The Song Of His

2. If you don't want to eat a rock!

The warmth from the bonfire felt really good over the chilly night. It was a cresent moon but the moonlight allowed us to see a bit better than the complete darkness.

I recognised a few faces from school sitting across the fire. Everybody was lost in their own worlds as they chatted and danced around the fire.

Louis was nowhere to be found. And Lavinia was beginning to irritate me.

"Louis, where did you go? I wanted to talk to you. Then you could have shown me your room where we would sing your songs..." She talked in the air imagining Louis was there, "From all over the world," she started singing another song of Louis' in her horrible drunken voice, "only you have the charms to hold my heart."

Yup, she hadn't sobered even a bit.

"Lavinia, you better stop singing if you don't want to eat a rock!" I threatened her making her giggle. A few more people around chuckled at our exchange.

"Yo folks!" Our attention was grabbed by none other the dashing host and popstar, Louis who came to stop by the inner ring of dancing people. He was followed by huge crowd of girls, giggling and squealing at his sight.

"Thanks for coming to my party. I hope you are enjoying the night," he looked around the crowd and smiled.

Replies was given in unison. Some of them were, "yeah, totally!" While others were, "of course!" And remaining were compliments to him.

"Okay then. Please continue enjoying it. There will a performance from me in the house at midnight. See you all there," he winked turning around and then walked back to the beach house.

"Louis! Wait for me!" Before I could stop her, Lavinia was already running after the retreating figure of Louis who already had a flock of fangirls buzzing around him.

She would be safe in the crowd, right?

My mind got distracted when I felt a presence come to rest beside me. I turned my focus to see it was one of my classmates from the school who I had seen walk through the corridor a number of times. His dark hair shone red in the light from fire. His skin was kissed by the tints of amber. His hand held a cup of what I assumed to be another one of those fancy drinks that was being served inside.

"Mind if I join you?" He asked turning to look at me. His brown eyes held warmth.

"Sure," I scooted to my right making him place to sit.

"I recognised you from school but we haven't talked," he started a conversation after we both stared at the fire flicker and hiss in wind for a couple of seconds.

"Yeah, I did too," I replied staring at the orangish yellow flame before turning to look at him.

"By the way, I'm Duncan Brighton." He raised his hand for a handshake.

"Carlene McLeish." I placed my hand in his before giving it a slight shake.

"Carlene, nice name."

"Thanks," I turned forward to look at the flames again for some time. It was closer to midnight and people had started leaving one by one.

"I don't know if you have noticed but I'm in your algebra," he stated making me look back at him, "really? That's nice."

"I know right. Two classmates, don't notice each other, never ever talked and suddenly at a party become acquaintances." He sipped through his drink.

"I know right," I smiled slightly and turned to look around casually. Nothing was there except a cliff and a few island type extensions. Nobody was fooling around if one excluded a diminishing figure of a girl wandering off into the darkness. I recognised the red corset that looked magenta in the moonlight.

"I was saying, if we could hang-" I didn't really hear what Duncan was saying because I had started to worry about a particular red headed girl who happened to be my best friend. But nevertheless I cut him off in the middle, "Duncan, it was nice meeting you but I have to hurry up before she decides to drown herself in the salty waters of the sea. I'll talk to you later."

By the end of my sentence, I was already up and half jogging towards Lavinia. I thought I heard duncan reply something like, "sure, see you later." Again I didn't pay any heed. Almost reaching half of the distance between us, I pumped my legs harder to run faster when I saw Lavinia knee deep in the water.

"Oh no! Lavinia! Stop!" I shouted as I ran into the water behind her but she neither responded nor turned. The water was warmer than I anticipated. I could feel the waves dash against my skin, tickling me. The water was glowing slightly with the moonlight. And then I felt it more than I heard it.

The low humming in the water stopped my thinking process. It wasn't the regular humming of water but it rather felt like someone was singing underneath it.

'come inside. I've been waiting for you,' a deep mesmerizing voice buzzed through my head. The voice was just so good that I wanted to follow it. I felt compelled and dazed. I could hear the distant splashing of waves in the background but the endless ocean lit by the cresent moon captivated me. I wanted to go further and further till I reached the source of the voice.

Wait, what was I doing? Why was here in first place? I blinked breaking out of my reverie.

I turned to my left to find Lavinia walking at my side about a few metres away. I was here to stop her but what was I doing?

"Lavinia! Where are you going?" I shouted but she didn't stop nor turn.

"Lavinia, don't go! It's dangerous!" I rushed forward to grab her by her elbow. I realised that we were hidden from the bonfire by the little islands and for some reason, it scared me.

The mesmerizing humming in the water continued, asking me to walk further in. It felt like it was telling me that it was waiting for me, as if it was calling for me.

'come on carlene, you know you want to...' a deep shiver inducing voice echoed in my head. Not the bad kind of shiver, that is. This wasn't real. It was just in my head. I shook my head and turned Lavinia around to face me. The moon light illuminated her eyes, they were dazed and her pupils diluted.

"He's calling me..." She sighed dreamily, "he wants me."

"No Lavinia. Nobody is calling you. It must be the drink that we had!" I tried reasoning with her, standing in a knee deep water. That was it! I had the drink too and that was why I was feeling all this. And since she had a larger quantity than me, the effect was undoubtedly high.

"Let me take you back home," I dragged her back towards the beach and noticed that the bonfire was almost deserted at the moment. Everyone had gone back into the house to witn Louis perform.

'Carlene...come to me...' the same voice whispered but I shook my head, stirring clear of my thoughts. I didn't know that I was such a light head! Turned back, I looked at the shadows of the island and saw something above of the water. I couldn't help but frown at it. It wasn't there the last time I examined that place, what was it? It was far from us, so I couldn't tell anything and the moonlight was not that strong enough to give more details. Then, whatever it was, it dived back into the water making me realise that it was only a big fish.

I swore to never touch any spiked drinks again in my life.

Dragging a mumbling Lavinia back to the beach house, I couldn't help but think about what I had seen. It ought be some side effects of the drink.

"Oh my gosh! Did you just see that? Somebody help them!" I heard a feminine voice shout from outside the beach house looking at the sea. My heart stilled at her sudden words before anxiety slowly settled in the place of calmness.

There was a commotion as more people started to gather around her asking for what had happened?

"Oh my gosh! I just saw two boys drown in the sea!" She pointed towards the sea where a floating hat came to rest after being washed to the shore by the waves. My eyes widened at her statement. Drowned? In the water? Were me and Lavinia going to drown too if I hadn't dragged us back? Many of the boys had rushed down to see if there was someone drowning.

"What happened?" Louis came rushing to stop beside the girl who had freaked out.

"Two of them drowned. They were standing right there, in waist level water and suddenly fell in. They didn't raise after that," she explained sobbing now.

"Security!" Louis shouted at the top of his voice. The music had been turned down and crowd had assembled.

"Security!" Louis shouted again, louder this time. A few men dressed in suits rushed to him.

"The girl here says that there were two boys who drowned in the sea. Arrange the lighting and search for them!" He barked orders before turning to look at the other set of security guards arriving, "check the CCTV footage to see what actually happened."

Almost everybody from the party had assembled there as the security guards started to work. Big lights were brought on to the beach and focused on water as handful of the guards wearing diving suit went searching for the missing boys.