Mysterious Island

The sun shone brightly in the sky that made the ocean below sparkle like diamonds while seagulls soared through the air. Their cries mixed together to create a soothing background noise. To a group of college students, this only served to be a great start to their day.

“Who’s ready to explore the hidden depths of the ocean?!” a particularly energetic girl with blue green hair exclaimed from the dock beside a beautiful yacht.

“We’re going snorkeling Em,” another girl pointed out who had black hair that had purple ombre at the ends.

“We’re not going that deep.”

“A girl can dream,” Em, or Emily, sighed sadly. The girl with the purple and black hair shook her head at her friend’s antics while three boys joined the two.

“Finally,” the purple and black haired girl smirked when the boys began loading their luggage on the boat.

“The heavy lifters are here.”

“Oh shut up Aqua,” one of the guys with dirty blond hair and green eyes huffed.

“We would have been on time if Andrew here wouldn’t have stopped for coffee.”

“Hey,” the guy with black hair and blue eyes defended himself. “You know what I’m like without my coffee Liam.”

“I can even give a demonstration,” the final guy snickered, his shoulder length red hair blowing in the breeze and his brown eyes dancing with mirth. He then proceeded to imitate Godzilla stomping about and giving little roaring noises.

“Real funny Gabe,” Andrew deadpanned with no trace of amusement in his voice or face.

“I know,” Gabe grinned. “I’m a riot.”

“If you jokers are quite done,” Aqua said while she carried a box up the boarding plank.

“We have boxes to load.”

“Aye aye Captain,” the boys sassed with a salute for added measures. Aqua rolled her eyes at their attitude and went on to grumble about boys being idiots. Emily on the other hand found it absolutely hilarious and laughed along with the boys. As for the cargo that needed to be loaded, there were only a few boxes left on the dock so the boys were able to load it up in two trips easily. Once everything and everyone was on the boat, Gabe made quick work of untying the yacht from the dock and pulling the boarding plank on board. Aqua, on the other hand, was at the wheel, making sure everything was working before she flipped the switch that would bring the anchor up.

“Are you finally going to take us to your family’s mysterious reef?” Liam asked Aqua who was easily maneuvering the boat out towards open water. While it sounded like him just joking around with her, he very much wanted to see this reef. For as long as he could remember, Aqua had always told the group about the so called magical and beautiful place that they never had the chance to see.

“You got it,” Aqua confirmed with a tip of her head. Liam seemed to choke on air before he sat ramrod straight to stare at her with wide eyes.

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah,” Aqua shrugged. “Normally when I ask my parents, they turn me down outright. But this time, they actually agreed.”

“No kidding,” Liam breathed out. “What was different this time?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Aqua admitted. “Maybe I just wore them down after asking for five years straight?”

There was a silence between the two as they thought it over until Liam shot to his feet.

“I have to go tell the others,” he offered Aqua before he ran out of the wheel room. Aqua watched him go with a raised eyebrow at his behavior then shook her head. No matter how long she had known her group of friends, twelve years to be exact, they still managed to surprise or confuse her with their actions sometimes. I wouldn’t have them any other way, Aqua admitted to herself while adjusting the course of the boat a little. There was a peaceful silence in the wheel room while Aqua steered the boat that was shattered when Emily came skidding into the room.

“We’re going to the reef?” she gasped for breath, no doubt running at full speed to get there.

“Yeah,” Aqua answered slowly, unsure about how Emily was going to react. A high pitched squeal left Emily’s lips before she launched herself at her.

“Emily!” Aqua protested as she quickly pressed the autopilot button before she was tackled to the ground.

“I’m so happy!” Emily cheered with her arms wrapped around Aqua’s neck.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Aqua drawled with an exasperated smile. “Now can you let me up?”

“You don’t know how long we’ve been waiting to see this reef?” Emily pouted when the others slowly made their way into the wheel room.

“Five years?” Aqua supplied. The others laughed at her day humor while Aqua regained control over the wheel.

“It seemed like twelve,” Emily whined.

“Yeah Aqua,” Gabe grinned widely that had her dreading what he was going to say.

“We’ve done our waiting.”

“Oh god no,” Aqua grinned when she realized what he was going to say.

“Twelve years of it,” Liam agreed.

“In Askaban,” Emiy finished. Aqua just stared at them humorlessly before she turned to look at Andrew.

“Drew, you’re my new favorite.”

“What?” the other three gasped.

“Andrew, how could you betray us?” Gabe sniffed. Andrew in turn had the same look on his face that Aqua had. While he had his moments of silliness, he was more like Aqua in terms of personality than the other three. Looking back on their previous adventures, having two level headed people in the group is what kept the three wild ones from getting into too much trouble.

“Don’t look at me,” Andrew dismissed. “You three brought that on yourselves.”

“Well guys,” Gabe sighed. “It looks like Andrew here need a little attitude adjustment.”

“No,” Andrew warned the three who were looking at him with mischievous eyes.

“Oh yes,” Emily beamed before the three of them tackled the poor boy.

“Hey!” Aqua tried to shout over the loudness of the tangle of limbs. “No rough housing in the wheelhouse!”

They paid no heed to her words and continued to tussle until Andrew was groaning on the floor with the other three pinning him down.

“Honestly,” Aqua sighed to herself while her trained eyes scanned over the water until they found what she was looking for.

“Look lively people,” Aqua said to her friends. “We’re here.”

Cue three head popping up in unison to stare at her in shock and excitement. If they weren’t my friends, Aqua thought to herself, that would be scary as hell.

“Last one to the changing room is a rotten egg!” Emily exclaimed, jumping up to run from the room.

“It ain’t gonna be me!” Gabe said following behind her. Liam wasn’t far behind the two so that only left Aqua and Andrew.

“You okay there Drew?” Aqua asked, holding a hand out to help Andrew back to his feet.

“Yeah,” he groaned. “Just a little sore.”

“One would think they are children instead of adults,” Aqua commented.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Andrew smirked that had the both of them laughing together.

“C’mon Andrew, let’s get to the changing room before they come back to hunt us down.”

Seeing as though Andrew just went through getting tackled by the trio, he wasn’t in such a hurry to experience anything like that anytime soon.

Roughly forty five minutes later found the group of friends jumping off the boat to land in the warm, tropical waters in a deeper section.

“We’re not too far from the reef,” Aqua told the group. “We’ll be there in a few minutes, but you can still snorkel there if you want.”

It seemed that the group had decided to snorkel because they all submerged themselves under the water with only the tops of their snorkels above the water. Aqua affectionately rolled her eyes at her friends before she too submerged so that she could see the markers needed to find the reef. True to her words, the group reached the colorful shallow reef where all types of fish swam to and fro. At first Aqua stayed by the group to watch over them to make sure they were safe, but once she saw that they would be fine, she left the group in favor of seeing if there were any places that she had not seen the last time she was there. The same fish, sponge, and coral greeted her gave her a feeling of home. Even the fish greeted her by swimming over and around her limbs as if they were welcoming her back. One rectangular triggerfish caught Aqua’a attention that was circling a particular spot amongst the coral. Furrowing her brows in confusion, she swam over to the fish to reach out towards the coral. The aquamarine bead bracelet on her wrist seemed to sparkle more than usual that had Aqua pulling her wrist back towards her to look at the jewelry she had gotten from her mother. The bracelet didn’t seem to do anything out of the ordinary so Aqua brushed the incident out of her mind when she saw Andrew’s flippers out of the corner of her eye. Seeing as though Andrew was up out of the water in the deeper waters, Aqua swam over until she was beside him with her torso out of the water. She pulled her snorkel out of her mouth and pushed her goggles up a little when she turned to talk to him.

“So Drew, what do you think about the reef?”

She got no answer to her question so she eyed Andrew in confusion.

“What are you staring at Drew?”

“Was that there before?” he questioned without taking his eyes off of what he was staring at.

“Was what there-,” Aqua began to say only to fall silent when she saw the relatively large island that now sat some meters away from where they were treading water. Both shared a shocked silence while they both tried to reason why an island of all things was sitting in front of them now that wasn’t there before.

“No,” Aqua told him. “That definitely was not there before.”

“Aqua!” Emily called over to her only female friend while she swam over.

“Isn’t that a cool island? You didn’t tell us that there was an island by here.”

“There isn’t supposed to be,” Aqua told her with suspicion creeping down her spine.

“Well then why is it there?” Liam asked when he joined the group.

“I don’t know,” Aqua admitted.

“Well I say we go see what is on that island,” Gabe offered. “I mean, we still have the better part of a day to explore.”

“Yeah!” Emily agreed loudly while she shot an arm into the air.

“I don’t know guys,” Andrew voiced hesitantly.

“Andrew is right,” Aqua agreed. “I don’t trust it.

“C’mon Aqua,” Emily pleaded. “When was the last time you did something fun?”

“Some of my ideas of fun and yours are different Em,” Aqua pointed out.

“You know what I mean.”

“With you guys, there isn’t much of a stretch in between.”

However, after receiving three identical looks of puppy dog pleading, Aqua gave in.

“Alright, alright,” she sighed. “We’ll go for a few hours, but that’s it.”

Andrew wanted to object at the turn of events, but he also didn’t want to leave his friends to go alone. When Aqua agreed to go explore the island, Liam, Emily, and Gabe started swimming off towards the island looming ahead of them.