The tournament

1100: Rees

"The weather is changed?" I say to myself and let my eyes meander around us.

I pull in a deep breath, listening to the soothing sound of the sea but instead of comfort, I grasp an alarming sound in my hearing, it was like a warning coming with a vibration that rises every hair on my body. I haven't opened my mouth to let it roll out of my tongue when the outbreak came.

What looks like a water eruption began exploding from the depth of the sea.

"HARPER." Cuthbert and I unison, it's enough to wake the unaware girl seeking rest.

There are dreadful screams from the next canoe, it was unstably stumbling side by side from the monstrous waves.

The weather is suddenly bad, darker, and angry that when the cloud cracks open it hesitate not to pour its icy cold water upon us.

The swelling beneath our canoe began shifting to a specific side growing into a massive height, draining the depth of the sea until it made an extraordinary tall water fence right in front of our tiny figures in a fragile manmade canoe.

Everything about this moment fears me. Are we about to die in the middle of the sea?

"Help." One among the two girls begs as if we aren't in the same situation as they are.

"Harper, I need you at the stern, Daphne, you at the middle." Cuthbert orders, he is at the other end of the canoe steering the paddle just like Harper. "We need to strengthen, put as much stamina as you can. If the canoe is to tumble we don't know how to protect ourselves."

As he closes his lips, the other canoe loses it balance and toss one among it passenger into the angry water.

At the moment every eye went on the poor girl struggling to survive, splashes the water with her limbs, groaning like a tortured animal.

She must not know how to swim just like me and every other Archiefield citizen.

How can we help then?

"Please help my twin sister." The barely safe one in a weak canoe pleaded with us, her words were hard to comprehend given her shaky voice.

"We should help." Panicked, I look at Cuthbert.

"We don't know what is in the water."

"We need to help her." With a defiant attitude, I insisted, boldly shooting him a persistent glare.

Annoyed he called my name, clearly as a warning.

"Now!" I command.

However we happen to be late by the time we decided to connect the paddles and make a longer and more possible way to pull the girl out, she isn't moving.

Fear, tension, anxiety, and every emotion that makes up distress swells up to my throat until I can barely breathe.

"What happened to her?"

"She's dead." Cries the other girl from the canoe.

No...

"But how? She can't possibly take in water, she sure has enough oxygen, I saw her tank across her shoulders." Now I literally am panicking.

"Something is wrong, I think the water is contaminated," Cuthbert screams through the thunderstorms.

"What?" I don't think my voice was audible with everything happening right now.

"It is deadly, we need to support the boat or we will all die."

"W-what do you mean?" The fact that we are in the middle of a troubling ocean with no sight of land for escape terrifies me, I couldn't function well.

He crawls closer, his knees brushing mine when he held my face protector directing me to look at him.

"I need you to breath Daphne, now is the right time to fight."

I attempt to do as he requires, I breathe and swallow three times but nothing is helping, I am at the point where all hope is gone, knowing if this boat is to turn with the three of us, none among us will make it out alive.

"Okay..." I started but I was interrupted by the discharge of the heightened fence made of water, falling hard back into the roaring ocean.

The outburst was violent and loud, releasing a ponderous load of a heavy storm that wrecks the other canoe. Although the passenger was quick to land on our canoe before it pours upon her.

And for a nanosecond, regardless of the deafening sound in my hearing, I have a settling feeling in my mind, believing we've passed the tragedy until four dominant waves caved each side of our canoe like a fold trying to close us in the middle. There are intense lightning striking from the dark sky. That's when I notice this earth isn't worth the struggles.

For the first time since all this began, Harper speaks: "Rees has found me."

She has been quiet throughout the event, that I thought she was performing magic.

"Rees is doing this?" Cuthbert asked her.

She didn't answer, rather she says: "You need to go, he can't find you two."

"We are not leaving without you," I stubbornly insist, meaning my words with everything in me.

"I am not going to get you all killed because of me."

"Harper..." I scream but cease when her eyes began twitching and changing into a pure white pupil-less set.

"You shall be cloak from the harm of the sea and the eyes of those with charms. Let my strength guide you forward and away from all terror."

Is hard to processes everything after Harper recites those words.

But when I open my eyes, I found myself next to Cuthbert, diving buoyancy in somewhat like a shield bubble enclose with air, protecting us from the harm of the water itself.

I drawn in a deep breath when I take in what underwater looks like: deep inside the sea was the beautiful view I've ever laid my eyes upon, it was scanty not like all that consisted in Bella books which have mentioned creatures surviving in the expanse of the sea.

Although the purest of the sea can not be ignored that I sight the body of the girl who was just breathing some moments ago.

She is barely dressed, which left me wondering what happened to her suit. Her skin is a shade of green and her veins were dark, almost bulging out of her flesh.

Suddenly I want to puke.

From behind, I felt a hand circle my wrist, pulling my floating figure around, startled I twirl until I can look into the beautiful eyes ever lived, and then the excessive pounding in my chest stops for I know I am safe.

"Don't look," Cuthbert says, bringing me into his arms.

Just like that, I found relief.