“Water is lapping between your chin and neck, each wave colliding to the beat of your heart. And by the time you manage to regain your breath, you’ll already be submerged underwater.”

The river, colder than ice and sharper than nails, swayed with each minute movement that Jasper performed. His clothes were glued to him, each piece weighing him down immensely, and his breath grew ragged with each crashing wave.

But he was getting used to it.

Head tilting towards the darkening sky, his arms splayed outwards on either side of him. The bitter sting of the air was now embracing, the gushing of the wind matching the rhythm of his breath.

On his left, standing atop a flat grey rock quite some distance away, was a man whose knuckles grew white as they clenched between his teeth, looking as if they were about to draw blood. “That’s it, Knox. The easy part is over,” the man shouted, switching his look of concern to a grin. “You won’t be the loser of camp anymore, eh?”

Jasper found himself chuckling lowly back, extending his arms to propel himself forward as each ripple in the now silver river in the light followed his movements.

On his right— a woman whose posture was so impeccably straight and face so unnaturally screwed into a line crossed her arms, an eyebrow slowly raising on an expressionless face— not so expressionless any longer.

“You wanna know what’s better than a loser, Knox?” The man on the right said, his blonde curls now frantically swaying in the picking up wind. “Just in case your brain is fried from the river, or if you’re just genuinely stupid, it’s a winner. And you know what to do to be one of those.”

“Quiet, Corey. Let him proceed without your input.” The woman snapped, still barely an expression on her pale face.

Corey shrugged, and lowered his gaze to the river again. “Prove the rest of camp wrong, eh?”

Jasper’s fluid movements increased until he made it half way to the rock that both Corey and his commander were stood on. As he reached the very middle, the moon faded into the darkness of the sky, and the area was sent flooded into a pitch black, the only remnants of light being the stars twinkling above.

There was silence in the water.

Jasper regained his balance from floating on his back to his head now being level with the water, and glanced in both directions of the river’s flow. Any minute now.

“You got this, Knox. Come on,” Corey ended up muttering from the rock, though the only one that could hear him was the commander, who barely scoffed.

“There’s a reason people fail and people succeed, Corey. And that’s simply because people aren’t strong enough. Does Jasper, to you, look strong enough, in comparison to… that?”

As the commander uttered the words, a colossal uprising of water exploded from the depths of the river, and two large spheres of emerald light came bursting with it.

It took Jasper some time to realise that these spheres of light were not only light.

They were eyes.

Eyes of the Kraken.