DARWIN

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Underneath the awning of the shop, I saw Patrick poke Riley out of the corner of my eye. They both grinned at each other, sharing a laugh. Then Riley fished his phone out of his pocket and snapped a picture in my direction, not even bothering to be discreet about it. No doubt there would be laughs later at my expense.

I sighed inwardly. Maybe I should have been more focused on eating my chocolate-dipped vanilla cone. Then I wouldn't have had to worry about a photo of me with a handful of melting ice cream circling around my peers.

But it was so damn hot that I really couldn't bring myself to care. I wanted to shoot whoever had thought it was a good idea to stand around in the sun and eat ice-cream after lunch. Didn't they have any pity for the cold-blooded? I guess not, else I wouldn't have sweat pouring from my forehead and melted ice cream staining my T-shirt.

That wasn't the only thing distracting me, though. I turned back, looking towards what had claimed my attention before I'd heard the snap of Riley's camera: the ocean, a line of sun-bleached blue that that I could see even from here, at the top of one of the Saltwater Strip's many hills where the Sleepy Sealeo Ice Cream Parlor sat. From this distance, the water appeared to grade into the whitish sky, creating a single entity that consumed the horizon from one end of my peripheral vision to the other. So massive and wide and alien to mankind — a whole other world, if today's venture was any indication.

Today's venture... I rocked my jaw as my headache drummed against my skull. So much for not thinking about it. Though I don't know what I expected: today was just too big to ignore, even with the boiling heat and a cone of melting ice cream to distract me. Between that...creature trying to drown me and the Sharpedo nearly busting out of her tank, my brain was coughing smoke in its attempt to square it all with reality, despite my attempts to shut it off.

Chattering rose up behind me — I glanced over my shoulder to see the other half of my group placing their orders for frozen treats under the yellow-white awning. Those who'd already been served were clustered into groups, chatting and licking at the same time. More of my classmates had gathered around Riley and Patrick, and they were all peering at the former's phone. Laughs — I heard my name once or twice, along with the word "idiot". Neck heating up, I decided I agreed with them: I had to have been an idiot to stand around this long with a puddle of ice cream in my hand, stomach-turning dilemma or no.

I strode over to the trash can sitting at the edge of the outdoor eating area just as Thomas spun around from the counter, his prize in hand: a double-decker of Neapolitan and mint chocolate chip. He spotted me wiping my hands into the garbage can and tsked.

"Well, there goes a perfectly good two bucks," he said, looking utterly disappointed in me. Then, he slapped my back with his free hand. "But I'll take pity on you, Snowman. You want a bite of mine?"

I wasn't sure I liked the idea of my and Thomas's lips on the same cone. "I'll pass," I grunted.

"Suit yourself." He took a big bite, and I turned away, a little disgusted — he was one of those freaks that actually chewed his ice cream. "What were you doin', anyway? You were out here starin' like a Houndoom at the moon." He suddenly craned his neck, peering over my shoulder. "Was she cute?"

"I wasn't looking at—"

"Don't be shy now." Another bite, another round of annoying chewing. "You're among friends here, my guy! You see a cute girl, you let your bros know. We can all drool together."

My lip curled a little. "Don't you have a girlfriend?" Who, I couldn't quite remember — he was known to have a harem, after all, and apparently needed a chart to keep all his lady friends straight.

Thomas cocked his head. "Jury's still out on that. Marjorie said she'll let me know on Monday."

Marjorie! Holy sh*t — so the crazy rumors were true. I glanced back to the counter and saw that the girl in question was sitting beside Helena on the curb in the shade, consuming a banana split as the other girl chatted. Her hair was the color of fire, but I'd only ever known her to be like ice, detached and indifferent and a little frightening. The story of how she'd gotten together with this airhead was no doubt one for the bestseller list.

"So, are you gonna tell me what you were mooning at?" Thomas asked. "Maybe if you do, I can take care of these rumors that say you have staring seizures."

"Staring what?"

He arched a brow. "You were staring, were you not?"

"I was looking at the ocean," I snapped, gesturing towards the horizon. "Just taking in the view."

"Oh." He looked a little disappointed. "That's all? 'Cause you were squinting so hard that I half thought you'd need a telescope. What's the big deal, anyway?" He turned to follow my gaze. "Water. Sun. Salt. We saw it up close and personal today. There's nothing left to be excited about anymore. Right?"

"Right." But there was no conviction in my answer. My eyes moved back to the sparkling water, and for a moment it felt like the sea was staring back at me. I shuddered — I felt haunted by what-ifs and maybes and questions that didn't have rational answers. I knew  that the...creature couldn't possibly have been real. But I was also aware of another fact.

I was not crazy.

"You're doing it again." Thomas waved a dark hand in front of my face, bringing my attention back to his neon-blue braids, which hurt my eyes about as much as the sun. "Earth to Snowman. What exactly is it that you see out there?"

I became annoyed. Why was he pestering me? It wasn't like he cared, after all — probably Riley had sent him over with a tape recorder hidden in his pocket, recording something that they could share with the rest of their group of idiots later for a good laugh. The thought made me scowl.

Yet...there weren't too many other people that I could ask this for a second time.

"Are you sure you didn't see anything in the Safari Zone today?" I asked.

"I saw an ass-load of stuff, Snowman. Be more specific."

I cupped the back of my neck in one hand. "I mean anything weird."

"Like eating-mayonnaise-with-fish weird? Studies-five-hours-a-night weird? Never-played-a-videogame weird?" He poked my side, almost making me keel over. "Melts-like-butter-in-the-sun weird?"

Ow! "I mean a-random-Milotic-in-a-high-school-Safari-Zone weird."

His ice cream paused halfway back to his mouth. "That again?"

I looked away, feeling more and more like an idiot. "I just want to be sure. Are you certain that you didn't see one near that cliff where you caught the Squirtle?"

"Trina," he corrected me. Then his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Wait, how did you know I was over there?"

My embarrassment faded, replaced by irritation. "I followed you. You ran off, and we were supposed to stay within three yards of each other." Idiot.

He was unapologetic. "No, I didn't see a Milotic. You think I would have bothered with the Squirtle if I had?"

Poor Trina. "Right. Sorry."

He squinted at me. "I heard you asking Quentin that earlier too. Why're you so hung up on Milotic? Did you really see one? I thought they only lived in lakes and sh*t."

I looked up at him, startled. "How do you know that?"

He winked. "I give Ms. Scales my ear every once and a while. Sometimes, she actually says something interesting." His grin spread at my speechlessness. "Whoa, I like that shocked look on your face, my guy. Are you telling me I actually know something you don't for a change?"

My mind spun. I usually took any "facts" Thomas deigned to give me with a pound of salt, but this time I had a sneaking suspicion that he was right. The information sounded too familiar, probably from my time reading up on Feebas in preparation for this field trip. Milotic's a freshwater type. Yes, they...migrated inland shortly after they evolved and favored oxbow lakes as their homes... I remembered reading the entry now.

The information scared me. If real Milotics didn't live in the ocean, what did that mean about what had happened today? I didn't know if this was greater proof that I had definitely hallucinated whatever I'd seen or greater proof that I'd witnessed something rare and mythical.

I still wasn't prepared for the answer.

***

Later, Ms. Scales announced that we were going to head down to the Wartortle egg-laying grounds, which was near the middle of the itinerary, but by that point I'd reached my limit in terms of solar exposure. I alerted her to the fact that I had an eye-watering, skull-splitting, ear-bleeding migraine and that if I didn't lie down immediately, they'd have to carry me back to the Pokémon Center on a stretcher. Not in so many words, of course, but she believed me nonetheless — the teachers rarely questioned the good kid.

She had my Branch Counselor, Mr. Kelley, walk with me back to the Pokémon Center. On the way, he had us stop at a convenience store to get some headache medicine, bless his heart — it was moments like these that reminded me that Mr. Kelley was actually a human being and did, in fact, care about the students at RTHS, even though most of the time he was telling us to suck it up and stick it through when we came in crying about Sergeant Marshall.

At the check-out counter, he brought up my brand new Sharpedo. He didn't sound very happy.

"The wards told me that another Take Down and it would have broken out of the tank completely," he said.

"Is she okay?"

"I'd be more worried about the staff. Do you know that when they returned it to its Pokéball, it nearly broke out? They had to transition it into a Lead Ball before moving it to a new tank!"

"But...everything's all right now?"

"Yes, for now. It's in a new enclosure, and the nurses have sedated it..." He glanced down at me, his blond hair looking white in the cheap fluorescent lights. "I can't imagine how you caught that thing, Darwin."

"She was already injured, sir. Caught in a fishing net. She was trying to get free, and was bleeding to death."

His eyes widened. "Is that why you caught it? To try and save it? That's not what you told us after we finished at the Safari Zone."

I felt heat creep up my neck. He was right: after the Dewgong had brought me back to base, I'd told my teachers that I'd caught the Sharpedo to ensure my escape. After all, injured or not, having her trapped in a Safari Ball guaranteed I would make it back to the surface alive. Scrambling, I said, "W-well, yeah, but that's kind of the other reason I did it."

Mr. Kelley shook his head. "Well, I'm seeing you in a new light, Mr. Blakesley — you're a braver man than I. I wouldn't get within twenty feet of that thing, not without a Luxray or a Manectric nearby. And I'm not sure that anyone else would either, which is why concerns have been raised about tonight's Pool Party. After that fiasco earlier today, I don't think any of us are ready to be in the same room it's in..."

The Pool Party — I'd almost forgotten about that. Us, our new Pokémon, and a big pool, all together. It was a way for us to strengthen our rapport with our new partners, but the teachers probably wouldn't allow my new bloodthirsty Sharpedo to join in the fun... Of course not.

Hope rose in me. Did that mean I would be able to skip it? Me and parties didn't jibe, so I prayed so.

We left the store after that, and reached the Pokémon Center just as the sun was turning the sky the faintest shades of orange. I felt instantly energized when I stepped into the AC, which was ironic seeing as I'd come back to lie down. We headed out of the medical center and into the hotel lobby, and Mr. Kelley handed me the headache medicine and the bottle of water and told me to set my watch for five o'clock, dinner. I headed up the stairs, my burst of renewed strength fading fast — my legs felt more wooden with every step I took up the spiral staircase, and the thought of a soft pillow and quiet sapped my strength. By the time I actually reached my room, I was nearly asleep on my feet.

I left the light off after I stepped inside, and the glow of the hallway made the shadows of the double bunk beds stretch across the floor like stripes in the carpeting. Stumbling a little, I found my bunk, one on the bottom right beside the nightstand, and pulled off my bandana, releasing my wild hair from captivity. My shoes went next, and I didn't bother with the rest — ripping back the covers, I twisted the cap off of my water and popped two pills before lying down and sinking up to my neck in pillows.

That wasn't enough though — I was dead tired, yet it was too quiet to fall asleep. At home, I usually drifted off to a CD, but we hadn't been allowed to bring portable music players on this trip. Luckily, the room came with a complimentary radio — shaped like an Exploud — on the nightstand, so I reached across and twisted it on. There was a hiss of static as I searched for a clear channel, and I finally landed on a station giving the hourly news.

"...and today, March 15th, 2018, marks the two-year anniversary of the demise of one of the world's most popular maritime communities. The event, otherwise known as the Drowning of Alto Mare, is considered one of modern history's worst catastrophes, and is thought to be the result of man-made climate change..."

The Drowning of Alto Mare. I couldn't believe that people were still talking about that. I hadn't cared when it happened, and I still didn't now, especially since all people did was theorize and speculate on how it had happened. An entire city on the water swallowed by the sea in a matter of hours... Climate change, they'd claimed. Rising sea levels. Or maybe just a really ugly sea storm. Honestly, the Alto Mari should've prepared themselves for something like that — the event was just proof that humans had no business trying to live on the sea.

Drowning of Alto Mare... Drowning... Drowning... Down, down, down... Yes, I was going down, now, down and down and down, my exhaustion pulling me into the realm of unconsciousness. There was quiet there, at first. Deep, dark quiet.

Then there was water.

Lots of it. And I was in it. I couldn't see the surface. That must have meant that I was down deep, too deep to surface. My mouth opened, and water rushed in, painfully cold. Chest, hurting. Lungs, collapsing. Eyes, burning... Drowning. I was drowning, just like Alto Mare.

I struggled, kicked. Silt wedged between my toes. Earth had appeared beneath me, a circle of sand barely wider than a doormat. Beyond it was a wall — glass. It surrounded me in a cylinder, a tank the shape of a tube. I tried to move forward, arms and legs dragging in the water, only to smack into it, to bounce back. I was trapped. Trapped and drowning.

Chest, hurting. Hurting. Arceus, it hurts! My mouth opened, and an eruption of bubbles escaped. I pounded on the glass. Help. Help! No one answered — no one that I could see. The space beyond the tank was hazy, obscured by a damp fog. But as I pounded on the tank again, another fist hit the other side. Someone was there! The bubbles cleared, and now I could see them: a figure collapsed to the floor outside, wheezing, fists slipping down the glass as though they barely had the strength to raise them. Then they looked up, and I found myself staring into a very familiar face: pale, with shocking white hair and eyes the color of spring's sky. Tall, like me, with arms banded in sinewy muscle and hands clad in black gloves.

But no legs. No feet. Instead, a long, scaled tail, bursting into a pink and blue fluke like a giant flower.

Like me, he hammered against the glass, tears streaking down his face, and I saw that his cheeks were splotchy red. A hand left the glass to tear at his throat, as though something was crunching his trachea. As though he couldn't breathe...like he was suffocating.

He shouted something at me, desperate and afraid, but I couldn't hear him — the sound of churning water and my heartbeat filled my ears. He shouted again, and I this time I read his lips: Hang on.

Hang on? What was he talking about? I backed away from the glass, shaky. Why is he...? My heart pounded, but not from breathlessness — I realized that that horrible burning in my chest was gone, and I could breathe again. Breathe? Breathe. Breathe water — it slid down my throat and into my body as easily as air. The weight of it in my chest, circling inside my body... To say that it felt strange didn't begin to describe it. Lightheadedness flashed through me, and suddenly the tank seemed too small: the walls pressed against me from all sides, and I could barely turn without hitting glass. My fins clipped the sides, and then my snout—

Fins? Snout?

I spun away from the mermaid and gazed into the back of the tank, saw my faint reflection in the glass: a savage face covered in rough skin, a massive mouth bristling with teeth. Scars, rippling across my flesh like an ugly mountain range, and eyes without pupils, fathomless and unfocused.

I'd turned into a Sharpedo.

***

I jerked awake to the sound of my roommates opening the door: Daryl, Martie, and Earnest, three tolerable guys that, blessedly, weren't from Riley or Patrick's inner circle. They came in, conversing amiably and tossing plastic bags onto the floor. They must've stopped by the store on the way back to the Pokémon Center.

Martie saw that I was awake and said, "Darwin. You were here the whole time?"

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and dropped my head into my hands. "Yeah," I groaned. "I had a headache, so I came back to lie down."

"Well, you missed all the fun! The egg-laying was pretty awesome. Wanna see pictures?"

"Maybe later," I said. They all shrugged and started talking about how hungry they were — glancing over at the nightstand, I saw that it was 4:45. I'd slept like a rock for over three hours.

But my dream was still fresh in my mind: drowning, trapped in a tank, and then turning into a Sharpedo at the last moment. It wasn't surprising that I'd dreamt about her, considering all that had happened today, but turning into her? Getting devoured by her seemed more appropriate. I rubbed at my eyes, still feeling strange. Something about the dream made my heart pound. Something about...

...The creature. The mermaid. He'd been suffocating on air as I'd been drowning in water. But he hadn't been pounding on the glass to escape, as I had. At least, it hadn't seemed that way. He'd told me to hold on. He'd sounded desperate, afraid, panicked, as though... I frowned. As though he'd been worried about me, the Sharpedo. As though he'd been trying to break me out.

I don't know why that thought sent a shudder through me. After all, as sanity kept telling me, though Sharpedo was real, he certainly was not. Yet... I swallowed. If... If I had... seen something that was maybe...possibly...in the general vicinity of being real...there had to be a motive behind why he'd attacked me. Unless, of course, he was just an asshole, and liked drowning teenage boys. But supposing he wasn't, I had to wonder at the rage I'd seen on his face when he'd grabbed my ankle, had to wonder at the way he'd grit his teeth and held on as the Dewgong had tried to knock him off. Tenacity like that was not without reason, so what was his?

I was afraid I knew. I did know. There was only one explanation, incredible as it was, and it involved what I had been doing right before I'd been fighting for my life the second time today.

If he's real... Are he and the Sharpedo friends? Was he trying to save her?

--

Additional Images

1) Wow! A very realistic image of Magdalene. XD Whoever made this did a great job!!

2) Here is the original image I'd created for this chapter to represent Darwin's dream sequence. Also doubles as a cover page:

Yikes, a 2018 pic (meaning poorer quality). I was never quite satisfied with this drawing... Something about Darwin's eyes don't look focused enough. I thought, "Hey! It's 2019. Let's do a redraw!" Then, since I've gotten into paining, I thought, "Hey! Let's do a re-paint."

Here was the unsatisfactory result. -_-

Arceus help me, they make the original look gorgeous, especially that first re-paint. See guys? I can make bad art too!

The waves don't look bad, though...