I looked out into the ocean, where Collin, Amy, and I, still wearing our swim suits from the dip we'd taken in the water, decided to go sailing on the new boat we'd bought together. Collin steered while Amy and I held some rope that I didn't think served any particular purpose. The sails were down and we were just cruising, talking about literally nothing. I sighed, taking in the salty aroma of the water, and sat back, closing my eyes and putting my arms over the edge of the boat.

     Suddenly, something pushed my stomach and sent me plunging backwards into the water with a large sploosh. The frigid liquid went into my nose and flooded my mouth with an unpleasant, sour saltiness, but I breathed out, resurfacing myself with a shiver from the waves. I opened my eyes and looked up at Amy, who was leaning over the side of the boat in blunt disapproval.

     "If you're going to sail, then sail, Erika. The Shark Fin doesn't need fat, lazy bums to sully its sails."

     The Shark Fin was what we'd agreed upon as a name when we bought the sailboat. Collin painted the letters scrappily with red spray paint, and even though this was her first time on the water, the letters were already chipping off, making them look even worse against the blue hull. I let out a shaky breath, making my way to the back of the boat to get back on, and with every stroke I made, my darned life jacket bobbed into my face like a title wave of styrofoam. I grasped the edge of the boat and spat the remaining water out, making sure Amy noticed the irritation in my movement as I climbed my way back on.

     "So how's the water?" She asked, pulling her swimsuit down from her throat.

     I unbuckled my life jacket, now sopping wet, and flung it at her. It sprayed water off it like a wet dog as it hit her in the stomach, and I huffed. "Just splendid. You should try it."

     "Cut it out." Collin yelled from behind the sail. "Idiots."

     I suppressed a smile, turning back to Amy as she threw my life jacket back at me. I caught it and sat back down, but as my bones touched the seats, I had the sudden feeling of foreboding, as if the waters were trying to deliver me a message. I turned around, touching the edge of the railing and looking into the deep ocean. Its depths darkened until they were pitch black—but it wasn't the depths, it was a dark spot in the water. I felt the seat under me move just the tiniest bit, but I knew, somehow, that it wasn't the waves, and an almost inaudible hum reached the lap of water against the hull, echoing in my ears like a death gong that only I could hear. The humming got louder, deeper, then I heard Amy rustle in her seat, and a dark, resonating unease filled the air.

      I stared at the black dot, and my eyes widened as I watched it grow larger into a darker hole of oblivion that, I felt in my bones, could not be just the ocean waves. I opened my mouth to tell Collin, but my throat ran dry and my lungs lost their air as I saw the black splotch grow a hundredfold in a split second, taking the whole ocean into its depths.

     I heard Collin gasp and Amy scream as the Shark Fin lurched to the side, coming way too close to tipping over. Dread flooded my conscience. I was paralyzed, stuck motionless in my terror as, inches from my face, a wall of surging water erupted, covering me and Amy and Collin in its merciless grasp, throwing us into its abyss of darkness and crushing force. Every inch of my body burned from the heat of its impact, and I felt my life slip from my hands before I grasped it with desperate talons of fear and dawning realization.

     I would never feel the touch of a warm breeze against my wet skin again. I would never feel the heat of the sand. I would never—

     A force around my waist crushed my thoughts and tallied my body as it lifted me up, and I broke the surface of the water with wet, heaving gasps. I coughed up more salty, bitter water that burned my throat as the force brought me upward, higher and higher until I cleared my eyes and saw-my breath caught in my throat and my eyes widened with awe and terror.

     A dragon, the height and width of an office building with searing white whiskers and a blue, scaly back with ridges like rearing katanas breaking through the vehicle-sized scales where the spine would be, looked at me through glassy, iridescent eyes that held a galaxy of thought and wonder. It had colossal, magnificent wings that sprouted from its shoulder blades and a tail that whipped the water around it with majesty that I had never seen, and huge fins like the feathered end of an arrow flexing in the shallow parts of the water, where I spotted the Shark Fin, tipped and almost cracked in half. Sudden fear shot through my limbs, my wet hair standing on end against my neck. Amy, Collin... I didn't see them.

     "Put me down!" I reared against the clawed hand holding me, but it gave no effect to the otherworldly beast.

     Calm yourself, spirit, your companions have sought safety on the shore. A voice that I knew was the beast's echoed through my head, reverberating off every cell in my body. I am Amarleih Lymn, Dragon of the Sea and protector of lost souls.

     "What do you want with me?" I screamed, hitting my fists against his talons until I felt my own hot blood on my hand. "Let me go!"

     I gasped, feeling a sudden deep sorrow surge through my skin and into my bones. This was his sorrow. His deep emotion that I didn't even know existed. My mind surged as though thrown into an ocean of hate and despair and I felt a hot streak of tears run down my cheek.

     "What are you doing to me?" I came to my senses, knowing this couldn't be true. "Let me down!"

     Then a thought came to me. If this dragon was, as he said, 'protector of lost souls', then why would he come from the bottom of the ocean to get me? I was no lost soul.

     Your thoughts betray your mind, Erika. His voice felt as though it were carried in the wind and would be wisped away forever if I didn't listen carefully to every word, but when I tried to block it out, it resonated in my mind like the deep gong of a bell.

     I tried to calm myself, slowly stilling my shaking to a small tremble through my hands. I stopped thrashing against his talons and took one deep breath. "Why are you here? To take me away?" My voice cracked.

     I am the protector of lost souls and I am here to help you find your way before you are taken—his voice deepened in my mind, bringing a melancholy surge of sadness—but if I fail to take your sadness within the next quarter bell, you will be swept away in the grains of time, and all memory of you will be lost.

     My throat ran dry, the heavy shaking returning to my limbs like a disease. "The sands of time? Who are you to say that?" I couldn't breath.

     You still have time, Erika. You can save yourself.

     "No, I can't. I don't know what to do!" I cried out, slamming my fists down on his talons painfully.

     Because a part of you isn't content with the life you are leading, I have been forced to intervene before you are taken. Feel the answer, Erika. You know what to do.

     "No I don't!" But even as the words left my lips, I knew they weren't completely true. I didn't know what to do, but I had a deep, painful emotion clogging my chest that was crying to be released, and I knew from where it came. The long, wooden doors and the loneliness and harsh commands of the orphanage. It was there, but this couldn't work. The emotion rasping through my lungs still raged, ripping a strangled cry from my lips. I had to try, even if I knew it wouldn't work.

     There is something you know that you aren't willing to release, Erika. The dragon's voice hummed softly, and a lurch made me look down. He was fading into the watery depths of his sadness. I gasped, knowing the bell was about to strike. He was feeling the sadness of locking lost souls away in the depths of time, and I was about to become one of them.

     "I'm trying, Amarleih, but it's not working!" I cried hopelessly, new tears streaking over the old. "I can't do it!"

     Yes, you can.

     I shook my head in denial. I didn't have much longer.

     My original family. They loved me. It was so long ago it felt as if it never happened, but that emotion broke through. Then the house enveloped in flames as though a fiery beast from heaven came to take them away, and then the orphanage. I was there longer than I should have been, then there was a single hope. Someone came to get me—a new family to love me, but they didn't. They didn't want me, and so I went back to the orphanage.

     I screamed, the memories bringing a raw pain to my body and my lungs. I shook uncontrollably in Amarleih's grip, my body enveloped in a new type of coldness, but I drew up my nonexistent, desperate strength and plunged back into my memories.

     In the orphanage, I cried for weeks, and that pain never left me. Even when another family came to get me, it never left. My new family loved me, and I thought I was happy, but I wasn't. That despair and loneliness left the orphanage on my shoulders and never let go. It grasped at my soul, calling Amarleih to pluck me up from the depths of hopelessness. But I wouldn't make it. The memories ripped me apart, piece by piece, and I knew the quarter bell was coming like the death knell that would kill me.

     Erika, don't give up.

     More tears spilled down my cheeks as I recalled what happened and watched the dragon's tail fade away into the water. It faded and kept going up the back, along the beautiful ridges and the wings. It all disappeared as Amarleih sank back into the watery depths of his everlasting sadness. He was going under, and I was going with him.

     "No!" I screamed, grasping at the scales holding me as they lowered, slowly fading away. I looked up into the breathtaking eyes of the dragon, and he met my gaze, the sadness still spilling out of his angled features, before he lowered himself into the water. But just before the top of his scales faded, leaving just his arm holding me, I caught one last wisp, filled with both a great sadness and a deeper, more buried emotion-victory.

     Live your life and acknowledge your failures, I opened my eyes and saw the tip of his scales as they faded away. But don't dwell on your sadness, Erika, or it will overcome you.

     The water enveloped him, and there was just the lap of the waves. I stood, bewildered, and let out a breath.

     "Are you alright?" The voice made me swivel around, and I saw the undamaged Shark Fin with Collin and Amy looking at me with questioning faces.

     I caught my breath, my eyes welling with tears. "I am now."