Through My Eyes

Chapter 3 - Discovery

Chapter 3

(Alysia)

I wake on sandy bottoms of the ocean. I look around wildly, no large dark shape resting on the surface, signalling to me that the ship has left.

I look around myself wearily. I’m in unfamiliar territory. I’m alone.

As I take in my surroundings I float against the current running through the area.

My mind goes through the numerous events that have occurred since putting on the red armband, now a tattered rag around my wrist.

The triplet’s biting remarks about my past, their pouty faces as they refused to complete our first training test together. The crush of bodies as the net enclosed around me and the school of tuna, the fear I could sense around me as we were hauled up, out of the ocean’s depths and dumped onto the wooden floorboards of the ship. The blank stare of the numerous fish around me, their lives slowly ebbing away as I struggled under the net. The beautiful blue of that sky, the gruff face of the first live man I ever seen. The struggle to get away as my skin seemed to dissolve in the open air and the plunge back down to the ocean.

That uncomfortable feeling behind my eyes starts up again, this time my throat constricting painfully, filling me with the overwhelming need to cry out in anguish.

What am I going to do? I have no idea where I am. What will happen to Brea when I don’t come back? Who will look after her? Have the triplets reported my disappearance? Is anybody looking for me?

So many questions unanswered, so many worries clouding my mind. My energy is running low, I need to sleep if I want to conserve enough to try and get back home.

I let out a sigh as I close my eyes and stop resisting the current I’ve unconsciously been following since falling off of the ship. I don’t know where I am, I don’t know where I’m going. But right now, I’m just too tired to care.

Brea.

*

I open my eyes again, immediately realising that falling asleep probably got me further away from home through the current.

I’m in amongst a reef of some sort. The colours are dull, unlike the reef back home, the life here is limited and I can tell in a glance that there is little food for me to eat.

My stomach gurgles, pleading for nourishment and I know that I will have to find some soon if I’m going to have enough energy to defend myself.

“Hello?” I call out. I can hear the quiet babble of voices – notifying me of some life – but as I swim along, they peater out till all there is, is silence.

A tingling feeling runs through my body and I whirl around. No one’s there.