The Dusk of Dawn

Chapter Six- The Tide (1)

Jackson had never heard something more ‘idot with an i in the middle’ throughout his whole life. The Queen of Garavia? That girl is out of her mind! Even Garavia people can’t do something like that! Let alone a banana-brained Luana islander who dreams about starry-eyed untouchable plans and coconuts all day. He protested in his head.

Although he couldn’t deny Driya’s arrow shooting and language skills were superior, a Luana islander is still a Luana islander. She’d been living there her whole life, except now she was leaving with them, according to her. She’s never seen the dark side of the world! All she sees is the sun and beaches and coconuts! She felt like a flower raised safely in a greenhouse. Maybe she even was the princess! Since they’re always so pampered! The biggest problem she’s encountered is people being ‘mean’ to her! 

Thinking about how idot with an i in the middle that girl was, Jackson sat at the sail boat’s front. Driya and Fluffy were arguing about whether they should use a net to catch fish or shoot it down behind them.

The wood and bamboo were warm from the rays of the sun above. The stinging scent of brine kept wavering up like the waves that pattered against their hull. There were absolutely no sounds at all except for the ocean’s waves, the creaking of wood on the boat, the sound of Jackson’s company behind, and wind that blew bristly past his ears. They had agreed that he would lead the team, Driya would help keep off dangerous fish that attacked and gather food supplies, while Fluffy helped navigate. Apparently, he’d studied navigation (which was funny, he never left that island), but it was for if he ever got lost on that islet. However, it still worked fine on the open sea. Jackson and Driya both agreed that his sense of direction was stronger than either of them. Although Fluffy’s sense of direction was not to be questioned, it was still a problem for him to demonstrate actual, accurate navigation due to his lack of mathematical knowledge. Jackson learned about it while working with Zac, but that was for calculations of machinery and chemistry, which still didn’t exactly fit the strong physics math needs for this particular job.

They had been drifting on the wide, endless body of water for what felt like a whole week. Jackson complained, but Fluffy always told him that they were almost there. Jackson took a sneak peek of their map and believed that they were still quite a far distance from the Flow Jungle. Driya didn’t exactly like the sound of sitting there and reading and studying and praying when Jackson described the Flow Jungle to her. She was more of a ‘get up and do something!’ type. Fluffy, on the other hand, was more looking forward to the Flow Jungle. Especially since it has the world’s best university (Raindrop College) and the largest library designed by Fluffy himself (The Spiralling Tree. Jackson couldn’t believe Fluffy was hiding his identity from him and told Driya first! (Although he kept insisting Driya already knew, which sounded unfair).

“Hey, Bu Hao!” Came Driya’s voice. ‘Bu Hao’ basically means ‘no good’, but it sounded like his middle name (which was not ‘Bu Hao’) so she always called him that. “Fluffy said we’re going to see the Flow Jungle in around two hours!”

“Oh, good,” Jackson replied, sliding off the front of the boat. “I’m sick of eating fish already.”

Driya stood beside the trap door that led down to the bottom of the ship, her wavy hair flowing behind her in the winds as she rubbed her nose. “Your sentences don't always make sense, you know,” She complained as Jackson pulled away from the trap door and spotted Fluffy noting down points on a map beneath.

“Yeah, sure.” Jackson shrugged as he jumped down into the bottom of the hulk.

“Use the stairs!” Driya’s voice echoed. “If this boat breaks, you’ll have to swim, you bendan!”

 Jackson shrugged again and he could even feel the growing anger of Driya creeping up behind him. He quickly arrived beside Fluffy and looked down at the map. “Where are we?” He asked.

“Here,” Fluffy directed at a point on the map that looked like it was just beside a large green field labelled ‘The Flow Jungle Kingdom’, another set of dots labelled ‘Luana Islands’ was far behind them.

He asked Driya if her ‘mother’ (since she kept mentioning her) would be worried if she left for so long. But she said sometimes she’d visit the islands of Luana one by one and it took as long anyway. Plus, she doubted that her mother would realize that she was gone for good this time.

“I know I just told Driya it’s two hours… But I assume it’ll be faster.” Fluffy turned around and climbed up the stairs. Jackson just jumped onto the deck, shaking the whole boat a little and Driya hit him on his head again for that.

Fluffy walked up to the side of the boat’s hulk (since the centre360-degree one was a place for Jackson) and pointed at the horizon.

“There,” he said. “That dot.”

They all turned and squinted at the horizon. Jackson noticed a shape looming across to their right, they couldn’t see anything clearly from here, but he bet they’d be there within an hour.

“Oh, right. They said that the sea around the Flow Jungle might be dan—” Fluffy started, but the sea didn’t wait for him to finish.

Suddenly, the boat was thrust backwards, and all three of them crash-landed onto the other side of the boat. A large eel appeared, its scales blinding silver, with something that appeared to be whiskers on the top of its head.

In fact, it was the largest eel Jackson had ever seen.

With a splash of waves pounding onto their boat, the eel leapt up— higher than their sail. It loomed into the sky until its head disappeared into the sunlight.

Fluffy was simply frozen on the spot, his mouth half-open. Jackson leapt up and held the boat still, trying to bring it away from the eel.

However, his head jerked around as a dangerous sounding hiss and another splash emitted from behind, only to spot a large, grey, scarred shark, jumping up from behind Fluffy, its mouth opened into an angle larger than 90 degrees, aiming at him.

Fluffy yelped and covered his head with his arms, at the same moment the large eel fell right back into the sea and towards the direction of their boat.

Jackson pulled the sail and the boat turned instantly to its left, creating a blur of white wave droplets and dodging the fish narrowly.

He looked around, just in time to see an arrow shoot across the air and hit the shark right at the tip of its snout.

The shark dropped back into the sea with a little groan before it could bite Fluffy. Driya raised her bow steadily, aimed, and waited.

The shark leapt out again, but this time its full body was above the water surface and it landed right onto their boat.

Fluffy screamed and rolled off the edge accidentally, disappearing into the sea with a splash. Driya let go of her arrow and it hit the shark on its stomach. It thrashed its tail furiously due to the pain. Jackson could imagine it roaring, although it was surreal how it couldn’t make any sounds.

He hurled himself right onto the shark, ignoring Driya’s cries from behind, he pushed it into the sea, accidentally rolling off with it.

For a second he saw nothing in the dark, blue void, shimmering quietly with sunlight as if it was a completely different dimension from the chaos above. Well, in a way, it was. But a black shape slowly largening in his peripheral vision rose beneath him and dragged him back to the real world. The shark slammed its jaws shut but Jackson dodged it. He paddled upwards, trying to come through the surface.

He felt a sharp, throbbing pain on his leg that made him look back. The shark managed to bite his shin, but just a little. It took a moment for Jackson to realize that it was not the sea ahead that had gone darker— It was something really giant looming within.

Thick, heavy tentacles appeared from the darkness, then wrapped themselves around the shark and pulled it away like a tiny sardine fish. Then out of the shadow, Jackson saw a yellow-green eye as large as their boat in the distant sea.

He managed not to scream into the water and shot right up to their boat. An arrow zipped past him in a cloud of bubbles and hooked onto his shirt, pulling him up.

Driya.