ADRIA’S POV.
Fear gripped me hard in my chest, as I watched the large creature. Never, in my life, had I ever seen a creature as large as that.
The worst thing about the giant octopus was that it seemed to have eyes everywhere on its body.
“Damn.” Lucien muttered, and immediately turned around, pulling me with him. “Swim.”
I began to swim, but it was hard. Already, my stomach hurt. The leaves, and cloth Lucien had used to cover my wounds had slipped off, and I wasn’t supposed to be in water, with such a would.
Swimming forward was our only option because the water didn’t let us get anywhere near the shore.
Just then, a large tentacle landed right between Lucien and me, with a large splash, and we were both driven apart by the force of it.
I landed on another tentacle, and my heart threatened to burst out.
“Adria! Use your claws!” Lucien said, as I began to rise out of his reach. I got up from the slowly rising tentacle, and tried to jump down, but another tentacle caught me, and wrapped around me, with my hands bound within.
I screamed, and tried to free myself, but it raised me, and began to take me, straight into a hole right under where its eight arms met. I could see its beak larger than ever, and large, monstrous teeth that I didn’t think any octopus should have.
Of course, it wasn’t a normal octopus, so why should anything about it be normal?
“Lucien!” I screamed, in fear, and Lucien began to climb the octopus’ tentacles. But it wasn’t easy, as he was being bounced from side to side.
Lucien struck the octopus, with his claws, slashing madly, but that didn’t stop the octopus from taking me, on a slow journey into its mouth. Its sharp, jagged teeth—black, and monstrous, were closer than ever, and honestly, I had never seen anything like it in all my life.
I’m going to die! I’m going to die! Those thoughts filled my head hard, and I began to feel a panic attack coming. I couldn’t even move my hands, or legs.
I was terrified, drenched in a combination of water, and my own sweat.
My eyes shut tight, and I began to scream. I screamed as loud as I could, breaking it, so I could produce a louder one each time. No, I didn’t want to be eaten.
Making Lucien feel bad that he couldn’t save me wasn’t my intention. I didn’t want to burden him. Maybe I should have died from the time he gave me that deep cut in the forest, but at the moment, I didn’t want to die.
I didn’t want to be chewed to death. It was going to be painful.
“Adria!” Lucien shouted in rage, and pain, as I was taken into the Octopus’ mouth.
It dropped me on a jagged tooth, but before its upper teeth came down crashing on me, I rolled away, and almost fell down a slide that was definitely its throat.
A long black stuff suddenly shifted to the side, rolling me off it, then returning to push me back, to the jagged teeth, and I screamed hard.
It was its tongue.
Its tongue looked nothing like a radula, but the only thankful thing about it, was it didn’t have teeth on it like regular octopuses had.
I kept on screaming, as I pushed against the disgusting tongue, but I didn’t think I could hold on much longer.
My hands and legs were trembling so hard that it felt like they would give out, in a matter of seconds.
Tears rolled down my eyes like streams, and I found it hard to breathe. Already, my throat was hoarse from screaming, and it felt like I got weaker from each scream.
Someone save me! Save me! I begged, in my mind.
The octopus managed to push me to its teeth, and I managed to wrap my hands tight around it.
It would have to struggle to get me off its tongue first, right? That was what I thought.
But no, I was wrong. Its upper teeth simply came down in between my chest, and its tongue, and I lost my hold, screaming. Then, I did what I would naturally never do in a lifetime… Before the giant teeth came down hard on me, crunching me to blood, and bones, I sunk mine into its tongue.
I bit hard, and dark, bitter liquid dribbled down my chin.
I kept on biting, and when its teeth came down again, trying to separate me from it, I tore out a chunk of its tongue, and spat it out.
It rolled its tongue, and let out a screeching noise that nearly split my eardrum.
“Adria!” I suddenly heard Lucien call, and there he was, standing at the opening.
“Lucien!” I cried, and ran to him.
The octopus sensed our movements. However, before it could use its tongue and teeth against us, we had jumped down.
It tried to catch us with its tentacles, but luckily, it missed.
We went deep into the water, bubbles forming crazily, and swam towards a large rock, hiding behind it. The octopus dived into the water, and from where we were, I looked at its countless eyes roaming around, and tried hard to hold my breath when I wanted to scream out.
My heart was beating madly, and I felt I was close to having a heart attack. No part of me stayed still, and I almost swam out when the octopus dashed past us, making a strong wave of water brush us away.
I hit my head on a stone, and nearly passed out, but made sure I kept my consciousness. Passing out would be the wrong thing to do at the moment.
Finally, when we felt all was good, we swam to the surface, and I screamed first, and began to cry, as I gasped for breath.
I sucked in air greedily like I was a thief who had gone hungry for days, and was stuffing bread into his mouth. I began to cough, and cry at the same time.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Lucien apologized breathlessly, as he hugged me. “I’m sorry…” he said again, but the next thing that came out my mouth, was a scream, as I saw we were about to fall down a huge water fall.
Lucien also yelled when he saw it, but our efforts to swim backwards amounted to nothing. We were taken quickly down the waterfall, and in seconds, we were falling.
I screamed, but what touched my heart, was Lucien hugging me, with his hands protectively wrapped around my head.
If we happened to hit something, he wanted me to have a slim chance of surviving.
Water rushed through my nose, and opened mouth, choking me. It rained down heavily on us, sending us down faster than gravity intended to send us, and we finally crashed down into the water.
We went down farther than I intended at the speed of light, and when we finally slowed down, I was shocked to see a huge amount of blood flowing in the water.
I turned, and saw Lucien’s arm wounded. His eyes were alight with pain, and I screamed there in the water, causing me to be even more out of breath.
Lucien shook his head, trying to tell me not to worry, but even in the water, he could not seem to move his hand.
He began to drown, and I tried to lift him up. It was hard due to all my injuries, but I couldn’t leave him. No, I was unable to leave Lucien just like that.
With my wounds, and my pain, I began to swim upwards.
Each second that I held my breath, a terrible heat spread around my chest, and my heart clenched hard. I needed to breathe. I had to breathe, but I didn’t leave Lucien, who had already given up on swimming. He couldn’t even help himself.
His strength was diminished.
It was so hard to get to that surface, and honestly, more than thirty times, I thought of giving up. I thought of just letting my lungs close up by themselves, and sinking deep beneath the water.
Letting everything go at that moment seemed so easy, too easy to do, but even as those thoughts crowded my mind, I kept on swimming. Never for once, did my arm stop reaching out, to get to the surface, and once I did, I began to cry again.
Breathing was so good, and I was grateful that breathing was such a gift. Unable to breathe was torture. Air gushed down my lungs, and I choked on it.
Lucien also took in deep breaths. We had almost died. The river had almost taken our lives. Water, which was the strongest element of nature, had almost conquered us.
When was it going to end? It already felt like years.
“Thank you.” Lucien muttered, with a shaky voice, and I held his face.
“I feel… I feel so hopeless right now, but we’ll make it, okay? Up until now, you’ve been the one encouraging us, I’ll do it now. Lucien, it’s okay to show you’re tired. You don’t have to suffer alone.
“It’s okay to think we won’t make it. I’ll… I’ll be understanding. Just don’t… don’t die, or think of giving up. I’ll take us the rest of the way, and this would be a story we would tell, and laugh about.” I reassured him, and he nodded slowly.
I lifted my gaze, sweeping it around the waterfall, and there in the distance was a cottage.
A cottage… like the ones hags lived in. If she had lived for a long time, on the face of the earth, then… there was the possibility she was a hag, and…
“Lucien! We have found her!”