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Church, Christian priest, pool
Holy water filled the pool
Baptised by dunking

The sand squishes between her toes causing her to laugh with a wide smile. Pulling a red bucket closer, she starts to pile the sand into it. The wave raced across the shore, splashing against her as she works. The cold water felt great on the warm sunny day.

The bucket was heavy when she finally lifted it and began carrying it. Wet sand was everywhere on her, but she did not mind. Grinning, she sets the bucket down and kneels beside it. Turning it upside down, she plants it into the sand. Smacking the sides of the bucket a few times, she then carefully lifts it back up. Left behind, was a perfect bucket shaped sand pillar. It blended in nicely with all the other structures she had created.

“That’s a beautiful sand castle, sweat pea.”

She looks up as her father comes over and kneels next to her. He looks the sand castle over and nods to himself. Reaching out to the castle’s top, he puts a tiny abalone sea shell on it. The shiny shell shimmered colorfully under the sun’s light. The girl stares at it in wonder. It was beautiful.

“Hm,” He rubs his beard, “I think it needs more. Let’s go find some.” Standing, he holds out his hand to her.

Her smile grows and she takes his hand.

I'm one hell of a guy
A looker, am I
But there's a catch
Rather -- a patch!
'Cuz I only have one eye

the tide in her voice
and the stars in her eyes
choked up her words
and dimmed her vision

until all she could see
was a perfect
mistake

(This story is totally fictional and I was inspired when I read about Ironman Triathlons. I imagined that Navy Seal cadets would only have the swimming part but they must swim much further than Ironman Triathlon competitors)

The training to become a Navy Seal was intense but the worse was yet to come. The final test of whether we were fit to become a Navy Seal was a ten mile swim to shore! Yes, you read that right. Ten miles! Ten miles with nothing but our own waterproof compass and some of the coastguard’s floating marker buoys to guide us in our swim towards the shore.

There was a large group of Navy Seal cadets. Becoming a Navy Seal was considered to be very prestigious and a large group of candidates had signed up. Unfortunately, none of us knew that the training would be this intense or that it would end with a very long swimming marathon.

We went out in several small ships and were told to jump into the sea and start swimming back to shore when we reached the 10 mile marking point. We were not timed because this was not an Ironman Triathlon and timing was not essential. What was important was that we made our way safely back to shore.

Those ships that dropped us off followed the cadets that they dropped off as they swam towards the shore. The ships picked up the candidates who encountered problems while swimming and gave up. These cadets were considered to have "washed out" of the training. The washed out candidates will be ferried back to dry land when the ships return to port. Unfortunately for them, they've failed the final and most important part of the training and they're no longer navy seal cadets.

I took my time to swim carefully back to shore and prayed that I don't accidentally inhale water or encounter jellyfishes or sharks or experience any other unexpected problems.

Incredible as it might seem, I made it and completed my training. I’m now a Navy Seal!

A brook trickles, calm
Suddenly turns, cascading,
Birthing a river.

Unbelievable!
Swimming pool in starship's gym!
I swam in this pool

Ah Pek sat down on the beautiful sofa and looked at the aquarium in the corner of his living room. A large arowana fish was swimming around in it. Ah Pek stood up and walked towards a smaller aquarium next to it. He scooped up some anchovies and shrimps from that aquarium and closed it. He opened the top of the bigger aquarium and deposited those live anchovies and shrimps into the tank. Even before he closed the tank, the arowana fish was busy chasing after and eating the live anchovies and shrimps.

Ah Pek sighed as he watched the arowana eat its food. The fish belonged to his son Hoong Fa. Ah Pek looked at all the swimming competition medals Hoong Fa had won during his primary, secondary and university schooldays that were hanging on one wall of the living room. Hoong Fa joined the navy after graduating from university. One day the ship he was on was badly battered by the tsunami and sank. Hoong Fa drowned anyways despite being a very good swimmer.

Hoong Fa left behind his parents, his Canadian wife Liana and their Eurasian sons Thomas and Timothy. Hoong Fa had met Liana when he was studying in university in Canada. They married after they graduated and before he joined the navy. China has a one child policy so Hoong Fa was Ah Pek and Ah Maa's only child. Being cancer striken and unable to bear the loss of her son, Hoong Fa’s mother Ah Maa lost her fight with cancer and died shortly afterwards. Liana had taken his grandsons back to Canada but he frequently communicated with them. Tears leaked out of the corners of Ah Pek’s eyes as he remembered his wife and their only son.

A large Asus tablet sat in the centre of the antique table in front of the sofa he was sitting on. The tablet was a present from his daughter-in-law Liana so that he could stay in touch with Liana and his grandsons through Whatsapp video call. He took the tablet from the table and switched it on. He went to the photos folder and flipped through the album of pictures that were taken when he went to Canada to visit Liana, Thomas and Timothy during the spring season last year. He stayed in Canada for two months with Liana, her parents and his grandsons and the six of them had made many trips to the seaside. Thomas loved to swim in the sea and Timothy loved to build sandcastles. Along with group photos of the six of them in various locations and settings, there were many photos of Thomas swimming and surfing near the beach and every sandcastle that Timothy built.

Suddenly the tablet vibrated and made a noise. Ah Pek checked for the cause of the vibrations and noise and was pleased to find an incoming whatsapp video call from Liana. When he accepted the call, he could see Liana, Thomas and Timothy in the screen.

“Grandpa! We’re coming to China…”, Thomas started.

“…to visit you soon!”, Timothy finished. They were identical twins and always completed each other’s sentences. Ah Pek found that behavior amusing and cute.

Liana laughed. “Hi daddy, nice to see you again”, she said to Ah Pek. Liana had always called him daddy after she married Hoong Fa because she said Ah Pek was like a second father to her. “I’m sorry but the cat is out of the bag. Yes, we’re coming to visit you next week.”

“That’s excellent! I’ll prepare the guest rooms for the three of you”, Ah Pek grinned from ear to ear.

Despite the fact that they were coming to visit him soon, they talked until Liana’s tablet started to run out of battery and she had to terminate the call. His daughter-in-law and grandsons were coming to visit him! Ah Pek’s smiled.

Ah Pek looked at the aquarium again. The arowana had finished eating and was now swimming around happily. He was glad he was not a fish. Their lives seemed pointless to him. It seemed to him that the water looked dirty and needed a change. He carefully changed the murky water in the arowana’s aquarium. If a fish could look happier he swore that arowana just did that.

That arowana fish has lived a long time. Hoong Fa bought the arowana when he was a teenager. He said he bought the Arowana fish because it was supposed to bring good luck. Maybe he was right. His daughter-in-law and grandsons were coming to visit him! Ah Pek’s smile became wider and he was no longer sad.

Black Marlin, fastest
Largest Marlin, boniest
Short bill, rigid fins

Struck by massive flood
Atlantis sank beneath waves
Never seen again

There once was a boy by the sea
Who wanted so much to be free
He heard the sea call
And down deep he'd fall
And now he rots in the deep of the sea

S'chn T'gai Suron followed the example of his illustrious grandfather Ambassador S'chn T'gai Spock and entered Starfleet Academy instead of the Vulcan Science Academy. His decision was no longer considered unusual for a Vulcan. Many Vulcans joined Starfleet after Spock led the example.

Cadet Suron encountered a setback when he discovered that he had to pass a swimming test. He came from the Planet Vulcan and it was a desert planet. Vulcan had no lakes or oceans and most Vulcans don't know how to swim. Two of his Terran friends, Cadets Adam and Cassandra offered to teach him to swim and they went to the swimming pool clad in standard issue Starfleet Academy swimming costumes.

Suron stood at the edge of the pool with Adam and Cassandra beckoning him to jump in so they could start teaching him to swim. *Fear is illogical. I must conquer my emotions* , Suron thought as he jumped into the pool. Adam and Cassandra were very good instructors. After six weeks of swimming lessons, Suron learned how to swim. He thanked his friends after he passed Starfleet Academy's swimming test.

Her parents had a weird sense of humor or they weren’t thinking when they named her Cherry Crusher. This shy girl became the butt of jokes and bullying in the small town of New Haven where she lived with her parents Jonathan and Annamaria Crusher and her brother Phoenix Crusher. Her brother was the butt of jokes too but not as badly as her.

Right now the town of New Haven is having a townwide water festival. This festival happens annually. Everyone, old and young are now going around town with their water guns shooting water at each other. A temporary waterpark has been set up in the park in the middle of the town. It has all kinds of waterslides and an enormous inflatable swimming pool.

Cherry bought a simple water gun, filled it with water and used it to defend herself against the other townies who shot at her with their water guns. She discovered that the watergun she bought was quite useless. It keeps getting jammed and she was unable to fire back when that happens. So she took a piece of paper and a pencil and designed a better watergun. Then she set about trying to build it with recyclable materials she found in the house. Having build the watergun, she filled it with water and went outside with it.

Vladimir, the boy who was the biggest bully in town lived next door. She nicknamed him “Dracula” not because of his name but because he was cloaked with an aura of negativity and reeks of evil. He was sitting outside his house and when he saw her he came and tried to soak her with his watergun. Cherry fired back with her new invention and was able to soak him thoroughly before he gave her more than wet hair. Defeated and ashamed, Vlad immediately ran back into his house and slammed the front door.

Other townies ended up getting even more surprised when Cherry discovered that her watergun could shoot two targets at once with minor modifications. Soon, word got around the town of New Haven - “Don’t mess with Cherry this water festival. She’s got a powerful watergun.” No one shot at her with their waterguns anymore. This first success with the improved water gun proved that Cherry Crusher was a genius. Right now, she was only 3 years old. Many other creative inventions build with recyclable materials will be invented by her.

A homeless man floated facedown in the water near the entrance to the sewers. The CSIs photographed the victim before moving him to the crime lab's morgue for Doc Robbins to conduct a post mortem analysis on the dead body. When the CSIs removed the hobo from the drain and turned him over, they discovered something shocking. The hobo had died a grisly death and his face was frozen in terror.

The CSIs combed the area looking for clues and evidence. They found nothing except unusual tracks leading back into the sewers and some strange substance on the ground near the water. It was the Predalien Xenomorph’s saliva but they had no idea about that yet.



“Post Mortem analysis indicated that the man was brutally attacked and killed with unusual weapons. He had some unusual wounds”, Doc Robbins said. "I have never seen anything like them." The CSI team pored through the photographs Doc took of the victim during the post mortem. They had never seen anyone who died with these wounds either.



The Predalien Xenomorph moved through the water filled sewers with surprising ease. It was a cross between an Alien Xenomorph and a Yautja Predator warrior. It found another homeless person wandering around in the sewers and it attacked him. The second hobo was no match for the Xenomorph and died swiftly too.



The second hobo’s body was found near the entrance to the sewers, quite close to where the first body was found. He was floating face up in the water. This hobo had died a grisly death and his face was frozen in terror too. Once again, the CSIs found nothing except unusual tracks leading back into the sewers and some strange substance on the ground near the water.



“Post Mortem analysis indicated that the second man was brutally attacked and killed with unusual weapons just like the first man. He had the same unusual wounds as the first victim”, Doc Robbins said. The CSI team pored through the photographs Doc took of the second victim during the post mortem.

“Both of them died in or near the sewers”, Sara Sidle said.

“Looks like something deadly could be hiding in the sewers", Warrick Brown said.

"Whatever it is we better find it fast”, Dr. Gilbert “Gil” Grissom said to the team of CSIs around the evidence table.

"I do not think it is human and we might have to kill it", Greg Sanders, the CSI's lab rat said.

"Do you have proof, Greg?", Dr. Grissom asked.

Greg showed the team the result of his analysis of the strange liquid substance they found at both crime scenes. "I believe this is the creature's saliva and there are alien micro organisms that are out of this world within it."



The team of CSIs armed themselves with guns and headed back to the area where the two bodies were found. They wore miner’s helmets with headlights to free their hands to hold the guns. They also wore bulletproof vests but that would not protect them from the Predalien Xenomorph that they would find. They drew their guns, flicked the safety off and switched their headlights on. Each CSI carried a spare gun and plenty of ammo for both guns. They went into the sewers to investigate and find the culprit that had killed their two victims. They had no idea what they would find would change their lives forever.



“We have been in the sewers for five hours and found nothing. Whatever it is must have gone elsewhere”, Warrick Brown said in frustration. An ominous shadow crept up along the wall as he was speaking.

Nick Stokes was the first person to notice the Predalien Xenomorph sneaking up behind Warrick Brown. He yelled, "Warrick! Look out!"

Despite being knee deep in sewer water, Warrick pirouetted around and plugged a few slugs into the creature behind him. The Predalien Xenomorph reared backwards in pain and howled. Saliva dripped from its maws and blood spurted out of its wounds. Warrick swiftly moved away from the Predalien Xenomorph and allowed the other CSIs to shoot at it.

The Predalien Xenomorph was no match for the team of CSIs. The CSIs emptied their guns into it, reloaded and fired again and again until the Predalien Xenomorph sank down into the sewer water and died.

"Thank you for that warning Nick", Warrick said.

"No problem, Warrick", Nick said.

The CSIs investigated the creature they had killed.

"Holy s**t! This thing belongs in area 51!", Greg Sanders said.



"Post mortem analysis of the strange creature you guys encountered and killed in the sewers indicated that it was the culprit that murdered the two victims. They were not killed with strange weapons but were bitten to death by the creature", Doc Robbins said. "The tracks found on the ground near both crime scenes were its footsteps and the substance Greg claimed to be the creature's saliva was indeed its saliva."

"I believe we solved this crime. Case closed", Dr. Grissom said and the CSIs and Doc agreed. They went to a good restaurant in downtown Vegas to celebrate being able to close an unusual case.

DeepWater Lake, a 60-word story.

Part 1
Many people drowned in DeepWater Lake including skilled swimmers. John's a toddler. Fell into lake. Drowned. Parents sad. Funeral.

Part 2
John's sister Mary. Born after John drowned. Raised differently. Trained to swim. Saw John's and other people's ghosts in lake.


Part 3
Father Aetna. Vicar. Mary told vicar lake haunted. Father Aetna performed mass exorcism at lake. All ghosts rests in peace.

The End

i had fallen in love at the waterfront
your smile reflected in the waves
your laughter echoing through the coves
and i finally felt at home

enchanted by your form
and tangled in your promises
i failed to notice
that i was drowning

When Dr. Cherry Crusher was still studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the space colonization race begun. After MARS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 were successful and Mars was successfully colonised, many countries wanted to colonise the moon next. Three countries with space programs: The United States, Russia and China decided to collaborate and pool their expertise and resources to colonise the moon together. So the joint U.S. – Russia – China Lunar Program was born. With her unique qualifications, Dr. Cherry Crusher was immediately accepted for the Lunar Colonisation Program when she submitted her application. Coincidentally, the joint U.S. – Russia – China Lunar Program was named the Phoenix Lunar Program. Phoenix, like her brother Phoenix Crusher.

The parts of the Lunar colony space shuttle were build in each of the three countries but the final assembly was at Cape Canaveral where the shuttle would lift off. The shuttle was build in such a way that the Lunar Colonists can cannibalise it for spare parts when they reach the moon. After eight months of construction and testing, the space shuttle was completed. Meanwhile, the people who were chosen to be the space colonists and crew including Dr. Cherry Crusher had been undergoing astronaut training. They were now ready to go Colonise the moon.

Liftoff from Cape Canaveral happened without any issues. Then the shuttle was underway and they reached the moon within a week. The colonists’ shuttle landed safely on the moon. In the first few weeks, the Lunar Colonists build several Biodomes with living quarters, greenhouses and life support for them to live in. Dr Cherry Crusher improved on the designs of the existing biodomes. The structural integrity increased and became safer and the greenhouses were 20% more efficient at generating oxygen and food. Soon they began to try to terraform the moon like their Martian colonist counterparts have been doing on Mars. Dr Cherry Crusher once again proved to be a quite useful colonist as she led the Lunar terraforming efforts.

Now, many years later, there's a thin but breathable atmosphere, some tough plants are able to survive outside the biodome greenhouses and there are lakes on the moon. Those lakes contained fishes from Earth in them such as Salmon, Trout, Carp, Pike and Tuna. The Lunar Colonists are now able to enjoy fishing and sailing on boats and ships in their lakes on the moon.

When Cherry Crusher, the kid with the weird name was 9 years old, she finished high school by skipping many grades during elementary and high school and earned a full scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was very glad to get away from small town New Haven. It wasn’t because New Haven was boring. It was because the town was full of very mean people who made fun of her because of her name. You can’t choose your parents, much less your name.

Her roommate in the co-ed dorm had a weird name too, but not as bad as hers. Jade Goldstein liked to party, swim and listen to loud music. At first, Jade Goldstein didn’t think much of her new roommate Cherry Crusher who was many years younger than her.

“What’s a baby like you doing in a place like this?”, was her initial reaction when they first met when they moved into their dorm room. But when Cherry was able to tutor Jade in Advanced Calculus, a subject she usually had trouble with, she changed her mind and they developed mutual respect.

Jade frequently invited Cherry to go swimming with her in the M.I.T's swimming pool. They also went with their friends to the seaside so they could swim in the sea. One year, Cherry invited Jade to go back to New Haven with her during the town's annual water festival. Both of them had fun blasting the other townies with their two giant water cannons they build out of recyclable materials.

Cherry graduated with a double major Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Quantum Physics, followed by a double major Masters degree in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and a double major Ph.D in Aeronautical and Civil Engineering, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with full scholarships. It took her 1 year to graduate with her bachelor's degree, 1 year to graduate with her masters degree and she completed her doctorate studies and graduated when she was 12 years old. Before and after she graduated, she did a lot of research and wrote many thesis papers and became famous.

The sound of the stone cracking and giving way under him would never leave him. He would have nightmares about the noise; the sensation of falling; the hard impact of the water on his body as he plunged down into the subterranean river, and the freezing cold that sapped even the oxygen from the air, making him gasp like an old man dying of miner’s lung. He would wake up to the sound of his own agonised breath, though he was far away from that place and time of close-to dying.

But the stone had cracked only moments ago. He had a brief second where he thought perhaps he could outrun the damage; leap across it into the safe ground where his quarry stood, staring at him, watching the beginning of his death. They knew what he had come for. They were afraid of him. The small one looked as though she was upset by the danger he was in. Soft heart. Perhaps she may have tried to save him, if she could have. Her companion would never have allowed it, though. Her body was in a protective pose over Soft Heart. The young man, the Thief, and woman with hard eyes like blue stones standing next to Soft Heart looked resolute but sick, as though they watched an execution, some foul and necessary atrocity. Their companion looked horrified.

He was so close to completing his task, fulfilling his mission, fixing his mistake. The Thief was there, right in front of him! The Thief still had the stolen treasure, the precious amulet; he knew it, he could smell it. He must take it back or all was lost!

He was still running when the cave floor fell away beneath him, still trying to work up momentum while every footfall crushed the stone to pebbles and the pebbles to powder. It happened so swiftly that he had no time for a final, desperate lunge, but even if he could have, the leap would not have saved him; the stone between him and the others followed him into the dark as he fell, his legs still working in a parody of escape.

He had no thought now except to deplore how heavy his armour made him. He did not even attempt flight, knowing the pointlessness of trying. The hole he had made in the floor, now the roof, of the cavern was shrinking into the blackness. He would never make it back in time to save his companion. The armour his companion had made for him had killed them both.

The dark of the deep cavern was so intense he could barely see. Pieces of broken stone flashed by him as sensations of movement more than sight. His ears were filled with the whooshing sound of his fall, an urgent sound unlike anything he had ever heard before because he had never fallen this fast or steeply before. It occurred to him briefly in a part of his mind far removed from his present danger that he would never hear the sound again. He felt a little relieved in the instant before the thought flashed out like a starved flame.

Past the sound of his descent, he recognised the sound of a river but a river in no way like the Sar Fiorin which flowed by Harmont Castle, his home. This river was louder by far; the echoes bouncing off the cavern walls and roof made the river sound like an ocean in a typhoon, a ceaseless din, the sound so pervasive and loud that it seemed like a solid thing he could catch at to slow his decent.

The sound did not abate until he fell with breathtaking suddenness into the river and it closed over his helmet. Water flooded his eye and earholes and all the gaps in his full body armour and he could not swim to the surface for air; he was too heavy and the water made him heavier with every moment. Even if he had been free of his armour and able to swim, the river was so fast and violent that he would hardly have been better off.

It was not only the strength of the river or the heaviness of his limbs which were against him; the water was colder than snow; only its constant movement prevented it from freezing solid. The water leeched his warmth and strength as he thrashed and twisted perpendicular to the current, trying to find the wall of the cavern.

He had still not taken a breath since his fall as the river kept him completely submerged and he was tossed along as though at the whim of the wind and he were a leaf, but only if a leaf could think and feel and every changed direction and blast of force made it scream with despair. He did not scream, holding his breath with his precious air, but he wanted to.

When he was crushed against the side of the cavern wall he did not notice any difference between it and the water for a brief moment. He was numb and he could not breathe nor see, but when he realised that his body grated against the wall instead of falling into more water he dug the metal claws of his gauntlets into the stone. He dragged himself by degrees, every distance gained after shoving his claws into the stone like handholds, in the direction he thought was up. He supposed that anything was better than remaining where he knew he was underwater and after much effort which felt like it took much longer than it actually did, his head broke the surface of the water.

He blew the remaining stale air out of his nostrils in a spray of accompanying water from inside his helmet and breathed in through his mouth. The air was icy. It bit the back of his throat as though he had swallowed glass. He was used to pain. He breathed again.

Above the water he could barely see to make out his surroundings, but it was an improvement to the complete blindness he had experienced underwater. He saw the scratches he had made in the wall in his struggle to the surface and could have laughed; he had travelled diagonally, almost sideways, in a laughably ineffective process. Still, he had saved himself from drowning for the moment.

He could breathe now, even if he was too cold to be comfortable drawing in a breath and the air itself seemed to cut him on the way down, but he was not safe. His hold was precarious and the walls of the cavern had been worn smooth by the passage of the river and so offered nothing to aid his grip. He looked around, straining his eyes to see past the water dripping down his eye holes and the spray kicked up from the river dashing itself against him.

Downstream, there was an odd protrusion from the cavern wall, like the rudder coming off a ship. It was larger than he was and he thought if he let himself slide across the wall he could trap himself in the small angled space between the wall and the protrusion. He had nothing to lose and no better plan, so he loosened his hold on the wall and allowed the current to pull him along, scraping his claws as he went to prevent the river snatching him and carrying him past his goal.

He reached the protrusion after some time; he could not have said if it had been one minute or an hour, and dug his claws into the stone again, wedging his back into the corner made by the wall and the protrusion, but it was not much of a refuge. Water twisted around him like it was boiling in a pot, caught in his shelter as a pool, swirling until it rejoined the current and flowed away. As he was pressed hard against it, he found that the protrusion, while made of stone, was not the same stone as the walls and was shaped into a flat wall; a gate in the river.

Now that he was close enough, he could see that there was another gate on the other side of the river. He wondered if somebody lived here and if it was worth calling for help. He immediately decided against taking the effort to try. He could never be heard over the roaring of the river.

He tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling, at what had been the floor of the tunnels he had raced through after his quarry, and found he could not see the stone above him. It astounded him that the mountain rage which was considered the stabiliser and fortification of his kingdom, the very teeth of the earth, were hollow. There were mines in the northern mountains, and there were passages through the eastern mountains to the outside world, but the southern mountains, where he supposed he still was, were supposed to be uninhabited and impassable. The western mountains were said to be beautiful and fruitful, but he had never been there to see for himself.

His mind was wandering. He did not know how long he had daydreamed about mountains. He forced himself to live in this present moment, terrible as it was. He could not let himself lose his focus or he would lose his hold on the stone; he may even be swept out of his tiny sanctuary. He could barely feel any parts of his body now, and he tested his grip to see if he could still move his gauntlets. To his horror, which he was astonished to find could exceed even his current situation, he found that his claws were stiff and took much strength to move in the armoured joints. The careless way his armour had been cleaned and maintained for so long was showing and the water did not help. He grimly gouged his claws back into the wall and held on. He had no idea what else to do.

He was, for once, glad of the injury to his lip as he did not have to work his jaw to drink. He simply lowered his head and allowed the water to trickle into his helmet through the mouth and sucked it in between his teeth where his upper lip was pulled up away from his lower lip by the thick scar which twisted up his face. It was horribly cold and he felt sharp spikes of pain up through his teeth but at least he would not die of thirst in a river of fresh water. That would be a foolish end to a long life where he had survived so much…

He came to alertness again slowly. He had slept, or perhaps dozed. Try as he might, he was too cold and filled with fear to keep his mind on his circumstances. He knew if he slept he would die, but he could not keep himself totally focused on clinging to the wall, to keeping his head above the river.

He jerked his body suddenly and then cursed himself; he had gone off in some thoughts and only just realised it, but the sudden movement to recollect his mind could have loosed his hold on the wall. He tried to corral his thoughts and found himself thinking of his fate. Would he die when his strength failed and he fell into the raging river? Would he drown downstream, or would he sink and remain at the bottom here, beneath these ugly, forsaken mountains? Would it be quick and cold?

Or, he wondered with ever deepening dread, would his armour be so stiff by that time that even if his grip failed he would be stuck to this wall, unable to move, unable to drown, and die of exhaustion or starvation. If any living creature passed this way, would they find his armour still clawing at the wall, with his bones inside it?

“No!” he roared, or tried to. His voice was hoarse and it tore out of his tender throat. “NO!”

He wanted to thrash around, to fight against that horrible end, but he was stuck, he had no options, and to move from his life-preserving posture might cause him to drown early. Instead, he forced himself to breathe evenly. He realised it was more difficult to control his breaths due to his shivering. He had not noticed before.

He pressed his forehead against the stone. “I don’t want to die here,” he muttered. “I want to die restfully, like I was going to sleep after a long, beautiful day.” He squeezed his eyes closed and then opened them wide again, his jaw as tight as he could make it in his helmet.

“My death will not be an oblivion of nothing after a nightmare I never woke up from! I will not die here!” His voice rose in volume as he thought about things he had never before considered and gave voice to the secret longings in his heart.

“I want to experience some happiness in my life before it’s over!” he cried and he realised that he was actually crying. He had not cried for a very long time.

He thought of Soft Heart with her companion standing protectively over her. He wished he could have loved his companion like that. Maybe not his companion, but another companion. Somebody who was better… somebody who could have loved him back. He thought of Eloae Mire and shook his head.

He wondered how much time had passed. He was not hungry, though he might have been and was too cold to feel it. He also did not feel it when his companion died. He knew it must have happened as it seemed like long past the time by which he had been instructed to take back the amulet and restore his companion to vitality. He was sorry for his failure; he had tried so hard to follow orders, to serve as he knew he must.

He wondered if there was any point to escaping this place with his companion gone. Who would want to be with someone like him? Like it or not, his companion had shaped him to be a tool fit for his hands alone. No new person would want a used up… scarred… scared old creature… like him. Not even Eloae Mire. Especially not her.

Perhaps he was crying again and he was seeing things, but he thought he saw something like starlight far above him, but not as high as the ceiling of the subterranean river cavern. It could not be starlight, of course; no night had ever been as black as the dark beneath the mountain. It was too close to be starlight, and too large. It was a strange thing to hallucinate.

The lights seemed to move, like true stars, but they came and went and even went completely dark at times. He watched them idly. At least they were better than staring into the dark. They could not be stars. Perhaps Death could not find him so deep under the ground and was looking for him. His thoughts drifted and he felt his eyes close.

He opened his eyes again a minute or an hour later. The lights were still above him. If the lights were Death, that creature was taking his time in coming. He started to consider if it were not something worse. He had heard tales told of the Shadow Man, a terrible fiend which looked like a man but stretched long, with white, grasping limbs, and he would take victims and kill them if he knew their name.

He shuddered, his shivers making the motion unintentionally violent. Nobody now would remember his true name, surely? Even his companion would not have betrayed him to the Shadow Man, no matter how angry he might have been… Surely…

The river seemed quieter now. He could not recall if it had happened suddenly or even how long it had been this way. The water no longer smashed him into his corner, but flowed past him more gently. He noticed he was higher up the wall, though he did not remember climbing. He thought he could hear voices above the sound of the water, but he could not make any meaning out. He dismissed it. He was probably already dying.

He slipped a little down the wall, scraping as he went, and jerked his head up to fix his hold. The river had fallen even further. He was not alert enough to wonder how it could be, nor could he regulate his mind to think about anything. He was far too weary.

More sounds were coming from above and behind him. Sounds like voices, but also sloshing, spraying sounds. The lights were closer, or there were more of them, and there were lights on the river. He supposed Death had found a way down to him after all.

The lights came closer to him. He squinted against them as they burned his sensitive eyes. He could hear something like wood creaking. He was certain he could hear voices now, but whether or not they were real voices or voices in his head, he could not have said. He simply ignored them, trying to keep focused on clinging to the wall while the water level dropped lower and lower.

Suddenly, the gate he had wedged himself against began to move away from him. It swung to meet its pair on the other side of the river, closing tightly together and cutting off the current. He yelled in distress and clung on grimly, hunching his shoulders more stiffly now that he was not pressing his back into the gate.

“Alive! I can’t believe it!”

That definitely had been a voice. He opened his eyes and peered upstream. The water had risen again after the gates closed and now he could see why; there was a wide barge coming slowly down the river and the gates were closed to prevent it from going too far in the current. The people on the barge held lights and waved them in a way which made him think they were communicating with the lights far above him. He considered that perhaps there were people above who had closed the gates.

The barge came up beside him and rested against the closed gates. The people on board tried to speak to him, but he was too tired to listen or respond. The water was creeping up his body and it took all of his effort not to shiver himself off the wall.

After some time, two men holding a rope dropped into the water. He felt them slide the rope around his chest and tie it. He heard them talking to each other and to him, but he could not make out any words but one, repeated over and over. Shryylyth.

The word worked itself into his mind when nothing else had. It was a Dragonish word, or a Dragonish name. He did not know much of Nalir, the Dragon Tongue, anymore, having had nobody to speak it with for so long, but even he could understand the meaning of the name these people had given him. Shryylyth meant ‘wanderer’.

The bargemen were calling to the men in the water. The men in the water were speaking to him. He could not understand. He was too tired. They touched his claws. He realised they meant for him to release the wall. He was not sure if he could. He had a rope around him and the river gate was closed so he was in no danger with rescue at hand, so he tried to release his hold. His gauntlets did not move. He felt the blunt edge of a wave of despair. He could not loosen his grip.

The men beside him pulled but the water took all of their strength. One swam to the barge and back with a mallet with a broad head and beat it on the stone wall to no use; the mallet would have been effective against the wood for which it was intended, but the wall was solid and unshakeable.

He seemed to have the same thought at the same time as the men beside him. The only thing to do with the mallet which would part his claws from the stone would be to use the mallet on his own gauntlets. The man with the mallet did not want to do this. The other man took the tool, held it ready above the right gauntlet and hesitated. The man looked at him. He lifted his helmet up a fraction and then dropped it down in a nod.

The mallet did not hurt when it came down; the freezing river and the armour took the pain. The vibration and the shock of the sudden blow jolted his claws out of the scratches they had made in the wall and his arm dropped numbly into the water. The men in the water and on the barge cheered. The mallet came down on his left gauntlet, but it did not come loose immediately. The second man pressed his shoulder into the wall and thrust his arm up under the gauntlet to pull it free but with no success.

The rope around his chest began to tighten. He realised the men were going to try and pull him off the wall. He tried to relax. The two men in the water with him pushed at his shoulders. Slowly, his claws came out of their recesses and as his left arm fell to his side he was immediately completely dependent on the rope to keep his head above the water; without it, he would have dropped like a stone.

The bargemen had done their work well, though, and they were very close beside him. They had the rope around pulleys on a frame so he was not pulled horizontally but vertically. This was for the best as he had no strength to even attempt to scramble out of the water onto the barge. He was almost unconscious with strain by the time they finally heaved him out of the water and into the centre of the barge so he did not notice the two men who had helped him in the water climb out, or the pole men beginning to shove the barge back upstream, or even when the water gates slowly reopened and the river current picked them up and carried them downstream.

He did notice, however, when someone tried to remove his helmet. He hissed in discomfort. The person tried again, but the armour would not move. He knew it would not come off.

“Horrible,” he heard them say. “It’s bolted onto his head. He couldn’t get it off himself if he wanted to.”

That was true. It also seemed to be true that he was safe. He let himself sleep finally, freezing cold and wet on a damp barge on a subterranean river under strange mountains and surrounded by unknown people. He had never been safer in his entire life.

When he woke up, his armour had been removed and he was swaddled in blankets like an infant. The room was too bright and he squinted around to make out the shapes around him. The lights immediately dimmed and he blinked away the bright spots in his sight.

“We didn’t mean to blind you, Shryylyth,” said a man close to him. He had his hand on some kind of lamp. “My name is Alard.” He had a soft, soothing voice.

There were other men in the room, but they were standing well back from Alard. They did not seem frightened. They may have been giving Shryylyth some space.

Shryylyth pushed himself up as far as he could, which was not far, and coughed. Water came up and soaked a blanket. Alard calmly waited for him to finish coughing, then picked up the wet blanket, wiped Shryylyth’s mouth with a dry spot, and handed the blanket to one of the people behind him.

“Where am I?” Shryylyth gasped. He tried to clear his throat but it was raw. He swallowed. “Who are you people?”

“You are in the mountains west of Montabor,” Alard answered. “This is the land called Barahuaenhull- Dragonhome. We are the Dragonari and we live here.”

There was a cup of something steaming nearby. Now that Shryylyth had noticed it, he could not pay attention to anything else. He did not care what it was, only that it looked hot. Alard picked the cup up and helped Shryylyth to drink the weak soup it held, wiping Shryylyth’s mouth when the soup leaked out from his pulled up lip when he swallowed. The warm soup soothed his throat and he spoke with less effort.

“How did you find me?”

One of the men in the back, larger and brawnier than the others, answered, “The river is monitored for blockages and debris. When the cavern roof fell in, river workers went to check it and found you on their way.” He stuck his thumb through his belt in a very workmanlike manner.

Shryylyth nodded. He wanted to know how long he had been in the river, but he decided he didn’t care to ask such a thing right then. “Why do you help me?” he asked instead.

“You are in need. Besides, any of your kind who comes to this place is under out protection, by our ancient law,” replied Alard.

This could not be right. If these were people who were sworn to help his kind… then he was not a welcome guest. “Don’t you know me?” he asked in a gravelly and weary voice.

“Of course we do,” answered Alard simply. “You are the King of Montabor’s dragon.”

Shryylyth closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “Not anymore.” He swallowed against a thick knot in his throat. “My companion- he must be dead by now.”

There was a long silence in which the men looked around at each other, communicating without words. Two of the men in the back hurried out of the room. Alard touched Shryylyth’s yellow-scaled hand in a comforting way. The human’s hand barely covered two of Shryylyth’s knuckles.

Shryylyth did not want undeserved comfort from these people. He pressed his hard lips together and spoke quietly, confessing; “I have hurt my kind.”

“We know.”

Shryylyth did not understand. “Then why did you save me?”

Alard looked as sad as Shryylyth felt, and possibly even as hopeless. “You are the last dragon of Montabor.”

Shryylyth thought of the people he had pursued, of Soft Heart, Stone Eyes, and the Thief, and of their companions. He remembered Soft Heart’s companion holding her in check with a scarlet scaled arm, watching him with her heavy head lowered, presenting her long horns to him as a threat and warning. The companion of Stone Eyes and the Thief, a green male with his frill smoothed against his neck in distress, but with muscles gathered in preparedness to fling himself in front of his friends to protect them if need be.

He looked steadily at Alard with his bloodshot eyes. “Not anymore,” he repeated.