The Way Things Are

Chapter 2 Part 1

 Belle's POV

There was fire in my lungs. It scorched them as I try to inhale salty water, for any source of oxygen. But I was sinking, down, down, down. Was this it? Was this my last breath, my last heartbeat? It was all for nothing?

I thought of the irony of it all. I was on fire, while I was sinking in water. What a lovely way to die.

As I drifted away, I thought of all the people I'd miss. Mom. Max. John. Well, I didn't have very many friends, but that just made these people more important to me.

Suddenly a dark shape appeared from above. I couldn't tell what it was, but it looked like one of the Four. I exhaled deeply and closed my eyes. All of my energy had been painfully taken away.

Then I felt the lifting, lifting upwards, like my soul was reaching the skies. It almost made me want to laugh, I would be happy somewhere else. Happy.

Now that's a change.

Cristia's POV

The boat ride was extremely nauseating . The sides of it had green barnacles that oozed slime and smelled like a dumpster. Ever so slowly, the ship would rock from side-to-side, slowly allowing vomit to rise into my throat.

I had already barfed twice. Ain't that jolly. Even worse, the man with the black beard kept asking bizarre questions like, "Do you like the number four?" or, "How's the Middle treatin' ya?"

I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about, or even getting at, but it's creeping me out.

My brother walked up to me and slung one of his arms over the ship, and another around my shoulder's. "Oh, I'm just sooo sick," he exaggerated, "the only person I care about is myself, and there's no wiifiiii!"

I shoved him and cracked a smile, "Seriously. You need to be inside my stomach right now and feel the pain."

He scooched away a little, "Sorry," I laughed, "That was weird." I didn't understand what on earth was going on, because everything was like a dream. A terrible one too. I guess saying random things was my personality.

The man had his hands on his binoculars, looking out at the sea. I didn't understand. There was nothing to see but rocks in the far distance.

Suddenly, he dropped his binoculars, "MY GOD!" He shouted loudly.

My heart began to pound like a wasp banging against a window. Was he going insane?

My mom walked up to him curiously, "sir, would you mind telling us what's going on?"

"No time," He muttered a few words to himself, then said, "We've got to hurry to that area, right over there." He pointed to what I thought of as rocks.

I walked up to him, suddenly worried, "Why do we need to?"

He looked at me and flashed his teeth at me, along with moldy cheese breath. "There's been a ship wreck, little girl. A bad one too."