The Wishing Pearl of Haythem
- Locked due to inactivity on Aug 4, '16 4:13pm
Thread Topic: The Wishing Pearl of Haythem
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Thank you,Roady.
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Your welcome, Angel. But it's true. I'm looking forward to reading your other stuff, too.
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Well,I have just wrote a few more things.
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Really? Show me! But I might have to go soon to sleep but I can read a few things.
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They're on the Unfinished Business thread.
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Okie, I'll read them. I might be a while though, depends how much it is.
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Here's Chapter 4...
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Chapter Four
The waves lapped on to the boat, rocking it but only gently.
"Alright Ali, you know what to do," said the captain, "The pearls should be down there somewhere,"
"Alright," he said and glanced at his best friend - Nasser, "Wish me luck,"
He stood at the edge and looked down on to the waves calmly lapping on the boat's surface, took a deep breath, steadied his nerves, and jumped.
He crashed in to the waves and slowly dived down, the effect of the freezing water overwhelming him, but he tried his best, and did what Nasser told him to do, "Think about home," he had said, "And old memories, don't think about the cold, or drowning,"
He moved his arms and legs swiftly throughout the water; he was working like a champion so far.
He swam for quite sometime, trying not to panic because of the lack of air, but just when he began to lose hope, he found an open clam and fished out the pearl inside, it wasn't very big, but it was a start.
Although his friend's warning, he began to feel a thrust of panic and couldn't relax, should he pull the rope and let them haul him up for him to breathe? He decided to give it some more time, but he was running out of air.
He found two more pearls and thrust them in the basket he was holding underwater, he was about to continue on when he saw something looming in the darkness of the sea.
It was a splodge moving around in the water, it was very far away, but very much there, he couldn't make out what it was, but instead of going back to the pearls, he took a step forward and waded through the water towards it, curiosity getting the better of him.
Finally, he spotted what it was when he got in a near distance, it was a sting ray.
Now sting rays aren't very harmful if you leave them alone, and Ali was just about to turn away when it waded across the sea floor, he was startled for a minute but then continued on, ignoring the sea creature.
But then, both got too close by accident, and he stepped on it's back just as it was about to turn and go back to it's business, he felt a shock in the sole of his foot and felt like it was scorched, he tried to hold back a scream but it was too painful. He opened his mouth and water gushed in.
He choked and coughed and spluttered, but that made it worse and more water gushed in and he splashed around, getting more panicked and frantic at the second, the poison released in to him making it a lot worse.
*
Up on deck, everyone wondered what he was doing and why he was taking so long, the captain was getting angry and impatient.
Unlike the others, Nasser felt that something was wrong; he looked down at the shores, and then up at the captain.
"Alright," he declared, he knew Nasser wanted to go and help Ali, they were best friends and he wasn't ready to just let him die.
Ali's foot was swelling up badly and he felt pain gush all through his leg, he couldn't stand it and felt the world slowly blacking out in front of him… Just a few minutes…
He was just lying on the sea floor, slowly choking, his ribs running out of air, his foot swelling and pain all through his leg, it was unbearable.
Stingray's poison doesn't kill one, but it causes severe pain, and though Ali was very deep down, he felt too much pain to pull himself together and swim back up, and the lack of air had been too much for him, if only he hadn't stayed down there for so long, perhaps if it had happened a minute earlier, he might have made it… But time was precious when you didn't have air.
Nasser dived down in to the sea, he tried to stay calm but he was frantic for his friend, he knew he didn't have a lot of time left and needed to be very careful. He decided to inflict his own advice on himself.
Think about home, he told himself, think about the kids, about family, about memories.
He thought of Fehed jumping around like mad and playing ever so slightly more behaved when he was around. And Mona Who had flicked her hair all around and loved to skip around. And Faisel who was patient and quiet and didn't say much, trying to stay strong.
He thought of those happy times of walking down the amber sands of the beach and watching the calm blue waves of the ocean in the dead of the night, sometimes the children collecting shells and taking them back home or playing with their hand and foot prints in the sand. Sometimes dipping their feet in the shallow water and feeling the cool breeze of the wind on their faces, under at the starry sky, like they were all shining just a bit more for them.
He swam steadily and tried to focus on these happy and warm memories, but still stayed focused on the water and looked around for Ali. Where was he?
He looked around a bit more. He thought of something else, when Mona and Faisel were very young and Fehed wasn't even born yet, they had been at their tiny farm, and had scared all the chickens to death but they turned on them and attacked them, so they lashed around and screamed in circles while everyone laughed at the two.
But still there was no sign of Ali. He looked through the corals and between the reefs and watched out for the jelly fish swarming by and the fish that got startled, but there was still no sign of him.
Ali had fainted from the terribly cold water, the lack of air and the swelling of his foot and the cramps he got in his muscles. This was all too much for him. He got dizzy, and soon He was just floating around heavily in the water, his arms were just lying around and he was lifeless.
Nasser found him after a few minutes, but all thoughts of memories rushed past and he swam towards his friend, whom lay lifeless between a few rocks.
He grabbed his arm and pulled, but it was no use, he was too heavy. He tried again, with more force, but that just made him dizzy from the lack of air.
He put his hands behind his back and pulled, he managed to get him off the ground, but only slightly.
Then, he fixed his feet on to a rock and pulled Ali up, he tried to swim to the surface but they were both too heavy. He was stuck.
He pulled the rope he was tied to while he held Ali so that they'd pull him, they tugged hard and slowly the two went up, Nasser was feeling dizzy and might pass out with Ali and drop him any minute… But he tried his best to hold on… Tried to stay calm, just a bit more…
They were pulled out.
The crew hoarded them on to the deck, Nasser coughed out a lot of water and gasped for breath, trying to regain control, but the world blacked out around him and he passed out.
They carried the two down under the deck on to two hammocks, they checked their pulse, Nasser was alive, barley, but alive. They weren't so sure about Ali though…
*
Yasser and Jawaher were playing with eachother in the sand; they were trying to make an Indian palace. Something that looked like the Taj Mahal. But they were having no luck at all in building it.
"Oh, it doesn't need to be perfect," said Jawaher, trying to make a rounded roof, "Let's just try our best,"
"Try our best," muttered Yasser pitifully, "Trying our best won't do. We have to make it perfect,"
"Nothing is perfect, none of us are perfect,"
"Well then we'll be the artists to dream for perfection!"
Jawaher sighed, "Sit down Yasser, and don't be a fool,"
"I'm not a fool!" he cried, "We could actually make something amazing if we worked really hard on it!"
"Well I don't want to work really hard on it, I just want to have fun,"
"Nobody said getting what you want would be fun,"
"But I don't want perfection, I want to have fun and having fun is fun," but she wasn't certain of her words because now, both of them were muddled up.
"I want to be a sculptor when I grow up," he said proudly after a moment.
"Yeah, you said you wanted to be a pirate the o -
"Yeah, you said you wanted to be a pirate the other day when daddy left," she felt her heart ache all over again but she didn't show it in the least.
"That was then, this is now,"
"I bet if I wrote down all the times you'd said that, I'd have broken my hand doing that,"
"Why don't we write a story together?"
"Do it yourself,"
"Yes! Oh yes! I could be a world famous author and sell books and -"
He raved on and on about this, and Jawaher had wished that she'd never opened her mouth.
She tried to block him out and focused on the sand castle. She decided to add shells, and left Yasser talking to himself by a rock while she went to look for shiny pebbles on the rocky shores of the beach.
The rocks hurt under her bare feet and she was cautious not to slip under the slimy sea weed that gathered on the rocks, she picked up shells and mollusks and sand dollars all round, even some empty lying around clams but she only found one broken one.
She had collected about ten, when she decided to go back and stick them all round the roof and walls of the sand palace she and Yasser had made, to decorate it and make it prettier.
But when she had gone back to where Yasser was raving at himself, or talking to the rocks, he wasn't there. And the sand palace had been destroyed, like somebody had trampled on it quite horribly.
This made Jawaher quite cross and she got so angry that she dropped the sea shells and went to see where her brother had fled to on the beach, but he was nowhere to be seen, until she heard screams coming from behind her, not screams of fear and pain, but screams of laughter, like someone being chased In a fun game of tag.
She looked behind her, a boy not much older than Yasser was chasing him all over the beach. Fehed!
"What the…?" she asked herself, and slowly walked down to the two children running around in circles like crazy.
When she reached them, she said, "What are you two doing?" very quietly, almost as if to herself, but they heard her.
"He trampled on our castle!" cried Yasser but with a smile, he pointed at Fehed.
"Why did you do that, Fehed?" she asked sternly, although she thought it was funny, only because the two had been running and were out of breath.
"Why did I do what?" he asked innocently, although he was faking.
"You know what!" she said, "Why did you trample our castle?"
"I didn't do anything," he said sarcastically, smiling sheepishly and looking the other way.
"Damn it!" she cried and lunged at him, but he sprinted half a second earlier than her and he was too fast and could outrun both of them, they were hopeless.
"You can't catch me! You can't catch me!" he cried with delight.
"AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!" screamed Jawaher after him, she couldn't keep up and was losing her breath, but determination got the better of her.
"You can't catch me! You can't catch me!"
Both the children were angry now at him, and were thoroughly determined to catch him and shove him in the sand. But he was too fast, and after a few more minutes, they couldn't stand it any longer, even aggressiveness got its limits.
They both rested on a rock, staring at him through eyes filled with malice, but soon they calmed down and started laughing at themselves for being so silly.
"I bet I can collect more Sand dollars than both of you put together!"
And the challenge began, the two children were so filled with rage that they were determined to beat him, but both thought that if they had theirs put together in comparison to his, it was impossible for Fehed not to win.
So they collected only a few sand dollars each. And when Fehed randomly gave out the call to stop, the three sat together and counted. Fehed had twelve, Yasser and Jawaher had ten.
"I win!" he cried triumphantly, Jawaher felt she was going to cry and scream and kick and bite with rage, Fehed was so annoying.
"Hey, wait a minute!" cried Yasser, staring at Fehed suspiciously, "You have eleven sand dollars and one… what is that?"
Fehed had been overcome with pride that he had picked up something by mistake, it wasn't a sand dollar. It was a pearl. But it was a strange one, a pale blue color like the sky, it didn’t seem real, yet, it was, where else could it have come from? And the letter H etched in gold on it's surface.
For a moment, Fehed didn't know what it was, then he took a deep breath and cried, "It's The Wishing Pearl of Haythem!" -
.....whoa...damn...i love this story roady..the setting is awesome, it makes you feel like your in..idk some other world or something like that...
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LoL, thank you Slim. I appreciate it. =)
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beautiful i loved it Roady :)
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Thanks Scar, I appreciate it too. =)
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^^ no prob
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Whoa... that...was...awesome.
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