Chapter Thirty One
Visola was trapped on the upper side of the opening. The boat was still pulling us both down, further away from the surface, towards the sea floor. We were both trapped, and I wasn’t going to let go. Every biological instinct in my body urged me to let go of her arm and swim upwards, so that I could survive. But I wasn’t going to leave Visola to die. I couldn’t just let her be dragged down towards her doom.
Using her arm, I pulled myself towards her, and then wrapped my arms around her waist, tugging her away from the metal wall. I pushed my feet against the side of the opening and pulled as hard as I could, but my right foot slipped and it was impaled by another large piece of metal. I screamed as the steel sliced through my flesh, and then I realised that I was going to drown alongside Visola. The boat continued to plunge downwards, and it was almost completely black, as Niyol’s illumination began to disappear from my view. I wriggled around, trying to free my sister and myself, but we were both stuck.
I began to panic. I needed air. I couldn’t breathe. My head began to feel light, and the strength dropped from my arms. I didn’t want to let go of Visola, but I could no longer hold onto her. Everything was fading…
Suddenly, I felt a strong grip tighten around my waist, and a huge force pull me backwards several times. I held steadfast onto Visola and within seconds, we were both free from the ship, my foot tearing away from it painfully. We were now floating in the ocean, the boat plummeting away from us as it hurtled towards the briny deep. Gamba then grabbed my left arm and dragged us upwards, towards the light. I kicked my legs as hard as I could to help propel us forward, all the time clinging onto my sister, who hung lifelessly in my arms.
A strong water current pushed upwards, underneath us, and I knew that Shasa was helping to speed us to the surface. Everything was beginning to go white, and my lungs told me that I had to breathe in, or else I would die…
The night air was warm on my freezing face, and I inhaled it in as quickly as possible. Gamba let go of me, and as I regained my vision and as my head began to become clearer and less spotty, he scooped Visola out of my arms and held her head out of the water.
“What the hell…?” Niyol cried out, his eyes now back to normal. He and his sisters, along with Shasa, doggy paddled like crazy over to us. Gamba saw the open wound in Visola’s chest, and burst into loud sobbing tears.
“Vee…” he mumbled sadly, pushing his face against hers tenderly.
“NO!” Shasa screamed uncontrollably, “NO!”
“You’ve got to do something!” Aura cried out, at no one in particular, “You can’t just let her die!”
Niyol peered towards me, but my head was still in a muddy haze, and I was struggling to stay upright in the ocean waves. “You can fix her, like you fixed me!”
I nodded slowly, acknowledging that I could help my sister, but I was so tired…
I slipped under the water, the calm cold enveloping me. As I sunk down, I decided that perhaps it was time to just give up. It was time to rest…
Once again, someone grabbed my waist and pulled me upwards, and my head bobbed out of the salty sea. I lay back, unable to move my body. I just needed a quick break…
I knew that Shasa was holding me, as I felt her heart beating next to mine, and her chest move up and down quickly.
“You three!” She called out, her voice pummelling my eardrums, “Blow the wind towards the shore. I’ll do the rest.”
Even though my eyes were shut, I knew that the Ventus were compliant. A strong breeze began to blow, which quickly turned into a bellowing storm. The water beneath my body rose upwards, and it felt as if we were riding a wave back to Malabo. I opened my eyes to see what was happening, and sure enough, the seven of us were on the crest of a huge wave, and were hurtling back towards the harbour. The city lights were dazzling as they twinkled brightly, and I wondered if this would be the last thing I would ever see. As I closed my eyes, hearing the thundering wind and roaring waves crashing around us, I saw Captain Harris lying there, on the boat, dying. He smiled up at me, and then shook his head.
“You can save her,” he told me, continuing to smile. And I knew that he was right…
Still lying in my sister’s arms, and being propelled by a massive tidal wave, I concentrated on my own body. I could fix myself. Whatever was wrong with me, I could sort it out. I was surrounded by the salty sea water, and I knew that I could use it to restore my body, and my mind.
First, I focused on my foot, bringing the frothy pieces of waves that were spilling over it into my tissue, and using the molecules to suture my flesh back together. The salt water stung for a second, but once I had sewed my muscles and skin back together, the pain stopped. Then the second thing I had to do was to pull myself out of this state of exhaustion: but I didn’t know how to do that. I had only fixed wounds before; I didn’t know if I could cure fatigue. I opened my mouth, and my eyes. I saw Shasa hovering over me, looking like a warrior riding the wave as her chariot, a determined expression fixed on her face. Curls of smaller waves splashed over us, and I swallowed them down, then focused on ending my light headedness. I didn’t know exactly what to do, but I just concentrated on feeling well again, and within seconds, my head was completely clear, and I felt perfectly normal.
I leapt out of Shasa’s arms, which probably wasn’t a sensible thing to do, because as I did so, I fell from the crest of the wave all the way down into the bottom of it, instantly being sucked under the water by the strong tide. I swam through the ocean, being pulled by a force that brought me back up to the surface, floating next to my sister, who raised her left eyebrow at me in disdain.
“Sorry!” I muttered, but my voice couldn’t be heard over the sounds of the crashing wave, which was now almost at the harbour.
The wave began to get smaller as we approached the shore to the left of the port, and the raging wind also began to grow weaker. I braced myself as the wave crashed down onto the sandy beach, and Shasa allowed it to die away so that we all landed on our feet and weren’t swept back out to sea. My feet squished into the wet sand, and as soon as I got my footing, I quickly turned to help Visola.
Gamba, who continued to hold Vee in his arms, was still sobbing quietly. I could see that her chest was still moving, but she was taking short shallow breaths. She was going to die.
“Put her on the floor!” I ordered him, pointing next to the tide, so that water could wash over her and into her wound.
“Why?” he snapped, his red raw eyes glaring at me with hate.
“JUST DO IT!” I screamed at him, running over to him and trying to take Vee out of his arms so that I could save time. He pulled her away from me, and then placed her gently on the sandy shore, the sea water gently moving underneath her body. Her thick dreads moved slowly with the tide, and her face looked drained of colour.
I knelt down next to her, and heard Shasa, Niyol, Sefarina and Aura all rush over to see what I was doing. Gamba also knelt down, but on the other side so that he was directly opposite me.
“What are you going to do?” he cried.
Niyol shushed him carefully. “Just let him do it.”
“Do what?”
I ignored my brother, instead focusing on the gaping hole in my sister’s chest. I closed my eyes and reached inside with my mind, feeling the damaged organs, the broken bones, the torn muscles and fractured flesh. It was going to be a lot of work, but I knew I could do it. I had to. I placed my hands over the wound, and concentrated. I called the sea water, which flowed gently underneath her body, to rise up and fill the large puncture. I urged the tiny water molecules to attach onto the torn fragments of flesh, and then transform themselves into human cells that could then weave together to fix the damage. I felt the bones begin to reform, and the muscles surrounding them reattach. Blood began to fill the spaces between, and the flesh started to bind everything in place, and close the open wound.
I heard my siblings and the Ventus Trio gasp with shock an
d awe as they watched me work, and as soon as I was finished, I opened my eyes and looked down at my sister’s perfectly unharmed body. I had done it. I had saved her.
“Why didn’t…? Why didn’t you…?” Gamba stuttered.
I shrugged. “No one ever asked.”
Gamba reached down, smiling, and scooped Visola up into his arms again to hug her, but her body was limp. He pulled her away in horror, staring down at her.
“She’s not breathing!”
My eyes grew wide. I had never even thought about that fact that I could heal her wound, but not actually save her. Tears began to fall from my eyes as I realised that this was a repeat of Captain Harris’ fate.
I had failed. My sister was dead.
“Move out of my way!” Aura yelled, pushing Gamba to one side and straddling Visola’s body. Aura pushed her ear against my sister’s chest and listened carefully.
“Her heart has stopped…” She then entwined her fingers and placed them onto Visola’s chest, pushing down hard to get her heart pumping again.
“Come on!” She cried out, pressing her hands up and down quickly. I shook my head in shock. She was going to die. The Inimicus had killed my sister. I thought about Aura’s mother, and what I would do to her if I ever saw her again. She deserved to be punished. And then I remembered what Shasa had done to her earlier on…
And then it hit me. I jumped to my feet, and grabbed Shasa’s shoulders tightly. “You can do it!”
She stared at me emptily. “You and me… You with your head thing… You control organs too, right?”
She nodded slowly, not understanding me. “You hurt her brain right? You can manipulate organs, correct?” Shasa nodded again, beginning to see where I was going with this.
“Can you start her heart? Can you use your water powers to save Visola?”
She shook her head. “I can only, I can only…”
“Please!” Gamba cried out, “You’ve got to try!”
Shasa looked back at me, determined, and then dropped to her knees.
“Please Lord help me now more than ever!” She prayed, signalling to Aura to stop.
“I can’t stop once I start!” Aura told her, and Shasa allowed her to continue.
I knelt down, watching Shasa as she concentrated hard, hovering her hand over Visola’s body. I turned to Niyol and Sefarina.
“You’ve got to get air into her lungs!” I told them. They looked confused, as if they didn’t know what to do. “You can do it!” I urged them, and then turned back to see what Shasa was doing. She shook her head.
“I can only stop them…”
“NO!” I screamed, pointing my finger in her face, “No, you’re wrong! You can start it! Just smack it! Smack it as hard as you can with your mind! Save your sister!!”
She gritted her teeth and then pushed Aura to one side, and slapped Visola’s chest as hard as she could.
“Come on Vee!” She screamed, slapping down again, and then raised her right hand so that it hovered over her sister’s chest. Shasa’s hand shook, and her eyes narrowed as she tried her hardest to concentrate.
“ARGH!” Shasa screamed out, falling backwards. The air pressure seemed to change, and then a large wad of air smacked into Visola’s face, and she immediately sat up, inhaling loudly and then collapsing into the sand. Gamba caught her in his thick arms, and began to laugh loudly, continuing to cry.
“Visola!” He screamed merrily. Aura stood up and hugged her brother and sister, who were also both delighted, and Shasa hugged me.
Gamba propped Visola up against him and she looked around at all of us, slowly. Her eyes moved from one person to the next in confusion, and then she looked down at the sandy beach.
“How the hell did we end up here?”