Ch 5 - Hunting and sailing
Narrator: The sun shines. It is so hot I cannot describe it. Maybe this is what a ‘desert’ was like back in those days. Yet there is snow, everywhere. It even snows sometimes, under the scorching sun.
Nima: What do you think of this guy? I don’t know if we should trust him. After what he did to his village.
Ashim: I’d stay with him. He’s probably the only reason we’re still alive.
*Nima looks at the man* ‘There’s a sad air about him…’
Man: Up ahead is perilous, so we should take a detour.
They take a detour and arrive at a frozen lake. They go around the edge until the man sees a hole in the ice.
‘Hey guys, we’re running out of meat. Why don’t we go fishing?’
Ashim: Cool!
They go fishing and keep hauling in strange things. Boots, cans, all kinds of litter.
‘What is all this?’ says Ashim.
‘This looks like litter from back before the Great Freeze.’ says the man.
They finally haul in a fish, but it’s a poisonous variety.
‘This is no good either’. They haul it back in.
‘What if we had some bait?’
They noticed a cabin in the distance. They go to it and it’s a shop selling bait.
They go back and start catching lots of fish. Until they haul in something spectacular. It’s a fish that floats in the air.
‘Greetings’, it says. ‘For catching me, I shall grant you one wish, on the basis that I return back into the water’.
‘Cool’, says Ashim.
‘Maybe we could tell it to stop this sunlight’.
They huddle together. ‘Let’s ask it how to get to the Lost Land’.
‘That seems like an awfully large reward for something as small as that. Is there a catch?’
‘Absolutely not. You let me live, and in return I give you this. It seems fair to me. Don’t underestimate the cost of a life’.
‘It seems like an awfully wise fish’.
‘I can do many a thing for you with my magic powers’.
‘Great! Can you-’
The ice begins to crack. Out from another part of the lake emerges a huge animal.
‘Crikey’, says the man, ‘It can’t be’
‘Do you know what this is?’
‘Sure I do. It’s the predator of predators. There must have been an underground tunnel that it swam through to get here.’
Fish: I’m not sticking around here. Let’s go!
The fish floats with them as they seek higher ground.
Ashim: It’s cool that you can fly like that!
They run up until they’re on top of the cliff.
‘This animal is a true menace’, says the man. It destroys the echo system.’
‘I’ll have nowhere to go if that animal is there. It’ll kill me and all of my prey’, says the fish.
Man tries to bring it down with his bow.
‘It’s not working! It’s too strong!’
Nima and Ashim join in, attacking the animal but to no avail.
The animal gets annoyed and jumps from the water, breaking all the ice, and jumps onto the ledge.
They run away, but the animal catches Ashim with its fins. It opens its mouth and is about to swallow him. It swallows him whole.
Nima shouts to the flying fish, ‘I wish that monster would disappear from the face of the earth!’
The fish grants her wish and Ashim is freed as the fish disappears.
‘Thank you’, says the floating fish, and it retreats back into the water.
Nima: Sigh…
Man: Looks like we couldn’t get any closer to the Lost Land. But Ashim’s safe.
Ashim: ………..
‘I’m sorry guys’.
‘Don’t worry about it’. We’ll find it either way’.
They walk off.
Damien: Look, it’s a butterfly!
Nima: It must be a good sign.
Ashim: A good sign, for days to come.
Nima: You think we can find the Lost Land?
Ashim: definitely.
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