The Serpents

Draco was now frantically swimming through the beautiful waters of the strange sea.

As he continued to swim there was no flaw in his butterfly stroke, but the vibrations emanating from the depths of the sea intensified nonetheless.

Draco looked beneath him and attempted to find the cause of this disturbance.

However, he was able to see nothing except a vast expanse of empty sea.

This did not relieve Draco though, and instead made him more paranoid.

The vibrations were now visibly shifting the water itself, and the surface of the sea began to move erratically as the vibrations got closer to Draco.

'Jesus f*ck' Draco thought to himself, somehow managing to pick up his pace once again as he sped after Sada.

When Draco was only half a mile (800 meters) away from the stone pillars, he finally noticed movement beneath and around him.

At first all he saw was a massive shadow moving about in the distance, but soon many smaller shadows seemed to approach his position.

As these shadows got closer, Draco was finally able to make out some details through the crystal-clear waters.

To Draco's horror, these 'shadows' were actually what appeared to be serpent-like creatures!

They ranged greatly in size, and Draco imagined that some of these creatures had to be longer than a school bus.

The sea serpents were fast, and Draco almost choked on water when one of them got close enough to see clearly.

The serpent was as black as the night and had a spiny, elongated body.

Strangely, the creature also had many long, misshapen arms alongside its length that seemed to grasp and stretch out at the sea.

However, these human-like arms were not even the most terrifying feature of the serpents.

The scariest thing about these creatures were certainly the rows of mummified human heads growing out of their bodies at random.

These heads seemed to be alive in some sort of sick, twisted way.

They had no eyes, but still screamed out wordlessly into the sea as if they had some grievance with the world.

This was not even to mention the serpent's main head. Its head looked simply sinister, and it looked at Draco's with four serpentine eyes.

These eyes were golden in color, and gazed upon Draco with a sort of primitive intelligence.

The serpent had a jaw that looked strangely human-like, and when it opened Draco was able to see rows upon rows of jagged teeth.

As one of these disgusting serpents rushed right past him, only a few short meters away, Draco quickly made up his mind.

He knew that he wouldn't be able to outswim these abominations even if he suddenly grew fins.

This meant that the only option he had was to stop and fight; He just hoped he'd find a chance to make a break for safety.

After he had made up his mind he stopped swimming, took a deep breath, and dove down a short distance below the surface.

However, when Draco looked out at the number of creatures now circling him, he was dismayed to realize that there were now well over a dozen of them.

When he looked off into the distance there was also that massive shadow still releasing its terrifying presence.

It swayed about in the distance, seemingly stalking him.

Unfortunately, Draco was unable to speculate on what that creature was, for he felt intense vibrations in the water to his left.

He looked over to see a monstrous serpent speeding towards him, and he promptly unsheathed his cane sword.

Holding his sheath in his left hand and the blade in his right, Draco floated in the water and braced himself.

The serpent sped towards Draco in erratic, zig-zag patterns, but while Draco was focusing on it he felt another presence directly behind him.

Spinning around, Draco was able to raise his blade just in enough time to pierce it into the eye of a serpent which had snuck past his vision.

This serpent was smaller, perhaps only the size of a minivan instead of a bus, and it screeched under the water as Draco's blade dug deep into its eye socket.

Purple blood was released into the crystalline waters as the serpent thrashed about, but Draco maintained a firm grip on his cane sword the entire time.

Eventually, the blade slid out of the Serpent's eye and Draco was thrown off into the distance. Luckily for him, the direction he was thrown was towards the stone pillars.

As Draco re-orientated himself and flew through the waters at a high speed, numerous serpents opened their mouths or reached out towards him with spindly limbs.

The serpents watched Draco expectantly as if he was some tasty snack that was about to fly straight into their mouths. Unfortunately for them though, Draco had other plans.

Draco slashed out at a nearby serpent that was bold enough to stretch out one of its limbs towards him.

As the creature's arm sped towards Draco position at a deceptively fast speed, his own sword arm suddenly moved.

Draco's blade bit into the serpent's flesh as the creature pulled back in surprise. It didn't expect the tasty morsel in front of it to fight back.

Although the water certainly hindered Draco's movements, his enhanced strength allowed him to move at a speed that was still beyond any normal human.

The sharpness of the blade ensured that Draco sliced true, and the creature's arm was cleanly severed at the elbow as Draco continued into the mass of serpents.

Draco cut off several more arms that were blocking his path, but eventually his momentum was completely stopped by a serpent that had rushed directly in front of him.

The serpent whipped itself at Draco's position and body slammed him at a speed impossible to dodge.

Draco managed to stab his sword into one of the screaming heads on the serpent's side, but his blade was unable to find purchase and Draco was once again flung off into the distance.

This time, to Draco's terror, he was flying away from the pillars and right into a seething mass of serpents!

However, when Draco looked closer at this spinning ball of serpents, he discovered that they were actually swirling around the first serpent that Draco had stabbed.

Looking even closer, he saw that these larger serpents were actually attacking and tearing apart the smaller serpent!

Purple blood escaped into the waters, and as if maddened by their kin's own blood, the serpents began to enter into a frenzy.

Horrifying serpents grasped the smaller serpent with their many disfigured arms, while others began to tear into it with their jagged teeth.

Other serpents seemed to realize that there wasn't enough meat for themselves, so they instead launched themselves at the others in an attempt to satiate their hunger.

Soon Draco was unable to see anything except for cloudy, purple water and erratic shadows throwing themselves at each other.

Draco knew that he had to get out of there, so he spun his body around and jumped off of a nearby serpent that seemed to have completely missed his presence.

As Draco was speeding out of the mass of serpents another serpent swam in front of him, and he jumped off of that one too.

Soon, Draco was playing some weird game of leapfrog.

Jumping between serpents as if they were platforms, Draco paid no mind to the silent screams of the creepy human heads he would occasionally land on.

Not long later Draco was out of serpents to jump onto, and he continued to glide at a high speed towards safety.

Once he had escaped from the center of the madness behind him he resumed swimming and headed for the pillars off in the distance.

The nearest stone pillar was less than 400 meters away at this point, but Draco was reaching the limits of his endurance and was almost out of breath.

Surfacing from the water, Draco took a deep breath and filled his lungs with fresh air.

Exhaustion was just now hitting him, and neither the cane nor the rejuvenating waters seemed to completely stop it.

While wondering how he could even hold his breath for so long he spotted Sada standing on the surface of the sea a short distance off in the distance.

She seemed to have been looking for Draco, and after he surfaced from the sea her body language visibly relaxed.

Turning back around, Sada continued to run towards a stone pillar in the distance.

As Draco swam after her, he kept an eye out at the shadows that would occasionally speed below him.

Luckily, these serpents seemed to be attracted to blood and were swimming towards the center of the carnage. This meant that Draco was able to safely swim past them without catching their attention.

Not long later Sada had arrived at the nearest stone spire.

Draco watched her jump onto a short ledge extending from the pillar before continuing upwards in a similar fashion.

Soon Draco had reached the stone structure as well, and he began to climb up after Sada.

While Sada jumped up the pillar's tiny ledges with a swift gracefulness, Draco slowly lumbered after her, still slightly exhausted from his close brush with death.

Now that Draco was out of the water the full weight of his short sprint was hitting him.

After all, he had swam more than a mile in just over five minutes.

The miraculous properties of the water gave him a short term boost, but now that he had surfaced he struggled to climb up the small ledges and footholds.

Nonetheless, Draco continued to climb, and as the minutes passed he got closer and closer to the top.

After Draco had traveled easily a few hundred meters, his ears began to pick up feminine voices.

"What was all of that commotion down there?" Draco heard from a smooth, accented voice.