When the Ocean Calls

Chapter Fifteen | Locked Under Land

My eyes opened to dim walls. Confusion swarmed my mind. I should've been in a forest, on soft green grass, under the ancient boughs of a pear tree. My palm pressed in loose dirt to maneuver me into a seated position. Brown walls curved into a tunnel that extended to a fuzzy light.

"Virgo?" I breathed. I was too afraid to yell, or even speak at a normal volume.

Her name echoed through the tunnels, my whisper magnified to a thousand. No response came. No words or footsteps sang through the tunnels.

Goosebumps mushroomed on my arm, and not just from the chilly draft that swept by. It's fine. She's probably going to return any second.

I hugged my knees to my chest. I could wait until she came back.

If she came back.

Surely she wouldn't abandon me down here. Although...she didn't seem too keen on helping me when I first found her. She could've told me she would get me home just so I'd stop talking about it, then stashed me down here. In fact, what was I doing in a tunnel in the first place? She told me to sleep in the clearing. If there was an alternate place to rest, she should've brought me there while I was awake, not asleep.

The image of the pear flashed in my mind, that beautiful, delicious pear. It had seemed fanciful, straight from a fairytale, and in hindsight, it was. She probably laced it with a sleeping potion that knocked me unconscious.

She probably wasn't even the real Virgo. She was probably an imposter who lured me into trusting her. I'd bet tons of "mortals" (as she called us) washed up on her shore every year, and her little trick worked on every single one. Well, every naïve one.

Like me.

How could I have trusted her? I barely spoke to her. At least with the mer-people, they built some confidence through their kindness toward me over the course of multiple days, no matter how fake it was. Yet here I was, believing what this random woman told me simply since she called herself a "Star Guardian."

What did she want to happen? For me to die a slow death of dehydration? Perhaps she was a serial killer who was banished to this island. Did she plan to finish me off later today? I let out an exasperated sigh. I was so tired of not knowing anything, even the mundane things like the date and time. It made me powerless.

I was powerless. Just like I was in the storm. Just like I was in Oamer.

Just like I was at home. Not the Bahamas—that was Lani's home. My home was in the rolling hills of South Carolina with my parents and a life I desperately wanted to escape. But I couldn't. How could I escape a life that didn't exist? I lacked purpose and drive. I didn't know what I wanted.

My eyes focused on the arched doorway, on the light beyond. I couldn't stay down there forever, and I didn't want to find out what the Virgo imposter had planned for me.

So I did something crazy, something compulsive, something I thought I'd never do.

I ran.

I tore through the tunnel, right into the glow of a single, fiery torch. I grabbed it from the wall and ran forward. The path bent and split three. I kept straight, the flame dispersing the darkness. Pebbles jabbed my pounding feet, but I didn't stop. Blood rushed in my ears over my footsteps, and I hoped Virgo wasn't around to hear them.

Another fork in the road. Another hollow passage. They widened in breadth, then shrunk until my shoulders brushed dirt from the sides. The earthen walls blurred together, impossible to tell new paths from traveling in a circle. My legs pumped me forward, along with desperation. I didn't want to die underground. I needed to leave the island.