "Am I high?"
"I hope not," Milford replied. "Look, just get up and everything will be fine. I'll make sure that nobody gets suspicious of you or anything like that."
Milford reached down to them with his hand. The Hispanic grabbed it and Milford pulled them up.
"My name is Pablo," they announced as the boat's engine started back up. The ship zoomed across the water.
Ajax walked away from them both, obviously bored.
"I'm going to look for some more paper towels to stop my shoulder from bleeding," Pablo told Milford, then walked into where Max was, most likely to the bathroom. Right after, Milford threw the toilet paper into the ocean.
Milford didn't know what to do next. He did, however, feel remotely tired, since he didn't get a twitch of rest in many hours. So, he stood where he was and looked at the sea horizon. He was listening to the roaring waves as the boat passed them ever so quickly. He stayed that way peacefully for about 20 minutes, until he finally heard Pablo come out of the bathroom. They walked up behind him. Milford turned around and saw that his shoulder was patched up with bandages.
"You seriously didn't look in the top cabinet?" Pablo asked.
Milford just replied with, "I guess I didn't." Both of them said nothing for a long while.
"I'm sorry I tried to attack you guys." The apology came out of nowhere. Milford nodded abruptly. He heard Pablo walk away shortly after.
Milford looked outwards towards the setting sun for about twenty minutes, he presumed, until he heard the click of a radio turning on. Not a signal radio, no, this was a radio meant to play music on. He turned around to see Pablo holding an AM/FM portable radio, almost like a boombox, in his hands while sitting down in a lawn chair. He was surprised that Pablo didn't have a phone or something new to play anything on.
Milford glanced at the station Pablo was turned to and what it was playing. "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall," by Bob Dylan.
Milford's eyes lit up as the acoustic guitar began to play. He'd heard it probably a million times before, usually ignoring the regular top forty pop song charts and all the music that his friends usually raved about. He stared at Pablo in fascination. He then turned around and gazed upon the sea throughout all six minutes. He even shed a few tears at the thought of Horomir and what was to come, but nobody seemed to care. He just watched the sun set ever so slowly.
Finally, the song ended as the sun was not to be seen again. Milford felt good about himself after.
He looked behind him to Pablo, who was asleep. It was probably from the sweet music.
At first, he wondered who was currently steering the ship, so he rushed to where Max was. He found that Max was instead asleep too, on the floor, while Ajax had control of the wheel.
"Don't bother me," they whispered to Milford, trying not to wake Max up. He didn't think much of it and went back to Pablo.
Milford felt that he had to get rest in order to forget the day he had just endured. He didn't even care where he would sleep, as long as he got it. He curled up on the deck and prayed that everything would go the way he wanted in the end.
