Thud! He had reached the sea floor and bounced painlessly on the loose sandy bottom. Quickly scurrying to his feet in an attempt to reorient himself, Lenny was shocked by the intense darkness at the base of the reef. Young Coralstrider's eyes frantically searched the surrounding area for any visible sign of danger while his stood antennae at full attention pinging the region for any suspicions movement.
"You are the one... You will bring balance to the ocean..." a muffled voice said. It sounded as if the speaker was buried deep under the sea floor. Lenny scrambled back into a small crevice at the base of the reef and readied his claws. His swimmerettes twitched and fluttered in anticipation of an attack.
"You are the one... You will bring balance to the ocean... Trust in your powers..."
"You are the one... You will bring balance to the ocean... Trust in your powers..." Over and over, the voice repeated this chant, but Lenny sensed no movement in the immediate area.
"How can I bring balance to the ocean, let alone my own life. I can't even swim on my own." Lenny muttered to himself as he relaxed his posture. Ashamed of his swimming failure, Coralstrider began to contemplate the long climb back to the top of the reef.
By this time, Lenny had stopped paying attention to the voice from beneath the sea floor. He figured he had struck the sea floor harder than he initially thought and rattled his brain a little. Shrugging off the thought of mystery voice, he began to climb.
Lenny had only made it about ten feet before he was snatched off the face of the cliff. Thrashing his claws wildly with his eyes closed having no idea what was happening to him, Lenny hoped that this too could be explained away by a lump on his noggin.
"Relax kiddo, I'll get you back to the top in a bit more expeditious manner." his oldest cousin said as he gently grasped Lenny is his left claw. "Oh, and don't worry about your little swimming problem. You will figure it out." Lenny's cousin reassured him.
Lenny didn't respond. No matter what Larry said, Lenny knew he would wear this day as a badge of failure on his thorax for the coming weeks. Young Coralstrider relaxed and let Larry, his cousin, bring him back the school on top of the reef.
Tired from the fall, the panic the mysterious voice caused him, and the battle of the climb, Lenny's eyes drooped. As he began to doze, he thought he noticed that the bottom of the reef where he had just been seemed to be cloudier than it was when he had left. Did the voice surface, did it decide to leave, or was he just dreaming about the bump on his head?
In case you missed it, here was my first episode in Lenny's life: Episode MXIV - Attack of the Sperm Whale Heads
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