The sun played across his arms and warmed him as Maanta swam Anna toward shore. The others speckled the water in all directions.
Noah, Japeth, and Shem leapt into the ocean from the beach before him and were calling in greeting as they swam to start pulling people ashore.
Where is Sift? Maanta thought and turned to look to the column of air which still shot up out of the ocean. Mist and sprays of water leapt up where the air spouted up from the ocean. It made the sound of a soft waterfall as it trickled back down across the water. Sift, please be alright and bring Illala and Evanshade safely to us.
Sift’s body burst up in the rising air, somersaulting and soaring into the sky before being tossed to the side and then crashing into the top of the ocean.
Maanta breathed a sigh of relief. Where are Illala and Evanshade though? he wondered. Has something happened to them? Why would Sift come without them?
The column of air lessened and Maanta held his breath. To his relief a slim female figure shot up out of the spout of air but he was horrified to see something small fling from her hands as she twirled unconscious in the sky. “The baby!” Maanta yelled.
Illala dropped to the ocean below with a splash of water that sliced into the sky. Baby Equilious was flying through the air in Maanta’s direction.
He can’t survive a collision with the ocean’s surface! Maanta thought as he let go of Anna’s arm and swam with all his strength toward where baby Equilious seemed to be falling.
The baby’s tailfin flapped in the open air as it plummeted down like a falling star. Its eyes were wide with fear.
Maanta swam a few yards in what seemed like seconds before scooping his hands out to catch the baby in his arms. He attempted to cushion the baby’s fall as much as he could by moving his arms and hands downward as he caught it. Equilious wiggled in his hands and flopped there with his tailfin. Maanta gently set Equilious in the ocean. “I’ll have to keep an eye on you until your mother can again,” Maanta spoke to him.
Blood drifted in the water from Equilious’s tender baby body.
No! Maanta thought. Where is he hurt? Equilious hugged gently to Maanta’s body as Maanta searched him for injuries, but found none.
He then looked at the rising column of air. It sprayed red into the sky until the air ceased to pulse upward and the ocean rippled with waves. A pool of red flowed where the air column had risen up from the water.
Evanshade, Maanta thought. He must have given his life to save Illala and Equilious. He watched the baby wiggling its tailfin and felt its tender body cuddle against his chest. It made him want to have a child of his own one day. He wanted to experience the feeling Evanshade had felt as the father of this child. “Thank you for giving your life for him and us, Evanshade,” Maanta spoke to the open air and hoped that somewhere in the cosmos Evanshade heard him. “I will watch over him, I promise you.”
He swam back to Anna’s side with Equilious cradled in his arms and brought them both to shore. He laid Anna’s unconscious body upon the warm sandy beach and kissed her forehead before heading to Noah’s house, filling his tub, and setting Equilious inside.
For the remainder of the day Maanta, Noah, Japeth, Shem and their wives brought the bodies of the ocean’s people to shore. Most were unconscious but some struggled against them as their bodies squirmed in the sun’s rays.
In the coming months they would feed them, give them drink and teach them how to adapt to the ways of the world of earth and land.