PHOBOPHOBIA

A Rising Hero and A Falling Pattern

Word of the day:

Gobbledygook -
language that is meaningless or is made unintelligible by excessive use of abstruse technical terms; nonsense

“Calico.”

Still Danielle’s POV:

He stretched more hands from his mouth and into the waters below. He pulled the three out of the strange sea monster's grasp and into my hands- no literally, he basically threw them at me. I grabbed a hold of most of them, the dog jumped out of my hands and landed on one of the larger branches as he shook the mucky water out of his fur coat. I looked over to Damien, “Damien! Damien, wake up!” He groaned as he slowly sat up, coughing out the water that filled his lungs. “Jesus- Danielle?” “Oh thank god, I thought you drowned for a second there.” He looked around at his surroundings, I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. “Is Hazel alright?”

Hazel.

I looked at the girl laying still in my lap, she looked like a ghost. I shook her a bit, shouting her name.

Unresponsive.

I shook her more, shouting her name louder.

Unresponsive.

I laid her across one of the bigger branches, “Damien, hold her still. I’m going to try to do chest compressions.” Damien nodded and held her so she wouldn’t fall… I took a deep breath, praying- no hoping for this to work. I positioned myself and my hands, I took one more deep breath and began doing CPR.

One, two, three, “Come on.” Eleven, twelve, thirteen, “Stay with me.” Twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, “Hazel, you can do this, come on.” Twenty nine- Thirty! I covered her nose and opened her mouth. I began to give her air. One, two, three, four, five- again.

Unresponsive.

I stopped and began to give her chest compressions again. Damien was crying, begging for her to breathe; the dog was barking. I was about to have a panic attack. Too much, too damn much. Twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty. I covered her nose and opened her mouth once again. I gave her air, “Come on-”

COUGH COUGH

She was alive.

“What the fuc- GAH!” Damien tackled her into a hug, not too hard, they almost fell out of the tree though. “Damien! What the hell!? Off! Now!” “Shut up whore!” “WHO YOU CALLIN’-” It was nice to see things were normal around here. “Wait, how do we get to the end of the route? We ain’t got no boat.” Damien said petting the dog like it’s his royal pet. “Well- um- Wait.” I look down to the water below me. The somewhat green, clear water was now stained red, water rushing and splashing in all directions. Calico, nowhere to be seen.

I looked closer into the water, trying to catch a glimpse of the battle below. The water was too unclear to see anything, but if I had to guess, Calico has been underwater for quite some time. “Damien, pass me a long branch.” “Say please, bitch.” “DAMIEN.” “Yes ma’am.” He broke off the nearest, longest branch that he could find and handed it to me. “What are you going to do with that?” Hazel asked. “I am going to distract those things in the water with this big ass… stick.” They looked at me, obvious disappointment filled their eyes as they judged me. “Got a better fuckin’ idea?!” They looked away.

I took the stick and stabbed it into the water... After that everything went still. We waited for something, anything. “Did something happen-” Calico quickly came out of the water and onto a large root. He looked absolutely destroyed: fresh cuts covered his body, leaking blood; some of the cuts were covered in leeches. He tried to take them off but it was too painful. He looked around drastically, I’m guessing to look for us. “Up here!” He looks up, his face immediately turning into a calm one. He climbed up the tree as the things below began to become active again. “I’m so sorry, we ain’t the best at driving boats.” I laughed awkwardly. He grabs everybody, including the dog, and tries to jump, but fails. The pain he’s in is too unbearable.