by Katie Cherry
The thing is… that’s when the Third Challenge begins.
Chapter Fourteen
The Third Challenge
“Ready?” I ask Nathan. His face is ghostly white, his lips set in a firm line. Once again, we are wearing black and purple, although they are not the usual clothes. These are wetsuits that cover most of our bodies to conserve warmth, and are thin and flexible enough that it should be easy to move around in. We are ready to go… although I’ve never felt less ready for anything in my life.
“…Yeah,” he replies, uncertainty clear in his voice. “Let’s do this thing. Hopefully these will help,” he continues, holding up his ‘black speck’ that enables us to breathe underwater. I nod and place mine where the guy from Quagon put his- at the base of my throat, just above my collarbone. Nathan does the same. After holding it there for a few seconds, I feel a pinch and it stays. There’s no going back now. I take a deep breath, attempting to calm my frayed nerves.
“Let’s go,” I say, leading the way out of the door. It’s still dark outside, but the sky is beginning to gray. We are wearing jackets over our wetsuits because of the chilly, windy air- and because not having pockets drives me a little crazy. We were once again told to meet in the Square, so that’s where we’re headed.
“Are you sure you’re fine?” I ask him as we walk.
“Yes,” he sighs. “I’m even better than yesterday, and I felt fine then. The doctors said I’m good to go. The thing is… they left my bed ready for me, and yours as well. I think they know what we’re in for better than we ourselves do.”
“I don’t think so,” I contemplate. “You don’t need to know much to know we’re in trouble. In fact, that might even be their way of being hopeful- that we’ll still be in one piece and alive because the hospital is better than the alternative.” I don’t continue. We both know all too well what the alternative is. Despite our plan to avoid the thing altogether, I’ve still had more than one nightmare with those vicious, bloodthirsty mermaids.
I turn to another topic. “So, who’s left in this thing?” I ask.
“Well, there’s us, Ham and Sierra, Kat and Jake- the orange team, and Norachai and Felix- team black. Just four teams… but… I have a feeling that this will be the last Challenge.” After that, we stop talking, not wanting to dwell on the concept of death. Although it’s hard to get it out of our minds when we are essentially walking towards our own.
When we arrive at the Square, we merely wait for the sedative that we know is coming. They always knock us out cold before dumping us in the arena, but this time it doesn’t happen. Confused, I look around and spot someone running toward us. I wonder who it is. I don’t get to find out, because there is a quick little prick on my neck and I’m out- again.
*****
We’ve been dumped on a small island. I’m almost blinded by the light when I open my eyes. After blinking multiple times, I can see well enough to realize that all the light is coming from the sunlight reflected off the water surrounding us. The brilliant blue waves sparkle brightly as they slip onto the sand, only to pull back again. Looking around, I can see two more small islands on our right, and one on the left. This surprises me, since they usually put is in a circle with the goal in the middle. This way will be more challenging to find the trident, since we can’t just head towards the center of a circle. Behind us, I see a forest on the horizon, but other than that, the only thing out here is ocean water and contestants.
Once again, Nehru’s voice echoes around us. “Hello! Contestants! This is Nehru speaking! Just so you know, you are in our very largest arena, competing in the Third Challenge. As always, you will be permitted to leave your island only once the gun sounds. After that, well… I haven’t been told what your goal is for this one, so just do as your instructors suggested, I suppose. I hope you each have at least one of your Gifts, and can breathe underwater, because it looks like you’re going to need it! For the moment, just sit still and… ponder, plan, or just procrastinate!” She ends her alliteration with yet another giggle. I’m really getting sick of her pre-Challenge announcements. The bright side to this being the last Challenge is we won’t be likely to hear much from her anymore.
Nathan and I don’t say anything. We’ve already discussed our plan, so there’s no need to go over it now, while the other contestants are listening. So after removing our jackets, we merely wait for the starting gun along with everyone else. Once it goes off, Nathan and I immediately plunge into the water as though anxious to get a head start on the Trident. We do this just to throw off the other contestants so they can quickly get on their way and we can hide.
As soon as we’re under the water, we open our eyes and look around. We quickly find an underwater cave in the dirt and rock under our little island. We swim in, still holding our breath, and watch as the other contestants jump in and swim away. I still don’t breathe, not quite ready to trust the foreign device, but my lungs finally convince me to try. I slowly let out my breath, tense and ready to rush to the surface if it doesn’t work. I watch as the bubbles wiggle toward the surface and carefully breathe in. It doesn’t hurt. It feels normal, amazingly.
I look over and see Nathan cautiously trying it out as well. His face is filled with surprise. “This is so cool!”
“Whoa- I can hear what you’re saying clearly!”
“I know! It makes it so you almost forget you’re underwater!” he grins.
After we get over the shock of being able to breathe underwater, we do what we planned and cautiously head out. We swim slowly because we don’t actually want to find anything, but we know that everyone in the Village is watching us, so we pretend we’re at least doing something.
Soon we decide to have some fun with it. I race Nathan and beat him, but not by much. He has us do a different stroke and we race again, and this time he wins. We have a contest for who can find a purple shell first, and I find one about ten minutes later. We pop up to the surface every now and again to make sure our island is always in sight so we don’t get lost. For the rest of the day, we pretend to look for mermaids while really doing our best to avoid them.
Soon it gets dark and we find another cave that we can sleep in. I tell Nathan that I will stay up and watch for mermaids while he sleeps.
“Fine,” he says. “As long as you wake me up partway through the night so I can take a turn while you sleep.” I agree to his terms, although I doubt that I’ll be able to sleep thanks to the threat of the mermaids. After a few hours, though, I find that I was mistaken as I slowly fall asleep without even noticing.
~~~~~The Merman~~~~~
As soon as the girl falls asleep, the merman outside of the cave reveals itself. The green, fishy creature easily blends in with the plants around it, which is why none of the humans that had entered its domain will ever be able to find it. It grins savagely, displaying its sharp, yellow teeth, finding their ignorance humorous.
It then turns and swiftly swims away from the cave to report to its king all it had learned about these intruders, his fishlike tail propelling him forward with almost no effort. After a while, he comes to a wall of seaweed. Undeterred, the merman swims directly through it. There are jellyfish guards on the other side, but they do not attack the scout, for this is his home; this is where he belongs.
As he swims past the homes of the other mermaids, they all come out and silently watch as he passes. He is practically royalty here, for he works for the King directly- although that isn’t an enviable job what with the King’s mood swings and lack of tolerance for those who disappoint him. He puffs out his slim chest with pride. He has lasted longer than any other servant to the King. He’s going on five months now.
Finally, he reaches the castle. It’s made of stone, for the humans built it long ago and possessed it until it drowned in the sea after an earthquake. Now their King lives and rules within its crumbling walls. The place reeks of fear, but the merman pushes through it and swims up to the top of the building where the King waits f
or his report. When he arrives, he can tell he is the last of the four scouts to return. He quickly heads to his spot, his head lowered in false humility.
When the King asks for a report, one of the other mermen assigned to watch one of the groups of humans swims forward. “The humans wearing red are no threat to us,” he proclaims. “I have observed them all day, and it seems that they are hiding from us. They will not dare approach us.”
“Very good,” the King says. “Next.”
The next merman in line swims forward and delivers his news. “As you told me to do, oh King, I watched the humans wearing black. The girl is timid and scared, but the boy is trying to find us and kill us all, he says. What do you propose we do?”
“Get two others and kill the boy, but leave the girl to warn the humans, once again, that we are not to be trifled with. Go now.”
“Yes, sir,” he says and swims out of the door.
“Next.”
The other merman edges forward, trembling a little. He is the newest of them all- today was his first day. None of the mermen like him much because of the way he talks and because of his constant itching to fight and kill more than necessary. “The- the orange humans I watched, and… the boy respects us, but the girl is angry with us. She thinks that she is better than us. Do I have your permission to kill her?”
The King sighs. “Yes, but only the girl. We just want to get them to leave us alone, so we need to send them a message. Make sure the boy is watching when you kill her,” he finishes. The merman bows.
“Yes, my King,” he accepts. As he swims away, a sly smile creeps over his thin lips.
“And what do you have to report for the purple humans?” The King wearily inquires of the last merman.
“As far as I could tell, they seemed overly at home in the water. They fear and respect us, and yet are not trying to avoid us… or attack us. They seem… almost… like us,” he finishes, flinching as though he expects a blow at the proposed idea. It never comes. When the merman looks back up, the King seems thoughtful.
“Hmm… like us, you say?”
“Y… yes, sir.”
“…Bring them to me. Perhaps through these two, we can forge a friendship with the humans and end our constant wars.”
“…Yes, my Lord,” the merman replies before swimming away to fulfill his wishes, relieved that he had survived yet another meeting with the King.
~~~~~
When I open my eyes, I’m surprised by what I see. I was not expecting to find water over my head. I instinctively start to panic and suck in my breath, holding it. After a few seconds, I remember both why I’m underwater and why I’m not drowning. I release my breath and inhale normally once I remember my breathing device. However, once I remember where I fell asleep, I realize I’m not in the cave anymore.
I suck in a breath too quickly and spin to find Nathan. To my relief, he’s here as well, although he’s still sleeping. I look around to try and figure out where we are, but all I see is seaweed, swaying gently in the underwater current. The water is far overhead, and I wonder if the breathing device helps to reduce the pressure of the water as well.
I still don’t know where we are, so I swim up to the surface and look around. I look as far as I can in every direction, but I can’t see any of the islands we started on. I start to panic and swim back down to Nathan, waking him and alerting him to our predicament. He gets up and looks around as well, but we can’t see very well through the thick seaweed. I then notice that there are parts of the seaweed that don’t move at all; mounds the size of small houses.
I’m about to point this out to Nathan when I see something emerge from one of the mounds. It looks like a large chunk of seaweed broke away and is floating toward me. I narrow my eyes as it approaches. Nathan notices it too. As it comes closer, I blink and it suddenly looks like a small, green child… with a fishtail. My mouth drops open.
“Nathan…” I croak. “Look…” He peers closer at the child and it seems to click for him as well.
“Mermaid,” he whispers. We back away as the little mermaid girl comes closer, but she’s relentless. We finally decide that surely the children won’t hurt us- right?- and stop trying to get away. Behind the girl comes two other children- a small boy and girl. Following them is another small mermaid boy who is waiting and watching curiously.
Nathan and I freeze as the first child comes closer to us, not daring to move. She finally stops just a few feet away and I’m able to see her clearer. She’s the size of your average five-year-old human- except instead of legs, she has a fish-like tail. Her neck has three thin slits on each side that open slightly periodically, as though she’s breathing through them. I realize that these are gills. Her skin has a green tint to it, but her hair is the color of leaves in the fall- in fact, it seems to… shimmer a bit and fade into different shades of red and orange. When I first saw her, it was more orange, but now it’s a deep red as it flows gently around her shoulders. Her bright green eyes are filled with curiosity as she looks me up and down as well. Finally, she speaks.
“You’re weird,” she states.
I smile a little. “So are you.”
“What are you?” she asks.
“We’re people- humans,” I reply cautiously.
“Do you live near here?”
“…In a way.”
“Why haven’t I seen you before?”
“Because… I haven’t ever come this close to your… people before.”
“Oh. Do you like to play games?”
I glance back at Nathan, who shrugs, looking lost. “…Sure.” I reply to her.
“Have you ever played ‘Bite the Shark?”
“No.”
“Really? What games do you play, then?”
“Um… my people like to play tag,” I finally answer, thinking of Kiki running around at a playground, chasing other kids. My heart pangs and I quickly shove the thought out of my head. I had no time to mourn right now.
“What’s tag?” she asks, the two other children coming to a rest right behind her. They look identical to the girl, just a little different in the shades of green, and their hair is similar as well.
“Well, you get together with lots of kids and… well, one person is ‘it,’ and they have to ‘tag,’ or touch, another person, and then they’re it.”
“Oh. That doesn’t sound like fun,” she complains. “Bite the Shark is more fun. You pick five kids to be a ‘shark,’ and then the rest of us are mer-warriors and we attack the sharks before they can destroy the village. The mer-warriors usually win, and they get medals, but sometimes the sharks ruin the village first. I know, we’ll show you!” she exclaims. The excitable little girl then swims around and gathers about twenty other mermaid children. They pick out about six of them to be a shark, and then the game begins. I quickly learn that it’s a very vicious game as Nathan and I watch them chase each other around a designated area, biting each other with their small, sharp yellow teeth. Apparently they have thick skin, though, since they don’t bleed much if at all.
Nathan and I are at a loss for what to do until some other mermaids come out and yell at the kids to come back in and help prepare their meal. The kids whine and groan, but they do as they’re told. This reminds me that I haven’t eaten for a while- we only snacked on what we deemed edible the day before. My stomach growls, accompanied by Nathan’s. We look at each other and laugh a little.
“We should probably find something to eat,” Nathan says. I nod, but am immediately distracted by a sudden swift movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn and see a merman swimming toward us. Nathan and I start backing away and we turn to run- or swim, I guess- away, but we are overtaken by the merman before we can go more than a few feet.
He swims in front of us, halting our retreat. The merman is different from the children we’ve seen, for he is more blue than green. He smiles at us, trying, I suppose, to appear friendly, but his sharp yellow teeth look more frightening and threatening, so we start
backing away again. He quickly stops smiling once he realizes that we’re scared.
“Greetings, humans. I am Gorg, leader of the mer-warriors and main bodyguard of His Majesty.” We don’t reply, just watching him with fear, our muscles tense. “Our King has been most gracious and has invited you to dine with him.” Or dine on us! I think, panicking. I try to swallow my fear and reply.
“I… I’m sorry if we are intruding,” I begin, fishing for an excuse to leave and not meet with the King. “We… we don’t know why we’re here. We… we’ll just leave and not bother you anymore. We are sorry… for disturbing the King.”
The merman looks surprised. “You would deny the King of his offer?”
“Um, no,” I say, seriously thinking that we’re going to be killed now. Apparently not meeting the King isn’t a good move. But I’d still rather never enter his presence. “We… mean the King no disrespect. We just… need to be going now.” Nathan and I continue backing away, but Gorg doesn’t let up.
“I do not think you understand,” he presses. “The King is trying to be nice to you. He noticed humans in our waters and wanted to learn more about them- you- and how you breathe underwater when most humans cannot. It is an invitation rather than a command, true, but it is always wiser to do as the King requests than to oppose him. Those who do… are never heard from again.”
I glance at Nathan, who gives me a slight nod. His face is pale, but his lips are set. He’s determined to see this through and try and survive- no matter what. I take a deep breath and turn back to Gorg. “Then… then we will accept his gracious offer,” I say, sealing our fate.
Gorg leads us to the King’s palace. The whole way there, everything I’ve been told about mermaids flies through my head. The terrifying images of man-eating fish-people just doesn’t quite match with what I’ve seen so far. Sure, the kids like to bite each other, and sure, these creatures have terrifyingly sharp teeth, but… we haven’t had anybody trying to eat us yet, and hopefully that’s not what the King intends to do with us either. Gorg made it sound like we were honored guests, so he shouldn’t eat us, but I guess you never know…
