Aella (manxman) - ON HOLD

Escape

Ithel

I dove deeper and deeper as fast as I could manage. Short spears went through the water beside us. Their aim was luckily imperfect. I had told my Aella to close his eyes, but I knew he didn't because he tensed and thrashed when the short spear passed beside us.

I didn't stop though. I dove right beneath the ship and headed deeper to the other side of it in order to avoid all spears. We were taking a great risk, but if we resurfaced now, they'd kill us for sure. A sick thought went through my head; I preferred him drowned than caught by those people. My stomach churned so tightly at the thought, it hurt. So I kept diving deeper and taking advantage of the darkness of the sea. Once we were completely blinded, Ceri hugged me tightly, obviously scared out of his mind. I changed my course and started swimming laterally, getting as far away from the ship as possible.

I was starting to feel the serious need for air when Ceri thrashed desperately in my hold. He wasn't used to holding his breath for so long. I had to stop and hold him to keep him from drifting away from me which would be disastrous in the dark.

He couldn't take it anymore. So I started climbing quickly, hoping we've made it far enough from the ship. When we saw the light again, I noticed Ceri opening his mouth and releasing all the air that he was holding in. He gripped at his own throat, still thrashing aimlessly. I pushed him upwards and swam with him in my arms.

As soon as we broke the surface, we both coughed violently. I had to make sure he didn't sink again as he tried to pull as much air as possible, while still coughing and panicking

"We're drowning; we're dying... i-i-in the sea! We're in the sea!!"

"I've got you. Just breathe. That's it, calm down and breathe. We're floating. We'll be alright"

I looked around us and saw the ship, still not far enough from us. But everyone was focused on the other side, probably waiting for us to resurface from there.

"Shshsh, we're ok. We need to swim more, Ceri. Come on-"

"We jumped! The bottomless sea is .... is sucking us in! Why did we jump?? Ithel..."

He looked awfully scared, so I tried to calm him down. "It's alright", I pulled him close and held his face to make him look at me. "I'm not letting you go! I'm here, we'll be alright. We're close to land"

"L-land... yes, the land!"

A small wave hit his face and he starting thrashing and coughing again.

"Just kick your legs and you'll be fine. Come on, you can do it"

"I can't! I-I-Ithel the sea is bottomless! We don't have a boat!!"

"Just focus and try to move your legs. Like I showed you back home"

His beautiful terrified eyes stared at me in desperation, and then he did exactly as told. I kept holding his hands to make sure he didn't sink in again, that would be unpleasant to him especially now that he was still scared and confused.

This all happened too fast for him. Ceri always needed to go his own pace. He most probably wasn't able to keep up with what was happening, but I had to do it, I told myself. I had to save us from those people. Who knew what they had planned for us, especially with whatever they were hiding in the belly of that ship...

"The island...... it's way too far..."

I looked at the ghosts of the mountains, still far away from us. I hadn't really thought about this. All I wanted, was to leave that ship. But... now what?