The Forgotten Land of Myria

ROY

Hospitals are like squash. Even though it’s good for you, it’s probably the worst thing you can experience. Four days of treatment and I could barely take another minute of spoon-fed medicine on a stone-hard bed. Even a prison sentence would have been better. At least you get an hour outside (and I bet the beds are softer). I had been taken to a much better room down the hall, though, and my arm was almost fully healed. The doctor said I’d be going home either tomorrow night or the following morning.

I laid in my bed tortured by boredom, staring at the TV screen--even Alfie had gotten bored of lying around in the hospital and decided to go home after two days. The clock next to me read 2:35 p.m., which meant it would soon be time for another sponge bath. The thought of it made me shudder.

One of the nurses walked in.

″Mr. Kendon, there’s a young man here waiting to see you,″ she said.

″That’s weird. Uhh, sure. Bring him in,″ I answered.

At that moment, a tall skinny guy with wavy black hair walked in the room. He was wearing square glasses, a blue striped beret, a brown leather jacket and ripped denim jeans with Converse sneakers. A leather bag hung at his side. He seemed to be around twenty-one years old and I had never seen him before in my life.

″Hello, Mr. Kendon, pleasure to meet you.″ He said, though he seemed a little awkward. ″My name is David Friedrich.″

″Uhh, hi,″ I responded. I tried my best to sound inviting.

He then sat on the couch, crossed his legs and stared at the TV. There was a moment of dead silence. The guy just sat there looking nowhere, like he was relaxing at home with his best buddy. I decided to break the ice.

″Um, excuse me. Not to be rude but...why are you here?″

He serenely shifted his head towards me and took a deep breath. He began to examine me, squinting his eyes and then answered.

″Why not be here?″

Who is this guy? I thought. He clearly thought it was okay to show up in some random hospital room and hang out.

″Well, there’s nothing wrong with it,″ I said, ″but wouldn’t you, uhh, have something better to do than just--″

″So, you’re the survivor,″ he interrupted still staring at me distinctively.

″What are you talking about?″ I asked.

″You’re the survivor,″ he repeated. He pulled out a newspaper and pointed to an article that read:

Mysterious Whirlwind Claims 61 Victims

″You’re Roy Kendon. The only survivor of the denouement--this whirlwind,″ he said.

I grabbed the newspaper to read it myself.

″Okay, so why are you showing me this?″ I asked, ″Is there anything you want to--″ I was interrupted once again with the guy’s hand in my face.

″Were you ever exposed to any amount of gamma radiation?″ he asked.

I was completely perplexed. ″Again, what are you talking about?″

″Don’t act like you don’t know,″ he said. ″I’ve already analyzed every possibility there is of the source of your survival, and a cell mutation through gamma ray exposure is the most concrete hypothesis since kryptonite cells aren’t real, and you don’t possess blue skin pigmentation so you can’t be a homo mermanus.″

I couldn’t understand a word he said--all I could do was wrinkle my forehead and say ″Huh?″ The guy’s hand met his face, which made me feel pretty stupid.

″I don’t know how to be any clearer,″ he said. ″The wave you were involved in was part of a whirlwind with the magnitude of a tsunami. There was no way you could have gotten out of there alive, unless some supernatural power acted upon you.″

″You can’t be serious,″ I said. ″You think I’m a superhero?″

He looked sideways, realizing how irrational he sounded.

″Maybe not a superhero,″ he responded, ″but there was definitely something paranormal involved in this whole thing. Don’t you get it? Do you not see anything out of place in all this?″

″So you’re here to investigate what happened?″ I asked.

″Of course not,″ he snapped. ″I’m here because I like ‘chilling’ with blockheaded surfers in hospitals.”

″Well, that was my first impression,″ I said. Not just annoying, he’s rude too.

″Okay, just tell me,″ he continued impatiently tapping his hands together. ″What do you remember seeing, feeling, or hearing during the event?″

″Umm, I saw water everywhere,″ I said. The guy rolled his eyes.

″Okay,″ he sighed. ″Let’s start with a simpler question. Why on earth would you choose to go surfing at one of the most dangerous beaches in the Pacific during the highest wave movement period this year?″

I frowned. A responsible surfer would know that, but I had to improvise my answer.

″Err, I don’t know. I’m young. Sometimes I do stupid things.″

David frowned in response.

″I’m young. I don’t do stupid things. Let’s try describing the scenario again, shall we?″

I pursed my lips. I really felt like punching the guy at the moment. Instead, I took a deep breath, and began to visualize the whole event. ″When the whirlwind began--I heard a screech coming from under the water...like there was some type of monster there. And tentacles. I saw these tentacle-like things that shot for me when I crashed underwater. They were huge.″

The guy’s eyes widened.

″I see,″ he said pulling out a notebook. He began to jot things down fiercely. When he was done, he closed his notebook and looked at me sharply.

″I’ll be back soon,″ he said, as he stood up and gathered his things. ″For now, I’ll go down to Sandgate Beach to meet up with my research team--″

″Research team?″ I interrupted. ″Where are you from?″

″London.″ He continued to blabber on, which was impressive for a twenty-one-year-old or so. He headed for the door.

″I’ll try to find some remnants of the victims, or shipwrecks, or, if we’re lucky, possible fragments of the creature itself. If I find anything, which will probably just be a scrap, I’ll report back to you after having taken an incisional biopsy.

″How old are you?″

″Seventeen,″ he responded slamming the door behind him. I gulped with a dry mouth.

″S-seventeen?″ I whimpered to myself. ″That kid’s seventeen?″