We wake up the next morning, and nothing seems to be different. Everything still looked the same. The water has yet to drain away.

We start out our new day with opening up our food and water for the first time. We did not eat the night before to make sure our food lasts longer in case we are going to be on the roof for a long while. Jason opens up a pack of crackers while I pull out two water bottles. We split the pack in half, and that was considered our breakfast. It was fine for me, since I do not eat much, but I can tell it was not much for Jason. Hopefully, we will get rescued soon and not have to worry about rationing our food.

After breakfast, we sit in silence again. We did not have enough time to grab anything to keep us busy or entertained while we were packing the day before. Now we are left alone to our thoughts.

By noon, we were sitting by the edge of the roof, looking over the mass of water. We did not really talk much to each other. I looked into the water, mostly out of boredom and curiosity, and I saw slight movement. Surprised, I tapped Jason on his shoulder, “Hey, I think I see something down there.”

He looks into the water as well, and became surprised himself. “It looks like a person.”

“A person? Why would someone swim in this water?”

“Maybe the better question is why is there someone here when the town evacuated?”

“What do we do? It looks like they are searching for something.”

Jason sat back for a moment, glancing at our roof. He makes an expression that would mean that he found a solution. He breaks a piece of the roof off, and starts to aim the piece, ready to throw it in the water.

“Whoa, wait, what are you doing?” I ask him.

“I’m going to try to get their attention.” He responds.

“Why?”

“Maybe he is searching food. People leave all sorts of food in their houses, and anyone could eat it, even if they are desperate enough to eat food that has been soaked in water.”

Unsure of the right decision, I let him go through with his plan while I grab our bags in case the stranger may actually be hungry. We would have to be careful when giving food to the stranger, because we still need food for ourselves.

After a couple of seconds of aiming the piece, Jason threw it into the water. The piece sunk down, only missing the person by a few inches. The person noticed the piece, but they did not look upward. I could only assume that they thought nothing of it. Jason broke off another piece of the roof, and aimed it so it would actually make contact with the person. Throwing it in the water and watching it sink downward again, but this time, it actually had hit the person. The stranger now looked up at us, and made their way up to where we are. Jason and I back up a bit, and see that the person that came up is actually a man. He hung onto the edge of our roof, the water at his waist and covering everything else below. He had very pale skin, and black hair to contrast it. His bright blue eyes seemed to pop due to the rest of his appearance. He slightly smirked when he first saw us, as if seeing us on our roof was funny to him.

“Hey,” Jason starts, “are you okay?”

“I am well, thank you.” The man responded.

Something about his voice made everything seemed so… calm. Almost melodic. I feel like I want to hear him talk more.

“What are you doing in the water?” Jason asks the man.

“Just searching.”

“For what? For food? We have some food if you need some.” Jason grabs one of the bags from me and starts to open it up.

“Oh, no,” the man shakes his head, “I am just searching for something that you may not be interested in.”

“Well, just tell us what you are searching for. Maybe we can help.” Jason says, still holding onto his bag.

“I don’t think you can help.” The man responds.

“Can you at least tell us your name?” I ask, cutting into the conversation.

“I am Leven.” He says.

“My name is Jason, and this is my sister, Juliet.”

Leven looks at Jason and I, concentrating on our looks.

“... Winters?” Leven asks.

Jason and I look at each with surprised expressions, then looked back at Leven.

“You know who we are?” Jason asks.

Leven just smirks, and then says something. I did not hear what he had said, but everything seemed blurry with Leven in focus. I felt compelled to move forward, towards Leven. Every word Leven says is like beautiful music that I do not want to stop listening to. After what seemed like forever, I felt a hand grab my right upper arm. I snapped out of whatever I was in to see Jason with a concerned look on his face. “Are you okay?” He asks me.

“Uh, yeah, I think so. Maybe.” I say.

Jason looks to Leven, clearly upset and agitated. “What did you do? I know you did something.”

Leven did not say anything, just smirked. He puts his hand on my left forearm, and before either Jason or I could stop him, Leven tightened his grip and pulled me into the water. Jason came into the water as well, with his hand grabbing my right upper arm when he snapped me out of the mesmerized state I was in. I must have tightened my own hands during the fall into the water, because I still had my bag with me. Jason still has his bag.

As a natural reaction, I held my breath and kept my eyes closed while in the water. After a few seconds of being pulled in the water, I felt that now we were being pulled along rather than downward. I risked opening my eyes, only to feel a slight sting before the blur went away. I see Leven in front of me, swimming towards a faint light at the end of the street in our neighborhood. I was able to see the rest of Leven’s body.

Except, it wasn’t really a body. It looks more like a… fish tail?

What is going on?

It looked as if he was a mermaid of some sort. At the bottom of his waist is where the red fish-like scales start. What would be the length his legs were actually the length of the tail. At the end of the tail was a fin, kind of like what you see at the end of a mermaid’s tail. His tail from the waist starts out as a light red, transitioning to a darker red as it goes down the tail to the fin.

We reach the faint light and continue through it, and everything changed. Suddenly, we are not in the neighborhood anymore. We are now in a vast ocean, nothing around us except for the sand at the bottom.

Again, what is going on?

It has only been two minutes, and the strain for air has gotten to me. I have tried my best to hold it in, but soon I may accidentally breathe in. I make an extra effort to keep in my breath for just a little longer. One of my great fears is drowning. I cannot imagine how it must feel to drown, and I do not plan on finding out. I look to Jason, who is still holding in his breath as well. He seems strained as well, but not as bad as I am since he could hold his breath longer than I can.

As if luck was on our side, something came crashing into the water. Not just something, but three somethings. One tackled Leven while the other two grabbed Jason and I to pull us out of the water. Whatever came to get us moved with such precision, that I could not keep track of what they are doing to get a good look on what they are. I could see that Leven was struggling against what had hit him. While Leven was fighting off what got him, Jason and I got lifted out of the water and up into the air. We immediately start gasping for breath, finally able to breathe. It felt so good to breathe in air after not being able to breathe for what felt like a long time.

After getting a few breaths in, I look up to see just what got us. The sun was mostly blinding me, so I could not definitely see what it was. All I could see were wings. White, feather-like wings. Almost like the wings you see on sculptures of angels. Did some angels save us? Are they taking us somewhere like how Leven was taking us somewhere? Are there different creatures fighting over us?

Even though Jason was also being carried by an angel, he was still holding onto me and his bag. I realized that I still held onto my bag no matter what. I guess that is a good thing, because who knows when we might need our items to get back home.

A few moments go by, and we get dropped off at a shore of the ocean. At first, Jason and I just lay on the ground, happy to no longer be in distress due to water. I looked up long enough to see the angels fly away towards where Leven and the third angel would be. I guess the angels did not want anything to do with us, or they would have done something other than rescue us from Leven.

Jason and I rested on the ground before we do anything else, mostly because we could not believe what was going on and if what we were experiencing was actually real.

Jason shifted his head towards me. “Do you think we may have eaten something bad?”

I shift my head toward him in response. “Are you suggesting that we are hallucinating?”

“How else can this possibly be happening?”

“Well, we are seeing and feeling the same thing, so if we did eat something bad, it’s affecting us pretty hard.”

“Yeah, I guess you are right. Did you see what Leven was?”

“He looked like a mermaid, I think.”

“That’s the thing,” Jason now sits upward, “the whole time in the water, I was trying to see if the tail is even real. Problem is, I think it is real.”

I sit up as well. “I was closest to him. It looked pretty real to me. It could also explain how I wasn’t myself whenever he spoke.”

“Yeah, you did seem like you were in a trance. To me, he sounded normal.”

“Probably because you are also a male.”

“Perhaps.”