Maleki:

Waves crashed against me as I kicked backward and attempted to stay afloat. Salty water stung my eyes, and I coughed to force out the water caught in my throat. I tread through the water, struggling to pull Miko’s weight along with me as I recalled to earlier when we were back on the beach after resting from the long climb down the mountain.

“We have to swim all the way over there?” Miko asked Nomen.

“We?” I yelled. “You can barely walk, much less swim. And what do you mean all the way over there? You can’t even see right now.”

“I saw it yesterday. I remember what it looks like, and it looked far.”

Nomen sliced through the tension, “If I may interject — Yes, The Garden of Need is beyond this body of water.”

Across the sea was a large island that we had watched grow nearer during our descent. I inspected the distance between the two shores. The other shoreline was far enough away to appear as a single line of sand, with a giant green blob sticking above.

“We’re supposed to swim over there? Why can’t we just take a boat or go around?” I asked aloud.

“Did you bring a boat?” He replied.

I scratched my head as I looked around us. “Well, no, but I could make one.”

“You’re gonna make a boat?” Miko asked with doubt and a raised eyebrow.

I plumped down in defeat onto a stone facing the sea beyond me. “Yeah... you’re right. I don’t know how to do that.”

Miko sat down beside me with his arms limp at the shoulder. “You were on the right track, though. We can use some driftwood or something flat to float me on. It’ll still require extra effort, but it’ll be better than dragging me across.”

He was right, a conclusion I wish I hadn’t come to so often. Fortunately for me, his body fit on a decent price of driftwood near our campsite. The wood was longer than it was wide and floated well enough with Miko’s weight. Neither of us was adept at swimming, and the best my brother could do was kick his legs to push us along. We also had to be careful because he didn’t have any arms to balance out with, which meant that he had to be laid across the driftwood in a very particular position that did not hold easily due to the waves. I swam on my back, backpedaling as far as possible until I ran out of stamina. When I ran out of energy, I would lightly rest on the driftwood, being careful not to topple Miko and send him to sink to the bottom seabed.

Now that I think about it, the only times we ever swam were when our parents took us to a pond a few miles from our house. We were mainly used to streams that intersected through our farm, but those waters are a foot deep at best, so they weren’t great practice for a beating like this.

Despite the clear blue waters, I couldn’t even see the bottom when I tried to peer through the water below me. Brown rocked reefs, and all assortments of fish roamed below me, but I couldn’t divert my attention for long enough to get a good look at anything. The way the waves crashed at me, it felt like I was being slowly dragged back to the beach we left an hour ago.

Nomen said the stretch of water was six miles across, which was an unfathomable number for me to imagine swimming, so I just pretended it would be a short distance. He didn’t leave with us this time, which suggested things were about to get more complicated from here on out. We asked Nomen to stay since he was our guide, and he needed to, well, you know, guide us. But in response, he simply pointed to the blurry green blob of brown and green in the distance. “The Garden is there. This is as far as I go.” We tried to argue with him, but he simply wished us well and watched from the shoreline as we tread awkwardly through the water.

Right now, my thighs burned from continuously pushing us along. This method of movement was the most efficient in combatting the waves, but it made me look like a jellyfish pulsing through the water below me. I had tried different ways of moving, like swimming below the driftwood by mounting it to my back like a turtle, but I couldn’t stay underwater long enough to make it work, and turning my head for air was too hard with swift waves that dragged me in the opposite direction.

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Had we even made it a mile yet? I paused and rode a wave’s crest so that I could look to both shorelines, but the opposing one hardly seemed closer. We had moved further away from our previous beach, which was a good sign, but if anything went wrong, we were already too far to make it back easily.

After several hours of periodically resting and slowly drowning, the sky changed rapidly. The clouds weren’t as dark as the storm above the mountain but equally as gray and ominous. The clouds weren’t the issue; the real problem was what followed. Sheets of water poured onto us, pelting us with sharp rain and making an already challenging and confusing predicament even worse. Miko was lying on his side, unable to shield himself from the rainwater and growing wind speeds. I was already struggling to keep the water out of my face, and now it was pouring over me, making it difficult to take deep breaths. With the increasing winds, the waves were being carried farther and higher, rocking us to and fro and almost swallowing me as they collided with us.

The salty water made my injuries plead for mercy as I strained to keep treading through the water. I was exhausted from the constant upkeep of staying afloat, monitoring Miko, and trying to get a breath in. Before I got used to how terrible this was, it got worse. The driftwood began to tilt from waves crashing over the top of it, sending my brother over the edge of his thin platform. I immediately rushed to him as he began to sink into the water, but the rain pelting the surface of the water made it difficult to see below. I dove under, finding Miko in the madness of the storm and grabbing him underneath both his shoulders. Swimming to the surface with this weight was more challenging than expected. I didn’t take a long enough breath before coming under, so I was fighting for air, but we needed to get to above before we both drowned. Miko was kicking as best he could, helping us rise quicker, as I used one arm to pull us closer to the surface with all I had left in me.

When we reached the top, I stayed directly behind him and hooked my arm around his neck. With my forearm around his throat, I could swim with my legs and open arm. “Just float!” I yelled between waves. He complied and stopped fighting my grip on him despite it being uncomfortable. It was essentially a loose choke hold, but it was effective and let me swim. Our bags assisted as floatation devices, but they made swimming even more awkward. This was also the first occasion that my Scythe made moving more difficult.

I need to make sure we are going in the right direction now that we are swimming again. “Where’s the compass?”

“In my chest pocket,” he said through choked words. My grip must’ve been a little too tight…

Unclipping the pocket while kicking to stay afloat, I reached in and grabbed the compass, bringing it closer to my eyes to see the direction it was pointing. I dipped my shoulders to the left to reposition us so that behind me was south. Continuing my backward swim, I placed the compass back in the pocket and returned to floating in this endless abyss of water.

Of all the trials, this one filled me with the most dread. We were exhausted and trapped in the middle of a massive body of water with nothing to hold onto to rest for even a moment. I was even less confident we were making progress now that these waves were almost engulfing us. What was the damned point of this trial? Is it actually possible to swim all the way to the island? I wasn’t even sure we could make it before this storm arrived.

I just have to keep swimming.

A little further.

My arms are tired even after switching off. I’ve tried floating to rest, but the storm doesn’t let up for me to break for even a moment.

Keep swimming, Maleki. This can’t be the end for both of you.

Just a little farther.

As rapidly as the storm arrived, it left. After a few minutes of my arms and legs barely holding on, begging for something to change, it did. The waves subsided, and the rain was no longer pouring over us. No wonder no one lives on the coasts; these storms are too random and destructive. We floated uncomfortably on the calm seas, riding short strokes for long enough that his legs and my arms and legs recharged a small amount.

It was getting dark, which meant we had been at this for about five hours, and I felt like I was going to die any moment and have my final resting place be the bottom seabed of this damned watery ravine. The sky was growing dark, the night sky reflecting on these crystal clear waters. This was as beautiful a sight as being on top of the mountain where we were above the clouds. Not that it was worth the effort to get out here, but it was a brief remission. Too brief; the dread set back in quickly. Even with my head underwater, I couldn’t see anything below. We were trapped in a dark abyss and swimming for dear life. I can’t see the mountain, the island, or the seabed; only the sky above me. It’s the pure opposite of claustrophobia.

Something changed in the waters around me, or maybe I just hadn’t felt it until now. I was moving even without swimming. It was hard to check my progress since I was moving backward, but the sound hit my ears first. It wasn’t like the waves or the rain hitting the surface; this was different. The sound was in the water as well as above. I could feel the sound of violet swirling with the same force as when water rushes down a waterfall. The tugging motion was growing more substantial, and I was being pulled in a circular motion. At first, the forces against me were light, but when I turned to swim away, they dragged me in further despite my resistance. We seemed to be circling a central point. We weren’t even swimming anymore. No — we couldn’t swim anymore. Not with both of us together like this. Light from the stars above twinkled off the twiring waves, revealing for the first time what had us in its grasp. We were in the trance of a whirlpool…