~A Wattpad featured and Wattys Longlisted story~
Lana can hardly remember what it's like to be free. After nine years as a captive on board a ship ruled by ruthless bounty hunters, sailing across Maris with no clear direction, she's desperate for so...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
THROUGH THE FOGGY feeling of drowsiness, Lana hears a gentle whoosh of water as it brushes up against solid land. The sound of it soothes her slightly, the familiarity of the ocean having a calming effect. But the feeling of disorientation hits her quickly, and with it goes her sense of tranquility.
No matter how much she tries, her eyes remain shut, an overwhelming feeling of fatigue keeping them closed, but her other senses are hyper alert. Her fingers curl slightly, and she feels the familiar grainy texture of wet sand beneath her skin, rough yet soft at the same time as it sticks to her fingers. She can taste the salt that sits on her cracked lips, and smell the all too familiar sea breeze through the air. Something cool and wet brushes up against her legs as a wave suddenly reaches out to her, dousing her lower body in water, but only for a moment as it quickly retreats back to its vast source.
Then out of nowhere, a hand grasps her shoulder firmly, and shakes her awake.
Lana's eyes snap open, the sudden movement making all former drowsiness evaporate. she looks around frantically, searching for the source of the person who touched her, and heaves a sigh of relief when she sees it's Arlo. He stares at her in concern, and she does the same to him.
He looks awful with several bruises and cuts decorating his features along with a bright red sheen that shows all the signs of a fresh sunburn. She senses she doesn't look much better as she feels her whole body ache, and she can already feel the skin upon her face burn with a mixture of salt and sunlight.
As she pushes herself up into a sitting position, she winces as she feels a jabbing pain run up her arm. She looks down, noticing the wound along her forearm where one of the dragon hunters struck her with his blade. She touches the scab that has formed atop it gingerly, but as she does so, small tendrils of blood run its way down her arm. She bite her lip in a mixture of pain and concern.
"Lana," Arlo says hoarsely, then quickly clears his throat and extends a hand from where he is standing, "Here."
With a smile that she's sure looks more like a wince, she accepts his help and he pulls her to her feet. Her bare toes sink into the wet sand, and she can't help but wonder where her shoes had disappeared to, but that thought doesn't dwell in her mind for long as her mind is easily distracted by her surroundings.
She's on a beach, faced with the endless ocean on one end but behind her she can only see a tall cliff face, the rough rock stretching up jaggedly for at least a dozen feet. From there, it flattens out, but she can't see where that leads. The sandy beach seems to go on for miles, before she can see it curving to the edges of the island in the distance, which only exposes more ocean.
"Where are we?" she asks suddenly, looking to Arlo for some sort of guidance. He too is taking in their surroundings, but she notices his sense of familiarity rather than confusion.
