The Turning Tide

     A taller, older Aisha turned to meet her young child’s teary eyes. “What is it?”

     “I had a bad dream!” the young Aisha cried against her mother’s soft, pink nightgown.

     The Aisha’s mother placed her arm around the small Aisha softly. “It was just a bad dream, Caylis. It’s not real, no matter how much you think it is.”

     “But it was scary!” Caylis said as she wiped tears away. “It can’t be just a dream!”

     Before her mother could reply, another small Maraquan Aisha wandered into the room. She was young—the same age as Caylis, in fact. She looked just like her, except that her hair was whiter and her skin was turquoise. “What’s going on?” she asked with her blue eyes barely open.

     “Your sister had a bad dream,” their Mother replied calmly, gently stoking her fingers through Caylis’s periwinkle hair.

     Caylis faced her sister. “Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping, Isca?”

     “I was, but I can’t sleep with all of this noise!” Isca pointed out, yawning.

     “That’s enough yelling,” their mother said. “We don’t want to awake the neighbors again this week. Both of you go back to bed, and Caylis, don’t worry about anything. I’ll always be here to protect you.”

     Caylis nodded and left the room. “Thanks, Mommy.”

     * * * * *

     Isca approached Caylis on the way to her room. “So what was your dream about?”

     Caylis stayed silent.

     “You can tell me,” Isca said half-eagerly.

     Again, the Maraquan Aisha said nothing.

     “Fine,” Isca sighed. She started to swim forward, until Caylis stopped her.

     “There was spinning...” Caylis frowned. A tear slid down her face. “It was too much spinning.”

     “Spinning?” Isca eyes widened. “But spinning is fun!”

     “No,” Caylis shook her head. “It wasn’t fun spinning! It was evil!”

     Isca laughed with disbelief. “There’s no such thing as evil spinning! Just go to sleep and think about happy stuff!”

     “But that’s too hard!” Caylis scowled.

     “No, it isn’t. If you are happy enough, bad dreams will always turn out okay!” Isca smiled sweetly with certainty.

     “Really?” Caylis asked. After her nightmare, she hoped her sister was right. She didn’t like to admit it, but her sister was often right about everything.

     “Of course,” Isca mumbled and went off into her room. “Goodnight!”

     * * * * *

     Caylis didn’t know if she could even go back to sleep for the night. Images from her nightmare still clouded her mind, fresh and terrifying. The feeling of endless spinning couldn’t leave her alone, either. Isca and her mom may not have understood, but she knew what she saw was real, every second of it.

     Shivering, she slid the bed’s sheets over her and closed her eyes, trying to forget her nightmare. For a while it was working, but every once in a while she was interrupted by a change in the water’s temperature and occasionally, parts of her nightmare slipped into her current thoughts, keeping her awake even longer.

     After an hour of constant tries to sleep, she finally fell into a quiet slumber.

     * * * * *

     Caylis awoke with fright. A loud noise had just soared through her ears. Suddenly, her nightmare flashed before her. The first thing in her nightmare was a loud noise. Quickly, she swam over to Isca’s room, which was next to hers.

     Caylis immediately pulled Isca’s soft pillow from under her head and tossed it aside. “Isca, wake up!”

     “Why?” she mumbled, refusing to lift her head from the comfort of her mattress.

     “Something bad is happening!” Caylis yelled. Her heart was now pounding.

     “What?” Isca now gaped up into her sister’s worried face.

     As much as she didn’t want to, she gathered enough strength to pull herself out of bed. Almost instantly, she noticed that the water was colder, much more than usual. Strangely, no other sounds from the distance were heard between the two. It was like Maraqua had frozen into ice.

     “I’m scared,” Isca mumbled. “What’s going on?”

     “Let’s wake Mommy,” Caylis suggested uneasily.

     As fast as the sisters could, they swam out into their living room. As they expected, their parents were nowhere to be seen. They called out their names many times, but they heard no response. It was too late at night for them to be awake.

     Suddenly, they noticed that the things around them was shaking slightly and a small sound of rumbling followed. There was no doubt in Caylis’s mind—something bad was happening, just like her nightmare. Her nightmare was real.

     The rumbling increased and before they could react, the stone floor below them split in two. Rocks that made up the walls and roof tumbled around them—many barely missing the Maraquan Aishas.

     “Hide!” Isca grabbed her sister’s arm with a tight grip and dived back into her bedroom.

     Fortunately, Isca’s bed provided enough space for both of them to fit under it. Rocks began to fall more frequently and every few seconds, they heard wood splitting into many pieces—more than they can count.

     Together, they watched in terror as everything they knew and owned was crumbling to dust. Neither of them could do anything but watch the debris of their precious toys, their delicious food, and their nice furniture float around them, unable to distinguish what the pieces once were. Caylis screamed. Exactly like her nightmare, everything was spinning.

     More rubbish poured in from the neighborhood, making it harder to see anything beyond a few feet. Small cracks running down the stones that held up the bed told them that it was time to get out.

     “Hurry, we have to leave!” Isca exclaimed as she forced herself to glide out from their temporary shelter in tears.

     Caylis followed her sister and made sure she didn’t leave her sight. Isca’s hand was clutched so tightly around her wrist that she could feel tiny drops of sweat tricking down her hand. Soon, everything around them began to move even faster until all they could see was blurs of dull, dark colors speeding by.

     Once outside of what was once Isca’s bedroom, the water wasted no time pulling them into the mist of destruction. The sisters held on to each other as tightly as they could while they spun fiercely in open water. The piercing sounds below them kept growing, louder and louder as if it would never cease, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Within the noise was the loudest, most terrifying noise they had ever heard.

     From the corner of their eyes, they saw the ground break apart, creating a wide trench. Then, they watched as everything went down into the deep trench without any hesitation, gone forever like the life they had known just hours ago.

     * * * * *

     Hours passed by. Days passed by. Nobody came. The whirlpool had left everything in ruins, and left Caylis and Isca without a place to go. They were together, but within themselves, they felt alone and unsafe. Every few hours, they heard yelling in a distance, and they would hide under a pile of rocks that was in the form of a small cavern. Their food was scarce, but they were glad they at least had some.

     “How long can we go on like this?” Caylis whimpered faintly.

     But Isca didn’t respond. Instead, she paused. There was yelling coming not too far from them and it was coming closer at a fair pace. By instinct, they hid in their cavern fearfully.

     When the voice became clearer, they saw a fairly large Koi. His long, green coat lined with a fur of some sort dragged over his tailfin as he carefully glided through the area. A shiny, ornate crown on his head caused Isca to gasp shrilly. Hearing the gasp, the Koi turned to face the distraught Maraquan Aishas.

     He approached them step by step, and for the first time in a while, hope blossomed in Caylis’s heavy heart. Perhaps he was the one who would save them, to give them a better, fresh new start at life.

     Once the Koi was close enough to see the details of their messy faces, he spoke to them serenely. “Please come out, little Aishas. I’m here to help you. I won’t hurt you.”

     Caylis smiled as she left the cavern and the dreary memories of the nightmare behind her. It was time for a new beginning. Finally, the tide of their destinies had turned for the better. The nightmare was over.

The End