The Agreste Internship - Book 2

Chapter 8: Underwater Chat

******Back at the Bahamas******

"Can you at least give me a hint?" Mari asked as they drove for over a half an hour to get to the location of Adrien's mysterious surprize. Before they left they stopped quickly at the storage trailer and she picked the black one-piece swimming suit that she had already worn, some shorts, and a designer t-shirt that was hanging on the rack. She also picked one of the first semi-formal dresses she saw and had put it in the trunk of the car. 

When Mari and Adrien got out of the car, Mari saw a sign for the Lucayan National Park. They followed a pathway lined with palms and ferns until they saw a stairwell that went down into the mouth of a large cavern. At the bottom of the stairs, the path turned into a pier that stretched across a dark pool of water. On the dock was a person with diving equipment. 

"We're going to explore some underwater caverns," Adrien explained. "This is supposed to be one of the largest underwater cave systems in the world, and it requires a special permit to go diving. Which I got."

"We're going diving?" She had never imagined she'd get to go diving in the Bahamas, and here she was with Adrien by her side. If this is a dream, don't wake me.

The diving guide explained more about the caverns. The cave they were in was called Ben's cave, and it was the only cave open to the public. It was part of the largest underwater cave systems in the world, over 200 plus miles of caves. There were fish and the water was a mix of freshwater and saltwater because occasional hurricanes sometimes bring the salt into the caves. For this reason, the fish in these caves were unlike any fish on earth.

As they were instructed to put on the diving gear, Mari started to get nervous because she's never been diving-- unless she counts the time that she was Ladybug and was using her underwater ability. But she was with Adrien, or Chat, or Cha-drien, so she knew that she shouldn't be worried at all. 

Except for all of the butterflies that were flying around in her stomach.

After a half-hour of official instruction and going over basic safety issues, they finally are ready to go deep-sea diving. Adrien grabbed Mari's hand and her blue eyes met his, and they were both nervous and excited. They jumped into the water, and they were still holding hands as they swam down and followed the diving instructor. They shared a floating flashlight, which they used to look at each of the unique caves underwater, and every cave was a secret window into a beautiful world in itself.  

As they went deeper into the cave, the water started to feel cooler-- although cool water in the Bahamas is still pretty warm. They had been swimming for over an hour and Mari was down more than half a tank. She was starting to get nervous. Shouldn't the diving guide be heading back now?

She squeezed Adrien's hand. He looked over at her. She pointed to her tank and he nodded as if he understood her concern. He swam up to the diving guide and pointed to the meter, who then led them to a cave that had a pocket of air. When they got out of the water Adrien called out to the driving instructor.

"Hey, our air tanks are getting low, are we on our way back?"

The instructor nodded. "Don't worry, you guys probably have dials adjusted wrong... just turn this nob here."

Something didn't seem right to Mari, why were they adjusting the tank after swimming so long? But when they followed the guides instruction the levels went down even faster. They tried to turn back the nobs to the setting it was at before, but most of the air in the tank was gone by then. "Hey!" Mari called out and went over to get the instructor's attention, but when she did he vanished into thin air. 

"Vulpina!" They both thought. Adrien and Mari exchanged a worried look. 

How were they going to get out of this one? They were stuck in the middle of an underwater cave system and who knew how long they had been following the illusion of the diving instructor.