Jake shot through the dark water like a rocket, leaving a trail of small bubbles behind him that quickly dissipated. Some curious fish hightailed it out of his way, but he ignored them. Two shadows stood beyond the waterline, sticking out against the moonlit sky. He recognized them both and stuck his head out of the water.

"Let's go!" He hissed, hoping it wasn't too loud. Sandra swirled around and spotted him in the water. She pulled Willson's blue-scaled arm, and he stumbled. Only now did Jake see that the soldier seemed injured. He quickly closed in and supported the soldier from one side.

"What happened?"

Sandra hissed and shook her head. "Not now, we need to get out of here. Someone followed him, and we need to disappear before they get here." She dragged both of them deeper into the water until they couldn't touch the bottom.

"Bring him to the cave. I will follow you as fast as I can." Then she dove under, quickly disappearing in the dark water.

"Can she even hold her breath that long?" Jake asked, shaking his head in wonder.

"She will just surface again if she needs to, but we have to make sure that nobody sees where we are heading," O'Reilly replied in an out of breath voice, waving at the jungle behind them.

Jake nodded and drew him underwater while feeling annoyed he hadn't thought of that himself. He started swimming at his top speed towards the cave. In front of him, Sandra was swimming gracefully forward, much faster than Mason had. The motion of her shapely legs distracted Jake, and he noticed a reaction from his lower half. Passing her, Jake grabbed one of her arms and towed her along. It weighed him down a lot, but he was still ten times faster than she was.

Arriving at the wall, he looked at Sandra. "Can you hold on, or do you need air?" She shook her head, unfazed by his muted voice or the fact that he was breathing comfortably. Jake shrugged and dragged his burden into the cave.

Two minutes later, Sandra broke through the surface of the water into the cave, coughing and drawing ragged breaths. Jake and Willson surfaced some distance from her and headed towards the small ridge.

Jake gestured at Mason, "Pull him up. He is injured!" Together they carefully maneuvered Willson next to the other soldier, after which Mason reluctantly slid back into the cold sea.

A disturbance next to him was followed by Emma, who burst out of the water, splashing Jake and Mason. "Jake, there is a small exit at the top, but nothing else! And this is the only dry place we can reach." She sounded happy and content, and Jake decided they should keep her close or in the water. The last few days could not have been good for her mental health, and the water seemed to help alleviate that.

Rubbing her head, ignoring her scowl, he laughed. "Good job, Emma. Now go down to the bottom and keep an eye on the exit down there ok? If you see anything move, no matter how small, warn us."

The little girl sniffed, trying unsuccessfully to hide a content smile before nodding. She dove underwater, quickly disappearing in the poorly illuminated water. Seeing her shape disappear, Jake examined the moonlight pouring in through the small holes. If the light went, they would have almost no vision in these caves, and although he could see incredibly well in the water, he had no night vision.

"Jake, Mason. We need to decide what to do and quick. This place will only hide us for so long, and it is poorly defensible." Holding on to the edge of the ridge, Sandra stared at them, her face showing she wasn't willing to wait.

Swimming towards her, Jake was about to ask something when muffled shouting entered the cave through the holes. Everybody held their breath, trying to hear what was said, but it was in vain as the distance was too large to make out single words.

"Damnit, they have found where we went. Do you think it might be Bolyr?" Mason asked, before looking at Jake questioningly.

"Do you want to go out and check? Come on, the last thing we saw was that he was surrounded. " Jake shot back, wondering if the water was getting to his friend's brain. All of a sudden, everything went still. He saw Mason's mouth moved, but he heard no words. A second later, everything went black, and he started hearing growling and snarling. Blinking, he opened his eyes and stared at a brown reptile slithering towards him, and his mind somersaulted.

How could he forget that he was fighting, what was wrong with him? He growled as he stared at the bloody maw closing in on him. The ground behind the beast was slick with blood, and small scaly bodies lay everywhere amongst white eggshells. He hissed, uncoiling his tail and neck like while crunching the stones between his talons. How dare this mindless thing! At the same time, he felt the pain of loss. He had protected them for so long, and in the end, he had failed!

Before the reptile could reach him, he jumped forward using his bulk to topple the other. He slapped away the snapping jaw, tearing out an eye and tore at the other's neck when everything seemed to freeze.

Looking at his hands around Mason's neck while his friend was struggling to get free underwater, Jake felt Emma's small fists knock against his head. What? He let go, backing off in the water in a frenzy. What just happened? Seeing Mason struggle for the surface, and Emma look at him with terror in her eyes, Jake tried to recall what had just happened. He only remembered pain and loss and tearing at something's throat. A tinge of red drifted passed his vision in the water, and he followed it to find fresh blood on the claws on his hand.

Jake swam up, a horrid feeling beginning to take hold of him. Above the water, he saw Sandra hold Mason's head. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she hissed. Mason tried to say something, but she hushed him.

"I don't know! Something happened and..." Jake tried to explain, but wasn't sure how to.

"He is changing, isn't he?" Emma's soft voice caused the others to stare at her. "It is like they said? He will disappear and come back as a dragon?"

Mason pushed himself away from Sandra, holding on the ridge, rubbing his neck. A few bruises and scratches were all the damage he had, but Jake felt horrible when he saw them.

"That can't be, it's too fast! They said he had some time left, right?" Mason's voice came out ragged as if he had a bad cold, but he still managed to make his voice sound pleading.

"It doesn't matter. It means we don't have any more time left. We can't stay here, we can't stay on the island, and we can't stay in the sea. The only place that we know might have other people from Earth is that first bloody island we came from." Sandra ordered.

"You can't be serious!" Jake almost forgot what just happened as he gaped at her. At the same time, Mason moaned.

"Of course she isn't, because neither she nor I can breathe underwater!" Mason retorted.

Sandra said nothing, just looking at Jake without blinking. After a few seconds, Jake moaned and rubbed his head. "So how the hell would we even find our way back?"

"You're not going to like it... We have to find a way to wake up Tergin and get him to tell us the location of the underwater breathing weed. Then you go get it, and we backtrack to the other island." As she spoke, Sandra drew herself on the ledge and stepped over the soldiers so she could sit down next to Tergin.

Nobody said anything, but Jake stared at Mason, shaking his head in horror. A short exchange passed between them, but then Mason shrugged and sighed. "We don't have any other choice." His words hadn't left his mouth when another burst of muted shouting came from outside.

Sandra began examining Tergin and cursed under her breath. "He is barely breathing. I don't know if I can wake him up like this..." She began doing something Jake couldn't see, and he moved closer to the ledge. Mason blocked his way, a pained expression on his face. "Don't bro, you don't want to see this."

A short, pained groan interrupted him, and as they watched, they saw Tergin's arms flop around as if trying to defend from something.

"Tergin, can you hear me? We need more of the underwater breathing plant!" She was gripping one of his broken fingers and gently twisted it again. Another groan and a mumbled whisper came from the broken form. Sandra placed her head near his mouth, the dangerous red-stained row of teeth inches from her ear.

After a moment, she nodded and got back up, releasing the Kobold's hand. "Jake, you need to go into the reef outside and look for long purple fish. He didn't say anything else, but I can only assume the fish will lead you to the plants."

Jake felt a surge of fear at the prospect, and he looked at Mason and Emma.

"Don't worry, Jake, we will be fine. But the longer you wait, the more dangerous it gets!" Mason said, his voice only shaking a little bit.

"I can go with you!" Emma stated, but she was still staying far away from him after what had just happened.

"No! You need to stay and guard the tunnel entrance. Or we won't know if someone is sneaking up on us." Sandra said quickly before looking at Jake.

"Go fast. We will stay here if we can."

Taking one more look at Mason, who was urging him to go, Jake swallowed and blinked a few times before nodding. He waved, feeling miserable, and dove underwater rushing through the dark tunnels. They don't trust me anymore... The thought almost caused him to choke, a weird sensation while breathing water. As he tried to focus on finding a purple fish that he hoped was real, he disappeared into the dark water.