well, here goes. hope someone can read it and get through all of it before Wednesday.
Underwater Troubles
Steve was a regular guy. He had blonde hair and blue eyes which every girl loved. Steve also loved going to the beach. But one day, the beach turned against him and he never liked going to the beach again.
One normal day at the beach, about three weeks ago, Steve was out snorkeling. He had seen many things, including schools of fish swimming and even a few crabs scuttling along the bottom. Steve was about to head back, but something caught the corner of his eye. He turned to get a better view of it. What he saw on the bottom amazed him. It was a treasure chest, he was sure of it, but not like one he had ever seen. It was a solid gold chest, and it was sealed tight. He brought his head up about the water, looking around for anybody who might of seen the chest as well. He confirmed that no one had seen it, then checked his spot so he could return later. He quickly swam to the beach, gathered his stuff and jogged to his car. As he fumbled with his keys, he started to shake violently. “Come on, come on,” he muttered to himself as he opened the door to his car. He got in, started up the car, and drove out of the parking lot. He did not go straight home, however, he went to the local marina. It took him a while to convince the lady at the front desk to allow him to talk to some of the scuba divers. It took him five minutes before she would show him the way to the nearest room that the scuba divers were in. “I need all of you to take me scuba diving, and its not far from here. I found something that might interest you all.” As Steve spoke, everybody in the room sat up a little higher and paid closer attention to him. One of the divers stood up. “I’m Tony, and I’m the head diver here at the marina. No one here goes diving anywhere without my permission. Now, you say you found something. If it can be sold, I want a 7% profit on everything. It is the way I have always done it, and it is just enough to keep this marina open.” At this news, Steve bowed his head in deep thought. While he was thinking, Tony sat down again. When Steve looked up at Tony, he was smiling. “Of course you will get 7%, after all it is a fair deal for what I saw. Oh, and one thing, I want to come along. I will raise the profits to 10% if you oblige.” If the rest of the divers thought Tony was happy before, they definitely did not know him. For now, Tony was absolutely beaming. “Of course you can come, especially after that generous offer that I can’t decline.” Steve got up and walked to the door. Before walking out, he turned and said “Meet me at West Palm Beach at 1:00p.m.” He turned and walked out the door.
The next day Steve woke early. He stayed in bed until 8:30, then he got up and took a quick shower. After he got dressed and combed his hair, he went into the kitchen for breakfast. Steve lived in an apartment, but only because he was saving up for his dream house. He would have enough money for the house and piles of furniture too if the chest he found had anything worth any money in it. After a quick breakfast of oatmeal, he went to his bedroom and turned on his laptop. For the next two hours, he researched lost treasure, sunken cities, as well as anything else having to do with underwater mysteries. He found rumours, alright, but none of them even remotely close to West Palm Beach. At 11:30, Steve shut off his laptop and ate some leftover pizza for lunch. He went down to the parking garage and got into his 2003 Nissan Sentra. It was 12:30 when he arrived at the beach. Since he had to meet the divers in half an hour, he decided to take a walk.
Just as Steve returned to his car after his walk, he spotted the West Palm Beach Mariner’s Club (WPBMC) van drive into the parking lot. Steve checked the time: 1:00, right on time. The van pulled into the space beside his car, and everybody jumped out. They started unpacking their equipment, and one of them brought a diving suit to Steve. “Thanks a lot for having me come with you, I guess I better show you were the excitement begins.” The man grumbled something that sounded a lot like “shouldn’t be coming,” but Steve was too busy looking at his suit to hear him. When all the equipment was handed out and put on (except for flippers and tanks), they made their way down the beach towards the water. They swam out towards a boat that had been sitting, docked, and waiting for the men. They all climbed onboard, then the anchor was risen. Tony, the head of the divers, called him over to the steering wheel. “Now, I need to know where to go.” Steve pointed out towards the ocean and to the right. “It was just over by the buoy.” Tony steered the boat over towards the buoy, then lowered the anchor. Without anybody being told, they all put on their equipment. One by one they all went in, and, on Tony’s order, followed Steve to the right place. Soon enough, Steve spotted the chest. Though it couldn’t be seen from above, there was a cave right behind the chest. Inside the cave were more chests, all pure gold and sealed tight. Steve swam further and further into the cave until he ran into the cave wall. But it was not just a wall, it was a door. As more and more of the algae fell of, the more of the door could be seen. When the algae stopped coming off, Steve saw a code pad on the side. He swam over to it, and pressing a glowing green button, opened the doors. As all of the divers swam in, they spotted an entire city. Just like the chests, it was solid gold. From off in the distance rang a sound, almost like an alarm. Soon enough, there were creatures swimming at them from all directions. They spoke to each other in a rasping, coughing voice. Then one of the creatures pointed what looked like a finger at the divers. It was no ordinary finger though, because a net shot out of it, encircling and trapping the divers. Three different creatures swam forward and grabbed the net. They started to pull the net towards the city, but stopped just short of the first gate. Steve had been thrashing around ever since the net caught him, and finally he had some success. With a bone-crunching noise, Steve’s foot connected with the creatures’ chest, or at least where our chests are. Blood started to seep out of the wound. With the blood, a deep purple colour, now floating around the water, the rest of the divers saw what had happened and soon figured out they could escape. Every diver that was caught in the net started at the creatures, but Tony got to them first. He kicked one in the chest and hit the other with his hand. With all three of the creatures carrying the net dead, the net itself started to disintegrate. The remaining creatures started talking in their rasping voice, pointing at the divers repeatedly, but fortunately there was no more nets shot at them. Each of the divers went after each of the creatures. Soon there was more than a hundred bodies floating everywhere, but not one of them human. None of the creatures that had captured them was alive. The divers started congratulating themselves for their win, but soon stopped because of the sight behind the city gate. There was twice as many soldiers there, and all of them were carrying spears. The divers, quick to notice the danger, swam hurriedly towards the big doors they had entered through earlier. When they had reached the door, the creatures were only a couple of feet behind Steve. As the doors opened, the creatures stopped swimming towards the divers and started to talk rapidly to each other once more. The closest creature hurled his spear at Steve, but being the good swimmer he was, he was able to dodge the spear. The diver in front of Steve was not so lucky. He got hit by the spear, which was thrown so hard it stuck right through the body. One of the younger divers turned around to look when he heard the soft thunk of the spear hitting the other diver. Upon seeing his dead companion, the diver started to go back. Tony saw what was happening and held him back. The doors finally closed shut, leaving the massacred diver stuck behind them. Without a word, everybody swam back up to the surface and towards the boat. Once everybody had boarded and taken off their tanks, Tony stood up to speak. “Now, I know how you all liked our fellow diver, Edward, but he will never be able to come back with us now. He was murdered by those…” Tony stopped speaking for a moment, just to let the feeling sink in. “…evil things. And that is all that they were, creatures that were mutated and don’t deserve to live on this planet. I hope they all come down with a serious illness and they all die. Or maybe we could lead an army of people down there to stick spears through their backs just to let them know how Edmund felt when it happened to him.” Tony stopped again and sat down. There were tears streaming down his face. Steve stood up so that he could talk. “You lost a man to those things down there, and I lost my love for the open sea. I know I didn’t get you those chests, but, if you wish, they can be all yours if you want them. I know I don’t. Now please get me to the beach so I can go home and sleep.” Tony drove the boat back to the shore and Steve got back onto the beach. He ran to his car and drove home without looking back at all. He never went out swimming in the sea again, but he did start to swim in pools three months after his incident.
When Steve became an old man, he decided to let people know about what was out there, on the bottom of the sea. He wrote a book about his whole adventure. The title of the book was Underwater Troubles. The book became a bestseller and Steve lived out the rest of his life living in luxury. In his will he donated everything he owned to the WPBMC, which had a new lead diver. Engraved on his tombstone was this: I saw an underwater city, I saw a man killed, and I donated my life to the club that suffered. I am at peace at last.
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