Day 5

I found a health potion in my bag and drank it before I fell asleep. I hoped that it would help me. When I woke up hours later, I did feel better. That was a relief. Last thing I wanted to deal with was a headache during whatever adventures today brought.

Alex was still asleep but I gently shook him awake, “Hey, we should get going.”

We shared the food I had tucked away in my bag and decided to walk down the hallway into the temple. Alex didn’t have any weapons on him so I went first just in case something jumped out at us.

The hallway was long. The walls were smooth and torches lit the way. Alex looked around nervously. I tried to hide the fact I was worried too. What was going to be on the other side of the doors?

We stopped in front of the doors and Alex glanced at me, “Well…you open it.”

“What? You open it.”

“You’re the one with the sword!” Alex gestured towards the door, “Come on. I can’t even remember how I got here.”

“So? But surely you can remember how to open doors.”

Alex nudged me forward and shrugged. I sighed. The idea of going through the door first didn’t exactly fill me with joy. I sighed and pushed against the door. It took a second but it slowly opened, dragging across the floor. Anyone on the other side would be alerted to the fact we were coming in.

Clutching my sword, with Alex ducking behind me, we stepped into the new room.

Nothing leapt out at us. Not right away, anyway. The sun shone through the glass ceiling. The room had an empty fountain in the middle. There was more seaweed and algae all over the walls and floor. There were more doors along the walls.

“This place is amazing,” Alex whispered behind me, “Was it brought up from the ocean?”

“I think so. I think someone or something brought it up during the storm.” I replied as we started walking around the room.

Alex stopped to look up at the glass ceiling, “I can’t imagine this being at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Well, the most important thing right now is to find a way out of here. At the very least, maybe we can figure out why you were brought here.” I said as I considered the fountain.

It was dry and filled with barnacles. Nothing stood out at me. I felt like I was missing something but what could it be?

“Alright, well, stick close to me,” I said to Alex who was already wandering off, “WE can’t get lost. Not until you have a weapon, anyway.”

“Even then I’d rather stay around you.” He admitted.

I laughed and shook my head. We decided we’d start opening the doors and see where they led. Most of the passageways had collapsed, making it impossible to get by them. I opened one door and saw a hallway we could walk down. I turned around to tell Alex but he screamed in surprise.

Wither skeletons were coming out of the door he had opened. Alex stumbled backwards, falling onto the ground as he called for me. I ran over, raising my sword and deflecting a blow from one of their swords before it hit Alex.

“Get off the ground!” I shouted at him, needing him to get out of the way.

One of the wither skeletons knocked me off balance but I regained my footing before I fell over. There were three of them and all of them were carrying rusty swords. I hoped that meant they would be easy to break. It would work to my benefit.

Yet they still moved quickly. That was the worst part about wither skeletons: how fast they could move. One of them slashed at me and I took a step aside, practically walking into the other skeleton.

Something soared through the air and struck one of the wither skeletons in the head. Alex had tossed a piece of barnacle at the wither skeleton. It distracted him and allowed me to bring my sword down resulting in an ash pile at my feet.

I ducked and kicked the nearest skeleton. Then I slashed at the legs of the other skeleton. He went toppling down to the ground and I finished him off.

One left. I was starting to remember how to fight. I could do this! The remaining wither skeleton brought his sword down. I rolled out of the way as it struck the marble flooring –

And his sword broke in half.

If wither skeletons had proper faces, this one would probably looked shocked. In any case, I didn’t waste any time. I attacked and he turned to ash.

I looked around to see if any others were coming but the room was silent. I looked over at Alex, who had ducked behind the fountain.

“Thanks for the barnacle toss.” I said to him.

“Did it help?” He asked hopefully.

“Yeah, it helped,” I gestured to the open door, “If wither skeletons came out of this area, then we should go down this hallway.”

Alex scampered to his feet, “What? Wouldn’t we want to avoid the terrifying skeletons?”

“Yeah, if we want to be here forever. They must be hiding something this way. So, we go this way and we can get out of here, right? Come on,” When Alex remained rooted to the spot, I sighed, “Believe me. I don’t want to go this route either but…”

He took one last look around the room and the glass ceiling before nodding, “Okay, let’s go.”

This hallway had decoration along the walls: carvings and jewels stuck in the stone that glimmered at us. It seemed to tell a story but whatever it was, it was lost on me. I just hoped we weren’t walking into anything terrible.

At the end of the hallway was a door which was slightly open. Prepared for more wither skeletons, I pushed it open.

But there were no wither skeletons in sight. Instead, we had seemingly stepped into the most beautiful room I had ever seen.

The entire room was made from glass. I couldn’t imagine what it had looked like at the bottom of the ocean. It must have been stunning to see underwater like that. Above the ocean, we were given a few of the never-ending sea spilling out in front of us. The sun was striking the waves and it appeared as if the sea was a beautiful jewel.

“Wow.” Breathed Alex next to me.

Wow was right. It took me a second to pull my eyes away from the stunning view to see what else the room held. In the center of the room was a small pedestal. There appeared to be something on it.

Together, we walked over to it. It was a necklace. It was filled with sapphires. When I leaned close to it, I noticed that it wasn’t regular sapphires. Inside, there seemed to be a liquid moving around.

“Never seen anything like this before.” I said over my shoulder to Alex.

But he didn’t reply. His silence was strange after how much he had been rambling. I looked backwards and was startled to find Alex’s eyes had gone a bright white.

“Whoa, are you okay?” I asked.

Alex didn’t reply. He took a step towards the necklace and didn’t even look at me. I reached out to touch him –

He pushed me backwards with such sudden force and strength that I flew backwards and skidded across the ground. Gasping for air, I looked up. Alex was reaching out for the necklace – somehow I knew this was going to be a bad idea –

“Alex, don’t!” I called out but there was something wrong with my friend.

His hand wrapped around the necklace and pulled it off the pedestal. He brought it close to his chest, clutching it against him. As soon as Alex yanked it free, the entire temple violently shook.

The water outside the temple shattered like a mirror as something terrifying leapt out of it. I had never seen something like it before: it was dark blue and looked like a cross between a snake and a dragon. It had small wings attached to it and scales that glittered under the shining sun.

It slammed back into the ocean. The waves it made were giant and they were heading right for the temple.

“Alex!” I shouted, “We need to get out of here right now!”

Alex glanced at me but his eyes were still a bright white. Then he took off at a run back the way we had come. I got to my feet and looked at the window just in time to see the wave the sea dragon had caused smash into the temple.

The glass shattered as the water exploded into the room. One second I was on my feet and the next second I was sucked underwater. I was blown backwards as the water flooded the temple. I saw a flash of the sea dragon as it rammed into the temple. It seemed determined to sink it. Whatever Alex had done, touching the necklace seemed to have triggered the sea dragon to destroy the temple.

I covered my head as a stone almost slammed into me. The sea dragon slunk through the water. It must be searching for the necklace. What had come over Alex? I couldn’t find him. First, I had to get out of here before the dragon decided a creeper would be a tasty snack.

I began to swim in the direction I thought the shore was. Pieces of the temple were surrounding me. I couldn’t believe how quickly it had been sunk. How old had it been? And now a sea dragon had destroyed it in mere seconds.

I kept swimming but I had no idea where I was going. Between the temple falling in on me, and the sea dragon swimming around, it wasn’t very easy to figure out where to go. On top of that, I was going to need air soon.

The sea dragon swam underneath me. It almost touched me! I flinched away from it and hoped it couldn’t sense me. Yet it didn’t seem to care about me. It wanted the necklace.

I kept swimming, deciding that if I kept close to it, I could find Alex and possibly land. It would have a better sense of the necklace than I would, after all. Trying to ignore the way my lungs were burning, I swam after the sea dragon.

I finally saw sunlight. Kicking my feet, I broke through the surface of the water and gasped for air. The shore was far away. I had drifted a bit off during the collapse. I didn’t see Alex.

I took a moment to recover when the sea dragon suddenly burst out of the ocean. It roared as it flew above my head. Great – more good luck. It crashed into the water and the wave that followed sucked me back underneath the ocean.

I gasped, swallowing salt water as I was pulled back under the waves. I blinked and found myself staring face to face with the sea dragon. It opened its mouth. I could see its rows upon rows of sharp teeth.

It was getting ready to eat me!

I kicked downwards as it attempted to chomp on me. Its jaws closed, narrowly missing me as I swam underneath its snake-like body. This was terrible! Couldn’t I get a break?

I reached the end of the sea dragon, who was now turning around to find me. Its tail slammed into me and propelled me through the water. I couldn’t do anything to stop it. But in a stroke of good luck, I ended up rolling onto the shore of the beach.

I got sand in my mouth but ignored it as I crawled up onto the shore. I wanted to get away from that sea dragon as quickly as possible. It had noticed me and wouldn’t mind eating me on its way to Alex.

The sea dragon burst through the water, roaring loudly again. The ruins of the temple were covering the surface of the ocean. When it crashed back into the ocean, the wave splashed onto me but the sea dragon couldn’t get me. I was safe here.

But where was Alex? I didn’t see him anywhere on the shore. I got to my feet and started to search the beach. If I had ended up on shore, Alex could wash up as well.

It took a little bit of looking around the shore but I finally found him. He had drifted far away from the temple and had rolled up on the shore elsewhere. He was unconscious again. The necklace was gripped firmly in his hand.

I crouched next to him and tried to wake him up. For the first time since the sea dragon appeared, I tried to figure out just what in the world had happened. We had seen the necklace and then it was like Alex had become another person. Is that why he couldn’t remember how he had gotten here?

Hopefully, once he woke up he was going to be himself again. I didn’t feel like dealing with a possessed Alex. I shook him again and he groaned. His eyes fluttered open and came into focus.

“W-what happened?”

“You happened,” I said with a sigh and yanked on his hand, holding the necklace in front of him, “You saw this and lost your head.”

“What?” He repeated and I sighed.

“Are you hurt?” When Alex shook his head, I went, “Do you feel weird? Let me see your eyes.”

“My eyes?”

“That’s right. You really don’t remember?”

“No! You’re scaring me, Mike. Just tell me what happened.”

So, I did. I recounted what happened when he saw the necklace and the attack. When I finished, Alex looked horrified.

“What’s wrong with me? What do you think is going on?”

“How should I know? I’ve never seen anything like that before. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I guess. For now,” He looked down at the necklace, “Why do you think I had to take this?”

“No idea. Let me see that thing.”

Alex handed it to me and I studied it. It was decorated in some material I had never seen before and carefully crafted. There was a lot of attention to detail in it. The stones with the liquid centers – I had thought they were sapphires but they were something else. A stone that was new to me.

“Never seen anything like this before.” I mumbled.

“Me either. But it must have been tied to the temple somehow, right?”

“Yeah. And to that sea dragon as well. It really didn’t like that we touched the necklace. I don’t know. None of this makes sense yet. But it all has to be connected.” I replied as I helped Alex up.

“We should make camp. I’m exhausted.”

“Me too. We can find some food too and then tomorrow, we’ll head back to the village. Hopefully, Beth have returned. Then we can start studying that necklace.”

With a plan in mind, we departed the beach. The sea dragon was still out there in the ocean. The thought made me shudder. If such creatures like that existed, what else was hidden? I didn’t want to find out.

As we walked into the plains, I glanced at Alex. I wished I knew what was going on with him. I kept thinking about those white eyes and how strong he had been. There was something terrible going on in all of this. I needed to figure it out before it hurt Alex or someone else.

We found a nice spot for camp and set one up. We were quiet. I could tell Alex was bothered by everything that had happened. He kept glancing at the necklace like it was going to cast a spell on him.

When we finished, Alex fell asleep right away. He was exhausted and I couldn’t blame him. But I couldn’t fall asleep. The sun was setting so I had to make sure nothing attacked us as I set up the fortifications for any potential hostile creatures.

When I finished, I spent some time snacking on berries and writing in this journal. It took a long time but it was important to write everything down.

Now that I am caught up, I am still trying to figure out our next move. I am hoping that Beth is back at the village. I hope Alex can keep it together until we get home. Now that I am taking in our surroundings, I am closer to David’s village than my own.

It has been a while since I’ve seen David – a month or two since I have traded with his village. But it might be good to stop there and have his aunt, Margery, look at the necklace. She might know more about it. Then, we could get back to the village.

In any case, I am ready to sleep.