“You’re crazy Noel, you’re seriously suggesting that after what happened to you five days ago?”

Noel had expected this upon telling Caleb the idea she had the other night when they woke up next morning. So hearing this response from him didn’t surprise her, and she persisted that they go along with it by trying her best to convince him.

“You told me yourself yesterday how we don’t know for sure unless we actually try, likewise we can’t be certain whether or not we’ll be able to face the aliens and destroy the rifts on our own if we don’t do it for real – in fact, I think we already tried and know but just refused to see it out of fear. Didn’t we kill that sea snake with our own hands?” Said Noel.

Caleb was just as persistent that they stay and wait as he said, “That sea snake also bit and paralyzed you for four days in case you forgot, so what if we go out there and come across aliens much more dangerous than that? Dead on arrival for us! Also, you can’t compare our situation now to what I went through years ago with my parents’ divorce, at least THAT wasn’t anything life threatening!” He paused to sigh deeply with a strained expression and spoke again in an almost pleading voice, “Do I have to risk losing you again…?”

Noel swam a little closer to Caleb and put a hand on his shoulder for his comfort as she continued, “I see what you mean, and I don’t like the idea of becoming sitting ducks to those aliens again like with the snake either. But there’s the thing; we were totally unprepared for the attack when it happened, but we still came out of it alive. So if you think about it, wouldn’t we stand a better chance against them if we prepare ourselves by practicing and further improving our abilities?”

“Being prepared and having good abilities still didn’t protect the turtle from certain doom…” Caleb mumbled, but Noel was yet to be done with her words, “Even if we do go with your idea and wait the invasion out, these things are spreading across more and more parts of the world. We saw them already trying to become familiar with land, not to mention that we’re still in the middle of their most familiar territory. Judging by that, it’s safe to say they’re bound to find us sooner or later no matter how far we run or hide. How long do you think we can last then, a few weeks or so?”

Caleb’s response to that was a short mildly exasperated huff of breath and, “Well, I wanna live those few weeks instead of instantly dying at their hands!”

Noel sighed with about as much exasperation as Caleb did, but showed no sign of backing down. She couldn’t give up just now, or else what awaited them was most likely living in terror for an indefinite amount of days as they constantly hid from the aliens out there seeking more prey to collect (or recollect any prey that escaped their clutches, courtesy of Noel, Caleb, and the turtle’s efforts), until that one unavoidable day of being caught came upon them.

“Maybe if we see things eye-to-eye, the points I wanna get across might start making sense to him…” Noel thought to herself, making sure Caleb wouldn’t be able to hear that part of her mind. “Because we’re clearly not seeing things on the same level right now…”

A brief moment passed in which Noel thought to herself in silence, and Caleb looked at her curiously wondering what argument she could possibly be coming up with next. Then Noel finally spoke up, “You know what this reminds me of? That last scene in Tremors where the final Graboid blew up all of Burt’s pipe bombs and the characters were left with just one, all while they themselves were left completely vulnerable to the monster.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Caleb couldn’t help but laugh before saying, “Alright, I’m aware you know I’m a huge Tremors fan, but is that really the best thing to bring up right now?”

“Just let me finish.” Noel continued, “In that situation, Val and company had two choices; either risk their lives to make a last ditch effort which ended up saving them all, or run back up to the rock where they’d be safe from the Graboid but not from the inevitable threat of dehydration.”

“Well of course they made that last ditch effort to save themselves.” Caleb replied, “But may I remind you that was just a movie, and this here is real life.”

Noel sighed deeply, almost sensing defeat from that indisputable fact. “Fair point.” She said, “Real life isn’t some of fictional story where an assured happy conclusion is written in advance at the end.”

Caleb nodded in a “finally you get it?” kind of way and was just raising his hand to make another point, when the words that had been motivating Noel rose to the surface of her mind once again, “if you never try you’ll never know.” And her eyes lit up again as she said, “Rather, real life is a story where we make that happy conclusion for ourselves. So please let us not waste the one chance we have at it by delaying an inevitable doom, and so help me properly prepare ourselves to face the aliens should we come across them during our attempt at survival!”

Caleb paused where he sat like an animatronic that suddenly got its power shut off, too baffled at Noel’s undying will to carry out her idea no matter what. He slowly found his voice after a couple of seconds and began to say, “Nice words, they really are, but don’t you think you’re being too-“

“Stop!” Noel cut him off mid-sentence.

Looking slightly offended, Caleb started, “Don’t interrupt me like that and just hear me out for a while-“ But Noel cut him off again, this time swimming right up to him to hold him tight as if it would help him shut up and whispered, “Stop right now and focus for a bit…”

Noticing Noel’s eyes darting around in all directions, Caleb immediately figured out this wasn’t about their conversation. He quickly fell silent, as well as heightened his senses to see what it was that made her tense up so suddenly.

“It’s an alien, isn’t it?” He asked through his head, to which Noel nodded. “How close is it?”

Noel didn’t need to answer, as a couple of seconds later they both saw the light illuminating the kelp forest they were in gradually dimming. A massive streamlined shadow loomed over and blocked the sunlight. When Caleb rolled his eyes upwards to see what was causing it, he had to give his all to not scream in shock as he saw a giant shark-like creature swimming over their heads. It was rather reminiscent of the thing they saw under the bridge well over a week ago, but seemingly much bigger, if that was even possible.

Caleb shut his eyes tightly. He was too scared to see for himself what the monster would do if it so much as saw the two easy prey it was swimming over. He also held Noel just as tightly as she held him and waited for the creature’s shadow to fully pass by in several moments of intense terror.

Soon, they could feel sunlight coming in through their eyelids, indicating the creature was no longer above them. Yet they still held on to each other and sat still on the sand for several more minutes until Noel whispered carefully, “It’s gone far away, it didn’t so much as sense us…”

Only then they felt like they could breathe again, and their limbs loosened as they let their muscles relax, though their grip on each other remained.

“How did it not notice us?” Caleb wondered, to which Noel assumed, “Maybe it was concentrating more on luring any prey within its power’s range towards it, rather than sensing the prey. Kinda like those giant lizard monsters we saw on land ages ago… and we both know from personal experience that sensing the prey and luring it are two different things.”

Caleb nodded. “Fair… and yeah, you’re still good at the former while I’m still good at the latter.”

Noel nodded back, and after a brief pause she asked, “Now are you convinced that we have to continue what we came all the way out here for?”

Caleb stared at Noel like he didn’t know what to say, which was exactly the case. He now saw what Noel meant by them only delaying the inevitable if they did nothing but just hide (words couldn’t express how lucky he felt that the shark from earlier was luring rather than sensing). That said, the fear of taking the risk of going out there again was still too great for him to make a clear decision. It wasn’t only his life he was scared for, he was also just as scared for Noel, if not more. Caleb didn’t know what he would do if they continued their journey only for one of them – namely Noel, as his mind kept jumping to the sea snake incident - to meet certain death and leave the other – namely him - all alone, with the only company they would ever have from then on being the enemy.

All these thoughts did not go unnoticed by Noel, what with them filling Caleb’s head to the brim in his anxious uncertainty. She took a deep breath, and gently spoke to Caleb in the most comforting and understanding tone she could manage, “I know you’re scared, Caleb. And believe me, I’m not any less scared about any of this than you are. In fact, I felt like my heart would explode and kill me earlier when we were waiting for that shark-like thing to pass us by.”

“That makes two of us…” Caleb muttered, lightly patting his chest as he said that.

“But remember something else you told me alongside that if we never try we’ll never know?” Noel continued in the same comforting voice. “That you shouldn’t have let your fear and pain blind you and make you jump to conclusions? You’re scared that we might fail if we go out there, and that’s making you think we don’t stand a chance. But like I said earlier, we can change that by properly preparing ourselves for what lies ahead. So don’t let your fear blind you again, I believe you’ll be able to make the right decision this time.”

Caleb was silent for a few moments after this, obviously contemplating every little thing about this before finally making his decision. And of course, Noel waited patiently for him to respond. They both knew there was no turning back once the choice was made. So much like back when they first made their decision to the turtle, it was important that Caleb was given all the time he needed before delivering the final verdict.

Eventually, Caleb gave Noel a single nod of determination, which was enough for her to understand what he meant. As she grinned at him in approval though, he added, “But just so you know, the main reason I’m agreeing is because I’m not losing you a second time. If there’s no stopping you from going after those rifts, then I’m gonna make sure you do so unharmed no matter what.”

“You won’t have to worry about such things as long as we’re well-prepared.” Noel replied with a slight hint of encouragement, just to lift his spirits, as they were going to need it. “So let us get practicing and perfect those skills of ours the best we can.”

As if trying to return the encouragement, Caleb gave Noel a friendly pat on the shoulder. It was then they noticed they were still holding onto each other’s bodies despite the danger having already passed, and they quickly let go in an awkward fumble of their limbs and blushing of their faces.

* * *

And so Noel and Caleb spent the next few hours or so practicing any skills they needed to improve from the shelter of the kelp forest. Initially they tried mastering them on their own since the turtle was no longer with them to give them any kind of learning advice. But at one point they found out it was much more effective to teach one another what each of them were lacking in, as well as work together on the skills they both lacked in or needed more practice with.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

For instance, Noel took the utmost pleasure in teaching Caleb the right way to concentrate on his surroundings so that he too could see if any life forms were nearby, or within their range of focus. Once he started getting the hang of it, she next helped him tell apart which of the life forms he sensed were those they wanted to lure in and which were those they had to stay away from.

“I never would have thought this was the way to do it, but now that I do, I could get used to this.” Caleb commented with a grateful and satisfied look on his face, to which Noel replied, “I figured out for myself when I was mastering this that there’s a certain formula that needs to be followed to understand the basics, and from there on you need to do the rest.”

Likewise, Caleb returned the favor by teaching Noel how to actually lure in the desired life forms once they could detect them. He told her, “Think about how you can know what I’m thinking by just simply looking into my mind whenever we hold conversations underwater. Latching onto the minds of the animals we want to lure in – namely fish – works the same way. Except of course, it requires much concentration to manipulate them to your will.” He paused for a moment afterwards as they detected some decent targets in the distance for Noel to practice on and said, “I see there’s a few swimming around somewhere, what do you say you have a go at them?”

“Gladly.” Noel replied, and proceeded to “do her stuff” on what she could make out as a small group of fish swimming through the water out there. Sure enough, the easy part was getting herself into the fish’s minds like a hacker forcing through a firewall. The next required steps though, she found herself struggling quite a bit with. And the fact that the fish were constantly on the move didn’t help a lot either. Frankly Noel was only used to focusing her might on the minds of animals that were staying still and well within her physical reach, which came from when she practiced and learned the ability to give them protection from the aliens’ powers.

Having heard part of Noel’s thoughts as he watched over her performance, Caleb wondered aloud to her through their own minds, “You didn’t seem to do so bad when you were giving protection to the animals we freed from the aliens. That too requires quite a lot of concentrating on their minds to pull off, so what about trying to apply part of whatever you did back then here?”

Noel paused to think about it, then replied with a genuinely impressed look on her face, “That’s… actually a decent idea, maybe I’ll try it for real.”

She returned to concentrating on the fish’s minds, but this time did so in a similar way to how she focused on the minds of the marine animals they gave protection to. The only differences here was that she wasn’t trying to protect these particular life forms, and they weren’t right in front of her.

Several more seconds of nothing but sheer concentration that almost left her temples mildly aching, however, Noel began to feel a very subtle tingling feeling somewhere in her head. The feeling then seemed to shoot out of her and away into the open water as if someone had fired a taser gun right from her forehead. Next thing she knew, Noel felt like her mind had become some kind of remote controller connected to an RC car, except she could tell what she was about to control here weren’t toys at all, but the fish she’d been concentrating on.

A wave of satisfactory excitement coursed through Noel at her hard-earned achievement. Caleb joined in the mood by congratulating her with an exclamation of, “Excellent job, Noel! Now let’s bring ‘em in!” along with a thumbs-up. He would’ve gone for a proud pat on the back, but figured he’d rather not do that out of fear that he’d accidentally break Noel’s concentration.

Nevertheless, Noel showed no hassle in bringing the fish over to them with her mind, with both her and Caleb exchanging complimentary high fives once the job was done. And at that moment, despite the turtle’s unfortunate absence, as well as the situation not being any less dire only because they got better at harnessing their abilities, Noel felt part of the confidence of being together with Caleb through this journey start to come back to her. It was only during just that moment, and was almost insignificant compared to what they had felt when the turtle was around. Yet at the same time she couldn’t welcome the feeling enough. It almost made her feel like though they had been helplessly lost previously, they were finding the right track to get back on again (which hopefully they were). And judging by the smile Caleb had on his face, that Noel also couldn’t welcome more, he was thinking the same thing.

Afterwards came break time in which they filled themselves up on some of the fish they practiced on. Then Noel suggested if it would be a good idea for them to practice combat as well.

“Granted, we don’t have anything to practice against other than ourselves, but you very well know we’re gonna need it for our journey, so we’ll have to make-do with what we got.”

“Well… can’t argue with that.” Caleb shrugged. “But we won’t practice against each other, right?”

Noel shook her head no, saying, “No, let’s practice by stabbing each other with the harpoons – of course we’re not fighting each other!” prompting them both to exchange some chuckles over it for levity, something they haven’t done in a while and was, again, something welcoming to feel again.

As for when it came to actually practicing combat, they just resorted to swinging their weapons at invisible enemies, while at the same time dodging imaginary attacks as fast as they could by swiftly flapping their tailfins to swim out of “harm’s” way.

“Are you sure this is helping anything for us at all? Other than slightly boosting my confidence, that is.” Caleb asked Noel after half an hour or so of pretend-fighting by themselves.

To be frank, after what they were doing for the past thirty minutes Noel also wasn’t sure if this was indeed helping. After all, though the aliens couldn’t have control over their minds, the physicality of those monsters definitely wasn’t something anyone could prepare for just by playing pretend. But at the same time, a part of her encouraged her and Caleb that it would be best if they had at least some practice than no practice at all, should they run into situations in which fighting became unavoidable. Kind of like how most people would prefer to read a few textbooks the night before a test they hadn’t studied for rather than not do anything about it at all. Noel knew exactly how that felt, as someone who had admittedly done it more than once in her lifetime.

Upon hearing Noel’s opinion from the paragraph above, Caleb said, “When you put it that way, I don’t think I can argue with that too. Especially the test analogy, that really hit home. How did you learn to talk so convincingly overnight?”

Noel snorted a little, and replied, “Guess I’m just really determined to make things right, considering what a jam we’re in…” then after a brief second she added almost apologetically, “And also your story the other night really helped plant the revelation in my head, so yeah…”

“I told you that night you don’t have to be sorry, and that it was for the best I finally get it off my mind.” Caleb reassured her. “In a way, I guess you can say what I told you greatly helped us both.”

Nodding gratefully, Noel gave him a coy smile and said, “If that’s not better proof we’re definitely better together through all this, I don’t know what is.”

Caleb returned the gesture, for some reason feeling especially glad to hear it despite already having heard the words several times before. Then he spoke again in a tone of voice that came out brighter than he intended, “Um, care to practice a bit more before break time?”

“Of course.” Said Noel before returning to attacking the water in front of her, with Caleb following suit.

* * *

They repeatedly practiced these for three days straight, during which they kept moving from shelter to shelter on their way to the next rift they intended to destroy. And though practicing admittedly didn’t make their fears of what awaited them go away, their use of abilities was now better than ever. They couldn’t believe it themselves, but gradually their skills in detecting other life forms and mind-controlling a select few of them had dare they say, become on par with those of the turtle.

This as a result also restored their confidence to some extent, as seen from the way Caleb told Noel on their second day, “Who would’ve thought all it took was hard work and sheer will to get us this far?” to which she replied, “That’s the spirit, now there’s the Caleb that I’m more used to knowing!”

As for their combat skills, those were… debatable, so to say, for they couldn’t tell for sure without fighting something, and they both agreed it was definitely not the best idea to test the skills on each other. However, that was about to be put to the test by the time the afternoon came around on their third day of travelling and self-training. That was when the rift they’ve been travelling towards finally came into full view, in the middle of an extremely jagged and rocky terrain where they could see several spacious cave-like areas in between and beneath all the rock.

“Get a load of this, it almost reminds me of the place where we got chased by the crabs…” Noel muttered in half awe and half discomfort. The sight of the area genuinely intrigued her, but at the same time she didn’t want to remind herself of the worst thing that had happened to them on their journey so far.

Inspecting the many spaces under the rock, Caleb said, “Interesting how the terrain seems to provide a lot of natural hiding places – I just put it that way because I feel like we’re gonna need it.” He then took a moment to glance at the rift they were approaching, which they could see once they got close enough was guarded by a huge creature with the appearance of an eel. The thing’s body, which was coiled up underneath the rift, was as thick as a large car and about as long as two buses, and most of all it was motionless. It didn’t take long for Noel and Caleb to realize it was asleep.

“I don’t think we even need to hide that much for this one…” Said Noel. She still gripped her harpoon tightly in her hand and positioned her tailfin in preparation for any sudden swift movement. Neither of them could promise it wouldn’t wake up when they were least expecting it.

Caleb, who was also doing the same thing as Noel, suggested, “Maybe the safest bet would be to strike from behind? More specifically, the direction opposite of the one its head is facing in?”

“You read my mind.” Noel replied. “Now let’s move as carefully as possible to that desired position…”

Never taking their eyes off the eel - spare the few times they hid behind some rock formations as they swam, just to be safe – Noel and Caleb gave their all to move as gently and quietly as possible until they were facing the “backside” of the creature. They felt like even the slightest wrong move of their tailfins would carry through the water over to the eel, prompting it to sense the disturbance. Of course, there was no way they could know if that was even possible, but in their state of immense fear and tension, they couldn’t be too careful. Besides, what with this being a new kind of alien they had never faced off against before, they also never knew what it could be capable of.

Nevertheless, no problems arose during this process and they both took a moment of slack to sigh with relief once they stopped. But now wasn’t the time to keep resting, so they got their harpoons ready to plunge them into the creature together.

“Are we ready to do this?” Caleb asked. He peeked out from the rock formation they were hiding behind to take one last look at the eel before they could attack it. His hand in which he was holding his harpoon was subtly but visibly shaking as he said this.

“Let’s not get scared now, we didn’t come all this way and spend all that time training just to bail.” Said Noel. “But if it helps with your anxiety, I could suggest reminding yourself of what awaits us in the future if we don’t do this right now… believe me, I’m doing it to myself already so that I don’t even think about chickening out.”

“A future where we’ll inevitably get found and eaten by these aliens after ages of running and hiding, way to get rid of my fear of fighting that thing on our own – by making ourselves fear of the horrific future that we’ll see if we give up here.” Caleb said with a tone of friendly sarcasm.

Noel nodded. “Cracking jokes… seems like a very Caleb Rhodes type of thing to do to ease nerves.”

Caleb smirked a little, though even his mouth was slightly trembling as he did so. “If you think so, then that’s fine with me.”

“Yeah…” Noel muttered, trying to return the smile. “Anyway, if we’re ready, let’s not dawdle around any longer and get this over with. We’ll only get more scared if we keep delaying.”

“Right, right… the sooner the better.” Caleb agreed, and they both swam out from behind the rock formation with both their weapons and minds ready for this.

“On the count of three, we strike.” Said Noel, raising three of her fingers. “One, two, three… GO!”

Without hesitation, they raised their harpoons and swam at top speed towards the eel. The closer they got to it, the more their hearts raced as much as their tailfins, but they knew they were past the point of no return, and what had to be done must be done.

They stopped themselves just in time right in front of the eel’s backside and brought the harpoons swinging down onto the skin. Initially, Noel had expected to see a lot of blood as a result of this, or even for the eel to wake up from its sleep. Instead, what did greet them was neither blood nor movement from the eel, but a violent tingling sensation that seemed to vibrate every inch of their bodies a thousand times per second, from the moment their harpoons made contact with the eel’s brownish-gray skin. Their hairs felt like every single one of them was standing on end, and overall the feeling was extremely nasty. They tried to move away from the eel in the hopes that it would stop, but their muscles were not listening to them no matter how hard they tried. It got so bad they couldn’t even mentally communicate with each other to ask what the hell was going on.

Eventually the feeling did stop, but it was only because they blacked out completely from it. The last thing Noel could make out before being shrouded in darkness was the eel’s body shifting from where it lay, and Caleb’s hand desperately reaching out to her.