No one was really talking to each other, except for my mysterious savior. He was near the front of the pack, chatting it up with another guy and a pretty girl with long, dark hair. She giggled a lot and kept touching his arm. I hated her on principle, alone.
I took out my phone, which of course was now wet, but I’d wrapped it in plastic before I left, so it wasn’t completely damaged. The time said it was 2:55 a.m. We were all cutting it close. I wondered what everyone was waiting for. Maybe I had got it wrong, and there really was a boat coming for us, which would mean I made an even bigger fool out of myself then I needed to.
The guy standing next to me frowned. “Are you wet?”
“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Each to their own, I say.” He said it with such conviction that I smiled. He returned my smile then it faded a bit. “Are you scared?”
“Hell no.” I peered at him, taking in his lanky frame and perfectly coifed jet-black hair. “Are you?”
He scuffed his converse sneaker on the dock. “Nah, I’m ready for the academy.”
Except he didn’t look all that ready. In fact, none of the people on the dock looked ready. Except for maybe mystery guy. He seemed ready for anything; he had that kind of confidence about him.
Almost everyone flinched when twenty-some alarms sounded on twenty-some cell phones. It was three o’clock. One by one, people leapt off the pier and into the water. It was more like a mass exodus then single file. When I got to the edge, I dove in as well.
This time, I knew where to go. I just followed the swimmer in front of me, as we all dove down. It was dark and murky, extremely difficult to see anything in any direction. But then up ahead, I spied a soft white glow. Everyone’s course adjusted, and they swam toward the light.
The closer I got to the light, I saw that it was a blue-white cylinder hovering in the middle of the vast dark ocean like a giant glowing worm. It was a portal. This was how we were all going to get to the academy.
Each person who reached the portal ahead of me breached the barrier and was swept up into it. It looked they were being sucked up through a large, white straw. Maybe one of the Titans was having a delicious cool glass of water, and we were the dirt specks getting drunk along the way.
As I got nearer, my heart hammered in my throat and my lungs burned. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold my breath. Slowly, I reached out to the portal. My fingers pushed through the barrier, and I could feel the suction on my hand. If I weren’t careful, my fingers would be ripped off from the force.
Here goes nothing.
I kicked my legs harder, propelling myself forward, and was instantly engulfed by the whirlpool. I hurtled along inside the portal, my body spinning around and around. It was hard to focus on anything, as I was spun like cotton candy.
The guy who’d been standing beside me did a couple of somersaults in the water as he hurtled by me, a huge smile on his face. While I watched him, something just on the edge of the portal drew my attention. Squinting, I could see a dark form moving beside the portal, just outside of its boundaries. Was it some kind of ocean creature, curious about the whirling dervish of water?
Except it was moving too fast to be natural.
I kicked my legs to move a little closer to the edge of the spout. I peered out into the darkness, flinching backwards when the water seemed to gaze back at me. Coldness crept through me, as if something had sliced into my very soul. Someone was out there, moving as quickly as the portal. Curious, I reached out with a hand, the tips of my fingers piercing the veil between ocean and portal.
Then I was sucked out of the vortex. Tossed out like week old garbage.
Panicked, I thrashed around in the cold water, twisting to my left and right, trying to get my bearings. I couldn’t see anything around me. The light had vanished. I was alone. My lungs burned. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I was going to drown in the void of the ocean. No one would ever find my body. Sophia would never know what happened to me. I’d failed before I even got a chance to start.
My chest hurt so badly, I couldn’t think beyond it. I had to open my mouth. I had to swallow in the water, let it absorb me. Maybe it wouldn’t be too painful to drown; maybe it would all be over in a matter of minutes, if I just succumbed.
A split second before I opened my mouth, I felt strong hands on me. They whipped my body around until I came face to face with the guy who had pulled me out of the water at the pier. He cupped my face with his hands, then leaned in, and pressed his lips to mine. Confused, I didn’t know what was happening until I felt the pressure in my head and chest alleviate as he blew oxygen into my body.
Then he grabbed my arm and kicked hard with his legs. A minute later, I was dragged out of the water and up onto a rocky shore. Sputtering and spitting out liquid, I rolled onto my side. Blinking back black spots, I saw we’d come up into a large cave. The rock walls sparkled with some kind of quartz. Thick, sharp looking green-stained stalagmites hung down from the ceiling, dripping water onto the stone floor near me. The plip-plop of the drops echoed off the walls and floor. Beyond them, I could see a large opening where blue and green light beams seemed to dance around.
“Wow, who let her in?”
I blinked away water to see the girl with the long, dark hair snickering at me. Her companion, a plump girl with short blonde hair, shook her head. There was no hiding her disdain. “Her face is as blue as her hair.”
I tried to sit up, but my body wasn’t behaving. All my limbs felt weighted down. They were too heavy to lift. It was like having swimmer’s cramps everywhere at once. This time the guy didn’t offer his hand to me, he just yanked me to my feet, none too gently, either.
“Don’t look so sad, Blue, you’re not dead.” He bopped me on the nose with his finger. “Not yet, anyway.” He tipped his head then joined the girl with the dark hair and her friend. Together, they walked deeper into the cave toward the opening.
For a split second, I thought about running after him to thank him for saving my life, but I was already mortified about what had happened. I didn’t want to give his spite-filled companions an opportunity to run me down even further. So, I just got in line with everyone else as they trudged toward the cave opening. We all looked like drowned rats marching through a sewer.
The guy who had been standing beside me earlier fell in step with me. “Are you okay?”
“Oh yeah, peachy.”
“I’m Ren, by the way.”
“Melany.” I offered him a small smile.
As the opening drew nearer, nerves started zinging through me. This was it. There was no turning back now. A few more steps and I would be completely committing to join the Gods’ Army. And the only way out was either by expulsion or death. There was no leaving on one’s own accord.
I stepped through the mouth of the cave and into a whole new world. Literally.
The sky was a color of blue I’d never seen before, as bright as a robin’s egg. The only clouds in sight hovered in a perfect circle over the massive gray stone building that couldn’t be anything other than the academy itself. Sharp spires rose into the sky from round turrets located at all four corners. Large arched windows peppered all three levels of the building. The stain-glassed windows cast beams of green and blue and yellow onto the ground, like lasers.
The wide cobblestone path leading up to the school was lined with spindly trees whose branches should’ve contained green foliage, but instead were bare. Nothing could possibly grow from the ashen limbs. To the right was a large hedge maze, the entrance guarded by two stone soldiers, their swords raised to fight.
While we walked up the path, Ren audibly swallowed, as he quickly glanced at the statues. “I heard all the stone statues around the academy were once people, turned to stone by the fierce gaze of Medusa. The rumor is if you hear the hiss of snakes, then she’s nearby, and you’ll be turned to stone next.”