Coastal City: The Dream Fish Part VIII

Finally! Here you go! Please do tell if you spot any errors.

“It’s almost midnight.” Lucie says, peering into Halvar’s phone as he ransacks it.

“I know. It’s weird my mother hasn’t called yet.”

“Should I drive you back home?” asks Lucie, she was spinning the tea in her cup and smelling its camphor-like aroma.

Halvar ponders on this for a while. He eventually touches Lucie’s hand and gently pulls them down together with the hot cup.

“I’ve got a better idea.” Halvar says.

 “What now?”

“Come.” He pulls Lucie up with one hand and could have dragged her out of the diner but his limp had planned otherwise.

“Bye, Mrs. Park!” he yells.

“Am I going to take that off of your credit card again because I—“

The door closed.

“You have a credit card now?” asks Lucie.

“No.” he snickers in between the words. “It’s my brother’s.”

They walk along the clump of seemingly endless trees. As they advanced, Jang’s disappeared from their sight and their only sources of light were their phones and the half-covered moon.

Lucie couldn’t help darting her eyes every once in a while into what seemed to be a jungle they were walking along. She was afraid. The fact that she was with a fairly handsome and athletic man barely lessened her fear because apparently, if anything decided to attack the two, Lucie would have a greater chance of getting to run away than her one foot friend. She might as well be the ginger’s knight in shining armour.

“Don’t look into there, it’ll freak you out,” he says and he holds Lucie’s hand. Lucie didn’t know how to react to it or even interpret the gesture. She just felt that his hand was very warm but couldn’t hold it tight because she was shy. She didn’t even know what to make of it, was he afraid or just trying to make Lucie his cane? She enjoyed it, either way.

“Is it going to be far? I don’t think you could make it with your bad foot. Your wound might open. I don’t want to bring you back to the hospital and apologise a tenfold to your mother for letting you sneak out.”

“What, do you want to give me a piggyback ride?” Halvar sticks his tongue out and laughs.

“I’m just a concerned citizen here! Anyway, is that a dare?” she jokes in a smug voice and finishes her sentence by sticking her tongue out as well.

“Dare!”

Almost immediately, he stops in his tracks and hops onto Lucie’s back. Lucie lets out a loud shriek which bellowed into the woods and stumbles to the ground. Halvar stands up and holds her shoulders as if wanting to lift her up from the earth, but he was afraid he had broken her back because she was already crying face down.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asks in a husky and panicking voice.

Halvar’s natural ginger blush turned into a ghastly ivory pallor as he hears her mumble in her tears, “my back…”

…

Calais takes out a few coins from Nathan’s “emergency money” that was always left untouched in the hidden pocket at the very bottom of Nathan’s backpack.

“I’ll pay you back.” She whispers to the bag as if the open zipper of the pocket forming the shape of an angry face was staring back at her.

The rain had stopped by then. She runs out to the front door with the money in her hands. But much to her surprise, the cab, well, and the cabdriver, were gone. She comes over to the fence and looks around.

No one.

As she looks at the deserted street, she notices how one by one the lights from the towering street lights and houses diminished and turned into darkness.

She turns her back and looks at Nathan’s house. The light from his room was gone. She turns again, no cabs around. She was basically thinking were she would go, into Nathan’s house where he was being “intimate” with some weird-looking girl she hasn’t met or stay outside and use the money she stole—borrowed, rather, from Nathan to pay the cabdriver.

What should I do? She was getting bored. So she brings out her phone and sat at the front porch of the Zenelis’ house. She rings Halvar, who answered her call a few rings before it ended.

“Hey, hold on, okay? I think I might have broken Lucie’s back or something. I’ll just call you back, okay? Bye.”

Call ended at exactly 5 seconds. Calais didn’t even get to say anything. She felt mad. How on earth did Halvar manage to break Lucie’s back at midnight? Weren’t they at the hospital? And wasn’t the freshly-stitched wound of his causing him to become limp? But most importantly, why is Lucy still with him? In the middle of the night? With a possibly broken back? What could he have done to break her back?

He knew she was always jealous of her, or at least that’s what she made him feel she felt.

She was furious, jealous, sad and confused at the same time. But mostly confused. What the heck will she do now?

…

Nathan was electrified. But the thrill of his first kiss was not only short because of Calais’ unexpected appearance, for the girl’s breath emanated a queer stench of blood and scales.

Panic arises once again and Nathan had the compulsive urge to jump out the window just to escape the situation.

Just when he was on the brink of running off and screaming like a girl, the power suddenly went out. It had saved his reputation. However, he became even more baffled as the girl’s pasty skin, in the darkness, seemed to be glowing like balls of energy.

He passed out soon enough.