My Life In Ruins

8. It's Not Gibberish, You Just Can't Speak Awesome

Chapter 8

It’s Not Gibberish, You Just Can’t Speak Awesome

“So are we ready?” Jeff asked me and Max as we sat on the edge of the boat with all of our scuba gear on.  Dad and Brielle had already gone down with Ronny. 

I nodded as I fitted my mask over my eyes and nose and checked the pressure gage of my oxygen tank.  “I’m good,” I said, and then looked over at Max.  “Are you good?”

Max shrugged under his gear.  “As good as I’ll ever be with all of this,” he said.  “Let’s go.”

Grinning, I put the mouthpiece into my mouth, taking a big breath of air, and fell backward into the water. 

I absolutely loved diving.  It was just like a completely other world down there and it was amazing to see everything. 

The shipwreck wasn’t very deep.  So when I started diving down, I could see three figures down below with bubbles floating up to the surface around them. 

You couldn’t really tell it was a shipwreck.  It just looked like tons of debris littered across the ocean floor, covered in different kinds of underwater plants.  Fish were swimming around everywhere and around us curiously as we dove deeper. 

I didn’t know really what we were looking for, just that we were looking for something, anything that might look like it would give us.  We couldn’t stay underwater for very long, so whatever we had to find quickly. 

I didn’t notice when I was swimming farther away from where the others were.  I was just following my gut…and my gut was taking me toward some of the unexcavated parts of the wreck. 

There wasn’t much to be seen, just a few pieces of the ship encrusted with ocean life.  A few fish swam into a crevasse that was made by something that I couldn’t identify and it made me want to go look and see just what was in there.  Slowly, I moved down toward it and peered inside.  I flinched when a few fish quickly swam out at me. 

My heart started pounding in my ears as I slowly reached my hand into it.  Who knew?  I’d probably get my hand stuck in something and be caught there until my oxygen ran out.  Then I would die because everyone was farther up toward where the front of the ship was.  They didn’t even know I was back here.  Gah!  Why was I so stupid?

But no, my hand didn’t get stuck.  It didn’t even really come in contact with anything except for sand.  I felt around some more, trying to see if anything was in there.

And then my hand came into contact with something and my heart started pounding even more. 

I wrapped my fingers around what felt like a little metal box that was no more than two inches wide and an inch deep.  Pulling my hand out of the crevasse, I looked down at it.

It looked like a tiny jewelry box.  It was faded and covered in sand and had a few pieces of algae growing on it.  After cleaning it off, I noticed that there was something carved into its smooth, metal surface.  I lifted it up to my mask and saw the letters E and S in cursive.  I smiled around my mouthpiece as I pinched the top part of the box and slowly lifted the lid. 

What I saw inside was something that I never thought I would see on the bottom of the ocean floor.  It was a perfectly preserved ruby ring with a golden band.  When I reached inside the little box for it and held it up, it sparkled in the sunlight that was filtering through the water and down to me. 

But that wasn’t the only thing that I noticed.

When I moved to look at the band of the ring, I noticed that there was something written in the inside of it.  It was just letters that made no sense, but then that’s what was exciting about it.