The Second Summer

THUG!

Sho flinched when she suddenly heard a loud noise coming from her parents’ bedroom. The thin walls of the cottage didn’t help in concealing their shouts of inexplicable words. Their raised voices could be heard even from a mile away. 

Not again.

“So it’s my fault again? Oh, it’s my fault again!”

“Why is it that you always make a big deal out of every little thing?”

“Little thing? Just a little thing? You never fail to disappoint me with your insensitivity, Don.”

“I am so sick of this, Ruth!”

Sho was starting to get sick of it, too. Though heated arguments had been unavoidable for most married couples, the fights between her Ma and Pa had become more frequent over the past months. She could tell that the only thing keeping her family from breaking apart was her. The couple would never dare separate from each other knowing how it would affect their child, but she couldn’t help to think that it was already hardly impossible to happen. Call her selfish, but her parents’ breakup was the last thing she would want to happen even if it were for the best reasons.

Notwithstanding the fact that love wasn’t evident between them anymore, she believed that there was still hope for them to be happy again if they would choose to stick together.

Sho sucked her breath as she stepped outside of the cottage.

She directed her gaze toward the crystal clear river a few meters away from where she was standing. The serene body of water reminded her of the memories she had with it six years ago. 

Sho was eight years old when her family first spent their summer on that private resort known as Camp Enchantia. As a child, the first thing she looked forward to on that vacation was to have fun with her parents. She imagined the three of them laughing 'till their stomachs hurt while playing tag on the fields or splashing river water against each other. She pictured eating her dinner outdoors while watching her Ma and Pa flirt with each other as they grill the barbeques and the humongous fish they caught from the waters earlier. She fantasized that that would be their life every day in Camp Enchantia the whole summer.

Yet on the first night of their stay, only the numerous yells and shouts of her parents were heard through the walls of her room. It was the first time that the two people she loved the most had fought, and it was enough to shatter those foolish imaginations of hers.

Déjà vu, right?

On that same night, Sho escaped the cottage and ran away as far as where her feet could go. Her tiny legs took her to the land beside the river where she accidentally tripped on a fallen branch.

She squeezed her eyes shut as she fell into the part of the river where the water currents were strong enough to pull her petite body away from land.

Despite not knowing how to swim, she desperately kept her head above water by wiggling her limbs to and fro underwater. Little did she know that she was minutes away from falling down a ninety-eight meter high waterfalls.

Sho's body was getting colder and exhausted. It was the last thing she remembered before her brain had completely shut down. 

The next thing she knew, she woke up in a trance; she felt her body being carried and placed on dry ground.

As Sho came to, she distinguished a human-like figure in her blurry line of vision. 

“Mama? Papa?” she muttered quietly, unsure of who the person was. Was she dead?

She blinked a few more times before realizing that kneeling beside her was a stranger— an unfamiliar boy her age. His hair was glowing silver, his irises were painted emerald green, and his skin seemed as though they were toned with pure bronze— all of which exotic features led Sho to perceive that he wasn’t human. He was wearing nothing but a loincloth made of white fabric.

She must be dead.

“You’re alive!” the little boy rejoiced in a blink, throwing his fists upon the air, leaving Sho in awe.

“Who… are you?” the girl asked as she pulled herself up to a sitting position.

“I am Azul,” he let out a toothy smile as he introduced himself. 

“Azul?”

“Yes. I am the spirit guardian of this river. I saved you from falling down those waterfalls, ” he pointed to the direction of the river where Sho had drowned earlier.

But instead of thanking him, she carelessly blurted out the words:

“The spirit guardian? But I thought you only exist in fairytales? And aren’t you a little young to be a spirit guardian?”

“Well, I am real. And no, I am not young. Believe it or not, but I’ve slept here for over a thousand years!”

Those words echoed in the memory of the now fourteen-year-old Sho.

It had been long since the last time she and her parents visited the resort. After they moved to Manila because of her father's work assignment, it was nearly impossible for her to enjoy the past years' holidays with all of the remedial classes and swimming training sessions she had been attending. She never expected to get a vacation this year either, yet there she was, walking in the midst of a grassy meadow.

“Thank you for saving me,” she whispered to herself as she observed the scenic sparkling ripples of the river. "Are you sleeping again, Azul?" 

She reminisced about the time when she and Azul had become instant playmates after that encounter. When her parents were busy cooking and cleaning in the cottage, she’d secretly come out to the river to play splash and tag with the spirit guardian. They would often have informal swimming lessons— with Azul as the instructor, of course. Sometimes, she would bring out a small pale where Azul would put all the fishes he enchantingly caught by hand.

Azul was her escape when her parents would give her a hard time every time they fought. He’d distract her from her thoughts and fulfill all the fun things that Sho wanted to do with her parents.

It wasn’t a surprise that saying goodbye became hard for the both of them when summer had ended.

For the young Sho, it felt like all that had happened was just an ethereal, sweet dream, even more so when she had to move on with her life in the city. Her passion for swimming had grown because of the spirit guardian, and so she honed her skills by training consistently. It was when she started joining and winning countless swimming competitions that her life had become predominantly busy the past six years. The fact that she had always carried Azul deep within her heart was already fully embraced by Sho.

However, the days she spent on that second summer in Camp Enchantia were not as magical as the first one she had. Day after day, she would sit by the river on the same spot where she first met him. On some quiet days, she’d go for a swim, and on some loud nights when her parents were in the middle of a debate, she’d come by the waters hoping that he would come to her and they would have fun again just like the old times.

Yet, a number of sunsets and sunrises had passed ‘till the last night of their stay in Camp Enchantia came, still there was no sign of Azul. It wasn’t long before she started to believe that he had already forgotten her.

Sho stripped off her clothes except for her swimwear once she reached the spot where she always sat. She proceeded to dive into the water for a swim.

Fifteen minutes in, and Sho could feel the tides of the water rise all of a sudden. She looked at the sky and recognized that it was the night of the full moon. It could be the reason for the unexpected tide rise of the river. Before she could swim towards the nearest land, she felt the water currents gradually becoming stronger. She challenged her body to resist it, but her attempt failed when she felt an abrupt pain in the muscles of her right leg.

“Shoot! Leg cramp!” she frowned as she let out a scream.

Despite the extreme pain she felt, she struggled to push the waves downwards with her arms to stay afloat. The currents started to swish her body aggressively as if it were a leaf flying up and about during a storm surge, pulling her further away from the land where she left her clothes.

“Help! Help me!” she shouted as loud as she could, desperately hoping that someone would hear her pleas.

“Sho? Sho!” her eyes widened when she heard the voice of her father responding.

“Papa! Help me! Over here!” she turned to the direction where the voice came from, and there on the land, she saw both of her parents rushing to her rescue.

"Sho, don't worry! We're coming to save you!"

As soon as Don found a wooden branch he estimated to be long enough to reach Sho, he handed it over to Ruth and instructed her to hold it out to the river. 

"Trust me, Mahal. I love you," those were the last words he spoke to her before diving into the river. 

Don hurriedly swam towards his daughter before he reached for and secured her body close to him. Ruth immediately ran ahead and extended the branch to the waters, while at the same time, Don attempted to reach for it with his free hand, but to no avail. They went about it for the second time, the third time, and the fourth but failed again and again due to either the forceful pull of the currents to their bodies or the lack of length of the branch.

Ruth noticed the cliff ahead of the road.

“If that’s a cliff ahead, then they must be heading for the…”

The realization hit her when she saw that her daughter and husband were heading to the waterfalls. Tears have started to fall down her cheeks as she watched her family hugging each other tightly, preparing to face their doom.

She could only bawl in despair as she saw Don meet her eyes before mouthing the words, “I’m sorry. I love you.”

It was at that exact moment when their bodies had fallen down the steep water current.

All hope was lost for Ruth; she instantly regretted the hurtful words she let out on her husband earlier. Her family was the world to her. Her knees fell to the ground as she sobbed for her only child and husband. 

One miserable minute had passed for Ruth when she, at once, heard a quiet mysterious howl upon the air. She lifted her head as she felt a different presence in the area. It was unexplainable, but she suddenly felt her heart be at ease as if a heavy burden was lifted off of her chest. 

The leaves of the trees nearby swiftly rustled as the wind suddenly blew into different directions, as if it were waltzing on the air. She could feel it on her skin. Her gaze fell upon the river as she noticed its waters abnormally rising— or rather, piling itself one after another as if they were rising magma. The Maya birds sleeping in their nests chirped awake as they sensed that something powerful was coming.

She also noticed the sudden silence of dropping water from the bottom of the falls.

In an instance, an enormous body of water emerged from the river, leaving Ruth stupefied as she witnessed such an extraordinary aquatic phenomenon. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing: the waters had formed themselves into a gigantic human-like hand, and it appeared to be holding Sho and Don. 

While submerged, it seemed as though all the seawater that was stuck inside their lungs were controllably pulled out of their mouths by an unknown entity. Massive fingers of water had wrapped themselves around their bodies before it stretched forth its arm towards the nearest safe land, placing them to the ground five feet away from where Ruth stood.

What she beheld was definitely beyond human reasoning and imagination, yet it didn’t matter to her more than the lives of her dearest family. She immediately scampered towards them without a second thought to check if they were alive.

All the tense air that seemed to be trapped in her lungs was released at once when Sho and Don lifted up their heads from the ground.

“Mahal! My child! Oh, thank God!” Ruth wrapped her arms around the both of them and squeezed them into a hug. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry for everything I have done! I’m sorry for hurting both of you. I promise you, I will become a better wife and mother… I just don’t want to lose you ever again!”

“It’s okay, Mahal. I’m truly sorry, too,” Don smiled as he whispered into her ears. “What happened? How are we alive? ”

“The river… it carried you…” Ruth spoke with a hint of confusion in her voice.

“It carried us?” Sho frowned as she turned her head to see the river.

It was then when she saw a familiar figure standing by the waters, silently watching the three of them.

“Azul…”

He looked somehow different from the last time she saw him. He had the same exotic features, it’s just that he grew taller, his face looked more defined, and his hair seemed to have gotten longer. He appeared to be in his teens— as if he grew older after six years.

“Do you know him, Sho?”

Sho slowly nodded at her father’s question. “He’s Azul… the spirit guardian of this river. He saved us.”

Her parents were still in awe as they tried to internalize what she said. Ruth couldn’t believe it at first, but after what she witnessed earlier, she knew that it was the truth.

Azul smiled as his lucid emerald eyes met Sho’s. It sent her feelings of indescribable joy, enough for tears to well in her eyes. She missed him.

“Azul, is it? Thank you for saving me and my daughter. I owe you my life,” Don said as he stood to approach the young man. He held out his right hand for a handshake, and Azul accepted it.

“You do not have to owe me anything, but you must promise me to give your daughter a better life from this night onwards," Azul said before he glanced at the girl. 

"She loves you in ways that you cannot imagine. Do not break her heart with your selfishness,” he spoke with a voice sounding like the calm sky in the eye of a hurricane.

Don knew the look in the lad's eyes as he uttered those words. It contained something that he remembered seeing before in his wife's eyes whenever she looked at him. 

Love.

“You have my word. "

_____

It was six forty-five the next morning when Sho’s family had finished packing. The boat which was scheduled to fetch them at the shore by seven could already be seen from a distance. 

Sho looked out the cottage window and saw Azul standing by the river while waving his hand at her. Her feet did not fail to rush out the door almost instantly and ran to him.

“Will we see each other again?” Sho asked as she faced the boy while trying to catch her breath, the subtle look of worry on her face was apparent.

“Of course!” the moment Azul had spoken, he was caught by surprise when Sho wrapped her slender arms around his neck and pulled him into a close hug. He then returned it as he held her into his arms, circling it roundabout her waist. 

“I promise you that we will meet again. Until then, I will give you my blessing as your sacred spirit guardian,” he cupped her face and looked closely into her eyes. “You will become one with every body of water you swim into. As you strive to fulfill your dreams to be a professional swimmer, you will always find the strength to overcome every hurdle in your life. Love will always be in your family; it will always find you.”

The boy kissed her forehead, sealing the blessing that he had bestowed upon her.

“Thank you for everything, Azul. I'll come see you again.”

Azul nodded with a grin before taking three steps backward. The girl held her tears back as she watched him eventually vanish into what seemed like glimmering dusts of teal and scarlet. Along with the aching sorrow she felt in her heart as they parted, there was peace and comfort. The boat had arrived, and summer had ended. 

It was time for her to go back to the city— to face her reality. She was uncertain of what awaited her in the future, but for some reason, she wasn’t afraid anymore of what may come. She knew that Azul’s blessing would be her beacon as she continually endures life. She believed his words.

It wasn't their last goodbye.