"What, girl? Too afraid to go down now?" Laki interrupts with a smirk on his face. He's looking down on me.

Despite that, my knees still wobbled. "Can we go on the side, just before the sea hole?" I ask, giving a name to that which caused the lightheadedness in me. Maybe the shark will still appear even if we are at the side.

Laki sneers at me, and I take offense at his blase attitude. "

What? No human could go down there! We'd be crushed by the water pressure!"

Laki guffaws this time. "That sea hole's mouth," he starts, emphasizing my coined name. "Is where that shark is hiding. It's only at this exact area where we can bait it."

"I won't go down there. I won't kill myself," I say, stubbornly.

Laki frowns at me. "Aren't you here to slay the shark?"

"But using myself as bait, I--"

Without saying another word, he jumps into the water like a trained, professional diver. In that split second, I hold my breath, afraid that Laki just killed himself.

Then Laki's head pops out from the ocean surface. "See? I'm still alive," he says in a mocking tone.

"You--" I don't know what to say next. I can not understand his lack of fear of the huge sea hole underneath him.

"What's wrong?" Migo asks, peering at me, then at Laki. He looks dizzy and weak, not the type who's fit to jump into the ocean like Laki.

"The girl's too afraid to come down," Laki answers for him.

"Jade?" he follows where I am looking. "What's wro-- Oh shit!"

"Exactly," I say in response.

"Fine," Laki starts, realizing that the two of us are too afraid to climb down. "Fine, I will be your bait, so be prepared when the shark appears."

"Can we just go a little on the side?" I request again.

"I said no. Because it won't appear if we do that."

I crawl towards the edge of the boat, hug it to my chest. I need to get the courage, else this challenge will never get completed. I take a deep breath and look at him. His frowning face was poking out just over the surface.

"Youngsters these days are too lazy," he mutters. "Rajah Sinagtala won't like you one bit."

I stiffen at the mention of his name. "We're new to these slaying monster business. We need time to adapt," I defend, annoyed at my reaction to his name.

"I say, the lot of you are too lazy and such cowards. I w--" He isn't able to continue when he disappears at the surface.

I gasp. Migo and I look at each other, then shift our attention back to the ocean. "Laki? I hate pranks, you know."

Still, Laki did not surface. "Laki?"

"Shit!" Migo is about to jump when I reach for his arm to stop him.

Together, we listen closely. The surface is too calm and I can see no movements. I reach for my strange sword. Migo shakes his head. He knows what I'm planning. Before he voices out his concerns, I say, "You're weak at swimming."

A meter away from us, I see a glimpse of movement. Without thinking, I dive into the ocean and attempt to open one eye. It doesn't hurt, not even a slight sting. I open both my eyes and see Laki. Only, he's between the jaws of a huge shark, twice as long as a human's height. It's swaying Laki around and is trying to cut him in half.

On the other hand, Laki is fighting it with his bare hand. He's trying to open the shark's jaw that's clamped around him. Both the shark's eyes are bleeding, possibly caused by Laki's futile attempt to attack.

I am stupefied. My arms are paralyzed in fear. If not for Migo's muffled voice calling for me, I won't be able to get out of my trance.

My head emerges on the surface. "There's the shark," I breathe.

"Then get the hell up here!" Migo says and extends his arms to me.

"Laki is between its jaws."

"All the more reason to escape!" Migo panics again.

Instead of listening to him, I dive again. My mind's racing. What was it? I think, trying to remember where is the other weak part of a shark aside from its eyes. I turn my attention towards it. I study its body, looking for its weakness. Laki is still struggling against it. I swim towards them. Laki frowns at me, probably asking why I'm not escaping.

Finally, I see the shark's gill rakers, the cartilage part, the other weakness. With all my strength, I pierce it with my strange sword. I let go of the sword. The huge shark fumbles around, but it let Laki go. I pull him with me despite the difference in our size. I reach the boat and Migo is more than ready to pull Laki up.

Suddenly, I feel something bite at the back of my legs. I squint in pain and when Migo extends his hands to me; I am pulled down into the ocean, swallowing half a liter of seawater in the process. I check the cause and realize that the shark, its eyes bleeding, the sword still stuck on its side, is pulling me down the bottom and I realize with horror, that I'm the next prey.

I wriggle away from it, but its teeth sink deeper on my legs. The pain is too much, yet I must live. I reach for the sword at its side but it's too far from my reach. For the first time, I curse that I am not as tall as Migo. I start to cry. I can feel it tearing up my flesh. Still, my hands can't reach the sword along its gills.

I still want to live. I want to return home. I want to see my family. I want to invent things. I want my love to be realized, and for someone to love me back.

My tears mingle with the seawater, and my body relaxes. The shark feels my submission, and it stops flicking me left and right. Then it moves and swims deeper into the ocean, towards the sea hole, with me in its jaws.

Upon that realization, my tears stop. My mind desires to live, but my body has already accepted my death and it's refusing to obey my commands.

Unbidden, faces of my family come to mind, their smiles, their encouragement, followed by Aian and Migo as we worked on a project of our own, working hard to compensate for each other's weakness.

Renz's face comes next. I give him my trust, yet he betrayed it. However, I know I should have been braver to admit that I am at fault too. I should have realized the anxiety when my friends warned me that couples who never fight are relationships bound to fail. I thought it's stupid, immature. But now, I understand, that instead of always forgiving him, I should have braved the confrontation. Should have settled on a compromise. Then maybe, just maybe, he should have stayed with me.

Then my recollections transform into something else—of fire, explosions, and war. Suddenly, Rajah Sinagtala, a confident smile on his face, swims into my thoughts. I went to him that night to earn back my self-respect but instead, it was pounded into dust. I frown, realizing that my vision starts to blur. I close my eyes.

And open it again when I feel someone patting my cheeks roughly. Migo is in front of me. The shark's jaw is loosened around my legs. I thought he's an illusion and so I smile dizzily. I reach for his cheeks and pull him into a hug. If I'm dying, let it be in the arms of a friend.

However, he removes my arms around his neck and goes behind me. He places his arms under my armpit and starts to raise me. My eyes stray towards the shark. It's unmoving. Its body was wounded and bleeding. This time, it's pierced with a spear through its stomach.

When we reach the surface, Migo hoists me up and I groan at the effort. I fell over an equally wounded Laki who's starting to look pale. Clumsily, Migo clambers on the boat and kneels before me.

I look queerly at him but the next he did is something that I will probably never forget in my life—Migo slaps me across my cheeks with the back of his hand. It is unrestrained and heavy that a second after, I could taste the sharp, tangy taste of blood in my mouth.

Afterward, his anger is replaced with relief, he lifts me and imprisons me into the folds of his arms. He starts to tremble and I realize he is crying.

"You careless, moronic woman," he sobs, his arms constricting me.

I seem to wake up from my slumber. Tears start to come again and I wail, finally admitting my fear of death.

"I'm sorry," I cry as well. I raise my arms and hug him back. "I'm sorry," I repeat, my arms tightening around him. "I want to return home!" I whine.

"We'll be back," he says. "So never, ever, think of dying before that happens."

I nod vigorously and weep until Laki clears his throat. "No one's dead so stop bawling and let's head back," he says. Somehow, his tone is softer.

On our return, Migo rows the boat towards the shore. He's the only one strong enough to do it with Laki and me both injured.

Aian is still standing on the shore. When he sees us approaching, he runs towards us and climbs on our boat once Migo has pulled it on the shore.

He might have forgotten his fear of the bakasi temporarily. When he sees our injuries, he asks, "How big is that shark?!"

Laki cackles but stops midway when he feels the pain around his chest and stomach. "No monster. Just fish."

Aian is not convinced as he examines our injury. "Fish could create bites like that? What happened to them?" Aian asks.

"Some drama," he says, breathing heavily in each passing second. "Good thing it's not Commander Bagwis who's with them," Laki adds. His eyes still focused on both me and Migo. Then his eyes shift towards the shore. "Will you get the fish? It's stuck on my spear."

"You brought it here?" Aian asks, incredulous.

"I don't have a choice. They need proof. Besides, it's already dead. Your friend dealt a fatal blow on it with her strange-looking sword. I just helped on carrying it back."

Migo carries me back to the shore before a Babaylan comes to inspect my injuries.

"Laki," I whisper. "He's heavily injured."

"He's being taken care of, child. Now, let's see this injury on your leg."