The Waiting Room

Chapter 7- Beast of the Flood

Of course, there was a reaosn why the gras looked sprinkled with water. I pointed towards one of the walls. It was made of soaking paper, and looked like it was about to explode.

His eyes opened wide and clear as he saw what I pointed at. Now we knew our next test. Although I'm not sure if we called it a test- I thought more of a murder. How could we survive a tsunami?

"Phaedra!" he yelled desperately, "Go try to stop the water!"

I rapidly limped over to the wall. I felt around and I noticed that the walls were indeed made of paper like I had thought. There was a large amount of water behind them. If I leaned too much on it, then the wall would rip, and the water will come pouring out. This was only the second test. James ran over to the wall with the most leaks. I saw James's face change as he discovered what I had. This was going to be a very hard test.

"It's paper!" James said in disbelief, "How can this be paper? And it's wet!" I soon realized what he meant. It was going to break anyway. The force of the water will break the thin, soggy paper walls. So, this is what the test was. It was cruel. We couldn’t do anything to stop it. I pushed myself from the ground- not using the wall, and  I limped into the middle of the room and I sat down. James looked at me incredulously and his voice went high pitched,

"And what, do you think you're doing?" he said, hyperventilating a slight bit.

"James, the walls will fall anyway so it would be better if we were in the middle, would it not?" I raised an eyebrow at him. H sighed, and walked over to me.    

"What's the game plan?" he asked. I shrugged my shoulders. I honestly didn't know all I did was that this wouldn't really be a testif  there was no way to survive it, so the only way there would be  a chance we didn't drown was if the water didn't flood all the way to the top of the room. I voiced my thoughts then to my horror another thing struck me,

   "But that doesn't apply to me.... I can't swim," I said slowly, my confidence towards my plan slowly diminishing. It was like in the movies when the main character knows he's going to die and swallows it, except I wasn’t swallowing it. My last hopes were that the water could somehow help my wound. But I didn't think I was going to make it either way. James shook his his rapidly as he realized what I had said.

"I'll carry you. I'm a good swimmer. Otherwise how did I get pneumonia? I was swimming," James said half-heartily. I shook my head sadly, but said nothing. I was afraid that if I did, then it would just be myself begging and screamind at my horrible luck. If James tried to help me, we would both go down, and Death would win. I couldn't let that happen.

"Yes! Yes I will!" he put his arm around my shoulder, like he did when I had to walk around. Before I could refuse, we heard a ripping sound.

We ducked our heads and waited for the blow. The water came at us and felt like needles against my skin. I felt James's warm hand grab mine, and it pushed me to the top. And as I had said, there was a sliver of air at the top of theroom where we could put our heads out of the water to breathe. That's when I started to feel pain in my calf. I winced, but I knew I had to stay u, or else I’d drown. Suddenly, the pain went away. I tried to move my legs, and it didn't hurt. I looked down and I saw that my calf was healed. Only a scar was left under my rolled up jeans.

I smiled a little, I was right the water would help it. I grinned up at James to see his calculating face examining the water. I decided that instead of disturbing him, I would just swim down to see if anything was down there. Nodding to myself at the plan, I swam under the water and opened my eyes.  No surprise, they stung. But I ignored the pain kept my eyes open, and I swam down. I felt around to see if there was a drain. I felt a little guilty that I had not told James about my healing, and that was my big mistake. I felt a hand pull me up to the surface.  I tried to resist but it kept pulling, so I finally stopped. Once I reached the surface, I heard James breathe deeply.

"Um...James?" I rubbed my eyes and looked over at him. He was checking me around to see if anything was wrong, when he looked up I could see the worry in his eyes.

"Yeah? Is everything okay? What happened?" he rushed out, his eyes still scanning over me. I laughed lightly at his overly worried questions,

"Nothing's wrong," I spoke. "I'm sorry I didn’t tell you, but my calf's healed because of the water, and I was trying to find a drain and I-"

"Wait your wound is healed?" James perked up. I nodded slowly, he grinned at me then frowned and the guilt came back into him,

"Sorry for pulling you out then," he said, shaking his head. I rolled my eyes,

"It's fine. I'll go back," I swam to the bottom of the pool, with my eyes wide open. The stinging commenced right when I opened them. But I didn't care, I kept swimming. I looked around for some way to get out. But I couldn't find any.

If there wasn't any drain, then how does the water get out? It can't evaporate can it? I knew I couldn't swim for that long. Maybe this  water evaporated fast... I made an underwater groan. This was so annoying and mystical. I couldn't do anything exept wait it out. I swam up to the surface and breathed. As I looked around I realize that James was right in front of me.

"Hey, maybe you can help figure this out," I said encouragingly. "This water hurts your eyes once you go in. This is a test. There must be a way, we can do something. But there's no drain," I rambled on, I finally noticed that my arms and legs were throbbing from keeping myself surfaced, but James just shook his head,

"This is a test, yes, but the test is to not give up and sink. This test is to be strong all the way through. I'm scared about how much time there will be until this water is gone," I nodded, agreeing with him. I agreed, but I didn’t knowhow long I would last before I would give out. I was never a good swimmer.

Suddenly I saw something moving in the distance. I poked James, and pointed in that direction. I felt my heart pick up speed I had a legitimate fear of sharks, I don't remember how I even got it, but at the sight of a shark or a sea monster I get terrified. James must have seen the fear in my eyes because he swiftly pushed me behind him, so he was in front of me.  The moving thing was coming towards us At rapid speed. My heart started beating fast. We had no weapon, what was it? An eel? Dare I say, a shark? Or a magical creature? James pulled out two knives and handed one to me.

"Where did you get these?" I asked more to myself.

"I saved some from the chandelier," he replied. I guess he thought that was the only source of weapon we'd ever get. As the beast came closed I saw that it was sleek black with yellow stripes, it was the size of an overly large baby shark (which did nothing to calm me). His head was a rhinosorus and his body, a shark.  As it came close to me, I stabbed it. For a minute nothing happened, and that minute was a long one. Is it invincible? Will it kill us?

Then blue blood started spluttering out. It charged towards James, thinking it was him who striked it. James was about to stab him when the creature stabbed James in the stomach with its horn. That was it. I hovered over James and striked the beast again and again, waiting for it to die. But it didn't. It had only gotten weaker. Then I had a crazy idea. I turned towards James when I saw he was completely pale and was sinking down to the bottom. I rapidly swam down to him as the creature followed us. My heart was almost one hundred miles an hour as I thought of my situation. I was in the middle of nowhere with a shark-like thing chasing after me. Normally, I would have a second heart attack and scream or maybe faint, but I felt this anger course through me as I thought about what it had done to James.

Or what it could do to you, a smart voice said in my head. I rid of my thoughts quickly because I knew I didn't have enough time to get up to the surface, so I slowly covered up James's wound. When I remove my hand it was filled with blood. I internally screamed as I saw how much it was. The water was helping slowly though. Suddenly I heard a sound, and I whipped out the dagger but it passed the wound. I grimaced as James's blood picked up on it.

The monster appeared before me and I was too stunned to focus straight, or maybe I was too frightened. Up close, the creature was horrifying. Its horn was pointy, its eyes we're beady and red, the rest of his body was covered in blue in my second attempt to kill him. Without thinking I stabbed it with James's blood on the knife. Unlike the times before, I could hear the creature's pained cries. And it quickly sank and died. The moment it hit the bottom. The water disappeared. I fell to the ground, my scream splitting the air.