The Diamond Fist: Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Liam

I didn’t remember much about how I returned home apart from feeling incredibly dizzy and staggering across the road. I did remember narrowly escaping being hit by a car while crossing the road–twice in fact, probably due to the large horn that I received. One minute, I was walking fine. The next, I felt like collapsing. Then I saw deep blue and sickeningly bright purple spots everywhere: on the road; on the pavement and floating in front of me. It all felt surreal.

Too surreal, in fact. Just as I climbed up the stairs and brought out my keys to open the door to the house, I realised that I forgot to go to diving practice which I’d be late to if I didn’t hurry. I looked at the floor and thought that I was standing in a blue spot again, but the feeling went quickly. Feeling nauseous, I decided that I never wanted to see water ever again.

I slowly opened the door as quietly as I could. With luck, Mum and Andrew wouldn’t notice me slipping into the house. As long as they weren’t in the kitchen, which the door to faced the front door, I’d be fine. Hopefully.

I shut the door, and slipped off my shoes before tip-toeing to my bedroom where I could hide in. I didn’t want to talk to my family–I never did–especially now. Closing the door, I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d managed to escape!

“Liam? Liam is that you?”

Or not.

I remained quiet, hoping she’d forget. But instead, I could hear her striding towards my bedroom, and before I was able to hide under my bed or something, she opened the door wide.

“Liam! Liam where are you—Liam!” She looked around the room and finding me almost hiding behind the door.

I winced.

She pulled an elastic band out of her pocket and tied her shoulder length, dirty blonde hair into her ponytail. I noticed that her hair was the same shade as mine, and began to wonder what other features we had in common, before she said, “Look at me here.” She had a stern expression on her face, and instantly, I stopped thinking and looked at her. “Andrew and I want to speak to you.”

 “Yes, Mum.” I looked down at my trainers, and followed her blindly to the living room. “You can sit, Liam,” he smiled. I sighed. Was this going to be a lecture? I could only hope that it wasn’t.

“Liam, I–Andrew and I have been thinking about returning to Britain.” She said it as if she wasn’t inviting my opinion. More like an order.

No way, I thought.

I couldn’t believe that I could’ve been throwing an opportunity to return to normality. But the problem was that I knew that wherever I went, I’d still feel guilty and I couldn’t combat it.

“But Liam, don’t you want to see your dad again? I’m sure you’ll be missing him. I can tell that you’re missing him. I’m surprised you’d throw away that opportunity,” said Mum. “I feel that we can become a family once more.”

I winced and realised that I said it without realising. Sometimes, I felt that my tongue had a life of its own. ‘Least this time, it wouldn’t mean that people randomly disappeared.

“No,” I repeated again. “No way. I want to stay here.” Mum looked at me as if she was annoyed. Not this again. “You tried to make me change my name surname to Campbell like Andrew’s when you got married so we could be a united family. We never were in the first place.” Mum still had that expression on her face. “Stop making me feel like I’m being a brick wall to your dreams.”

“But life’s tough for you, isn’t it, with your exams coming up. It’s not good to be in the heat–”

“I said no, okay? I don’t want to now.”

“But–”

“No!” I almost shouted, and stood up. Why wouldn’t she take no for an answer? And who was she to start bossing me around when she didn’t give a damn about me? I was on my own, and had been for the past eight years. Then there she came, changing my life to suit hers.

“Hear her out,” said Andrew, almost smiling.

Reluctantly, I sat back in the chair stiffly. I sighed and looked at her inattentively, resting my head on my hand as my elbow pressed onto my thighs.

“I’m thinking of moving back, Liam, because of work. They want to promote me. Imagine that? We could all live in a beautiful, larger house. We’d be home with the family. I only intended to stay here for a year, originally.  And you don’t even know the language, Liam. It’s tough–”

“–Mum, no–”

“–and I’m worried about the situation here now. What if it becomes a full blown civil war? What if rioting happens? Looting? I think it’s best if we leave it. And I want Beth to grow up back at home–she’ll begin reception year next year anyway. In fact,” she said, glancing at Andrew, “I think we will, in Easter.”

Andrew looked as if he didn’t know about her plans, but quickly put on a face that looked like he did. I stood up, pushing the chair back behind me with the back of my thighs.

“Swear to God,” I muttered as I swiftly exited the room. “You piss me off so much.”

I could’ve sworn I heard her say: “Hormones.”

I gritted my teeth as I glared out of the window, staring straight at our car. Hopefully it’d blow up, as if it were some kind of omen that her decision was wrong. Her decision–not Andrew’s. It was evident. How could she be so heartless? Didn’t she care? I thought I loved my mum and thought she was the best mum in the world, once. I debated that.

I wondered about whether my mum was a control freak or what. It was rare seeing her at home before six after school. Her life surrounded around work, work and more work and she’d pretty much neglected me since we came to Sharm El Sheikh. Or even earlier maybe–when she met Andrew. Yet, she still imposed all these rules on me. Yeah. She was one.

I took a pencil and broke the lead on the desk, leaving a grey/silver mark on my desk. I took another one and a piece of paper and found myself lying on my chest on the bed, doodling. There were doodles about Miss Piggy and other stupid things about poor hedgehogs getting run over by cars. I ignored the phone ringing, the darkening sky and Andrew calling me. I was too engrossed in the world of stupid doodles to care.

*****

The next day, I left the house early (having made it appear as if it were a school day even though that day and the one before, Sunday, were days off) , trying to rub off all the lead smeared on my cheeks. I guessed I’d slept on the paper with the doodles on it.

I walked around town, exploring Naama bay, before walking my way to Nabq bay at the other end of Sharm El Sheikh. I ate at a kebab at the park, and later spent most of my journey to the cliff worrying about the oil that dripped from the paper wrapping the kebab onto my polo shirt.

I sat, with my feet dangling off the cliff with only a palm tree to make sure I didn’t fall. I watched the sea; boats sailing into the distance; children paddling at the shore and building sandcastles. I smiled, for what felt like the first time in ages. Was I happy? Was this how happiness felt like–that even in some of the worst times, you keep your head high?

Whatever it was, it felt good. Damn good.

Somehow, the time flew by like it always did, and I found myself back in my swimming trunks, waiting at the jetty. Omar came a few minutes later, with his sunglasses on and his black hair was still a curly jungle of mess, but his cheeks were flaming red today. “Hey, man.”

“Hi,” I said, nodding my head.

Omar took off his sunglasses and turned them over in his hands, looking at the reflection in the lenses. “We’re snorkelling, today. I don’t think you managed to see anything, did you? I didn’t bring my goggles yesterday, but I did today. Just try and snorkel near the cliff though. I’ll come and follow you.”

“Mm.” Yesterday had been incredibly badly-thought out. We didn’t even have time to think about anything. But today, we’d learned from our mistakes. “What’re we lookin’ for, by the way?”

Omar stared. “What? You don’t know what we’re doing this for? Your memory’s terrible, man–go see a doc!”

“I remember now,” I mumbled. But what would we see? Would we see empty bodies, frozen in time, staring back at us yet not looking at all? Would we see rotting bodies–or would they have already have rotted with only bones remaining? Or would we not see anything at all?

I shuddered. I didn’t know what I hoped to see. If they were dead, all that weight would come off my shoulders of worrying about what to do next. But then, only guilt would come. If I didn’t see them, I wouldn’t know if they were dead or alive. Hopefully alive. But where?

“I’m waiting for that guy to come and take us snorkelling,” said Omar.

His name was Yousseyaqub, I recalled. But I could’ve sworn Youssef and Yaqub were two separate names. Did they do double-barrel names in Egypt?

“I invited James though,” he added. “He’ll come in a minute.”

Of all people. James. James and I were friends once, until around Valentine’s when he became cold and acted as if I’d done something wrong. “As long as he doesn’t know what we’re up to, I’m fine. I know he knows about Lauren, but I hope you didn’t mention ... the others.”

“It won’t be long before he finds out anyway,” he chuckled. “He’s already called the police twice and he’s told Lauren’s mum something to give us cover. But are you sure that they’ve disappeared? People come and go from here. Plus, my dad will be annoyed if he knows that I’m going snorkelling–I’m not allowed to. He doesn’t want everyone to think that I’m being allowed to do what I want for free.”

“I’m sure of it,” I murmured.

“Oh, and is there something up with you and James?”

Ignoring Omar, I watched Yousseyaqub advance towards us with some snorkel equipment in his hands and James trailing behind him. I ignored James’ dirty looks that he kept shooting at me and I wasn’t concentrating on Omar and Yousseyaqub’s conversation about driving as the boat began to move. I had no idea how that became the topic of their conversation—driving speedboats was my best guess.

“…I’m scared of cars,” Omar was saying, in English. “My mother died in a car crash; I was six.”

Yousseyaqub said something in Arabic, which I didn’t understand. Omar put his hand on his neck and stared at the floor, muttering, “Ameen.” I guessed it was a prayer because I heard Yousseyaqub say the word ‘God’ in there somewhere. 

“You never told me that,” James said, sounding like a whisper behind the sound of the growling engine. 

“It doesn’t matter now,” said Omar. “She’s gone and there’s nothing we can do. I have to deal with it and being scared and crying doesn’t do anything. I should be happy about the good thin—”

“We arrived!” called Yousseyaqub. 

Determined to get well away from James the dickhead, I put on my snorkel equipment and dived into the water. I was greeted–again–by the Underwater City—my new affectionate nickname for the coral that was below the surface of the water. 

I swam towards the cliff, not caring about how far James was behind me. I sort of wished that he was just behind my tail so that the water splashed in his face. He did deserve it. Making sure that my eyes were firmly locked on the cliff—which seemed to be light beige under the water—I noted how the coral seemed to have a kind of parting, exposing the cliff edge. 

It took me half a minute to get there. It didn’t feel that far, but then, I was a pretty fast swimmer.

I resurfaced and looked up. There where palm trees that barred us from getting to the tip of the cliff. The parting of the coral was on the tip side of the palm trees and we dived from the other side. I grabbed hold of the cliff and it wasn’t as crumbly as the top of the cliff was. In fact, it wasn’t crumbly at all. It definitely didn’t seem like the same kind of rock. Was it possible for a cliff’s chemical composition to be so different in different areas?

I glanced at James. He was swimming towards me slowly. I groaned, and began looking at the sea floor.

I scanned the sea floor, but there wasn’t much of it because there was coral covering it. It was like looking from the top of the mountain in a mountain range to the bottom—you can’t see much of it, and what you can see is a bit blurry. At least, a body would be easy to see against the bright colours.

A body.

A body. What did a rotting body look like? If this theory that they had drowned was real, then it’d mean that I killed Lukas. Damien. That girl that acted like she was drunk with the funny hat—I’d even forgotten their names now. It hadn’t been that long ago, had it? I thought it’d been a week and a half…

I shut my eyes and then reopened them. Yeah. So what if they were dead? I concentrated on the rotting bodies of zombies from games I once played. I could take that.

But seeing them in real life was a different thing.

My eyes darting everywhere, I saw no sign of rotting bodies. Fortunately? Unfortunately? I didn’t know. The fish swam, doing their normal business. Scarlet red shapes—crabs—scuttled along the sea floor. The sea anemones kept waving. It all seemed norma—

I felt a tap on my shoulder and groaned in my head. “What?”

“Last time I saw Lauren was over there.” James pointed at a spot bang in the middle of the bay. I was right on the edge. “She was far from here, I can tell you that.”

“It’s not about that,” I muttered.

“Wait, so, I’m expected to find Lauren by myself? I didn’t realise you were being a tourist. I thought you were her friend.”

“Shut the hell up,” I growled, but I recalled when I did see Lauren well away from the cliff. But her kite was near the cliff eventually, right? I took off the mouthpiece. “If you hadn’t asked her to go windsurfing, you wouldn’t be here. Great friend you are, allowing your friend to drown.”

“She drowned?! You saw her? If it weren’t for you, you bastard—”

“Me? I was on the Goddamn beach, you idiot! I should’ve let you got ripped apart, shouldn’t I?”

“Well you’re not helping either! You started it and st–you didn’t even help on the day. I come up to you, yeah, and I’m asking about Lauren and then you panic and run home and have a nap and—”

“Just shut up.”

“—then I come and see if you’re okay and—”

“Shut. Up.”

“No,” he replied. 

I put the mouth piece back on and turned around to begin swimming breaststroke, not sure where I was going, when James hit my head with the heel of his hand. My face crashed into the water. I quickly pulled it out. James’ face was red like a strawberry and he was breathing heavily.

I paused. “Did you just hit me?” His silence was my confirmation. “What was that for?” I said, quietly.

“Bastard. You’re pretty dumb, you know.  In the end though, she’ll end up seeing who’s the better one here. Then we’ll—”

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” I roared, almost tearing my vocal chords apart. I was a boa constrictor, ready to crush my prey into dust, when—

Vroom! 

Yousseyaqub was showing off, skating past us and doing a figure of 8 before coming to us by the cliff. “Liam! James! Are you two okay? How is it? What do you think?” said Yousseyaqub, grinning.

“It’s fine alright,” I said, through gritted teeth.

“I want to go,” said James, glaring at me. “I’m hungry.” 

“Hungry? Okay. Come onto the boat and we will eat.”

James dashed for the boat and quickly climbed on, as if desperate to try and get away from me—which was a good idea. I climbed on after him.

Yousseyaqub slowly began reversing, as if he was parking a car. I thought it was to get closer to the cliff so that we could get away from it without scratching the boat, like in parallel parking. We were on the tip-side of the cliff, when I could’ve sworn that we were pulling up next to a cave that definitely wasn’t there a few minutes ago, 

Then—

“Whoa! Cool! Let’s explore this cave!”

Then I realised that the cave was the same cave that my diving friends had disappeared into. It was a trap—that’s how they disappeared. But I realised too late. 

“In! In! Get inside!” Yousseyaqub growled. “Hurry up! Now!”

The boat floor was level with the floor of the cave. He shoved us, hard, into the cave. I tripped over and landed on the hard, stone floor, with my legs still outside of the cave entrance. Yousseyaqub kicked me, forcing me to shuffle inside, still on the floor. I could see James and Omar slightly ahead of me. James was lying eagle-spread on the floor, while Omar wobbled on all fours, trying to get up. 

“You fell into my trap—straight into it! I am shocked at how easy it was. Stupid children. Come on! In! In!”

James’ glassy, chocolate brown eyes were radiating waves of fear. He shot me a glance, but then, he took a daring move I didn’t expect: he grabbed Yousseyaqub’s leg and took a bite.

Yousseyaqub roared in pain. I had no time to repulse, but I quickly scrambled to my feet and dashed to the speedboat. I jumped into the light and grabbed the speedboat’s handles, like a bike’s. “C’mon, Omar! James! Quick!"

Omar scrambled to his feet, stumbling as he tried to run towards me and leapt over the gap, onto the speedboat. It rocked and made us nearly lose our balance. I fiddled with the controls, anxious that James mightn't make it. Even though we'd argued a minute ago, I couldn't let someone else disappear too.

I pushed a button underneath the handlebars, as if it was meant to be pushed by the thumb. Suddenly, the boat lurched forward and I could've sworn that the boat leapt high into the air. "HOLY SHI–"

We bounced again onto the water. My heart was racing; it was in my throat. The veins in my neck were going to burst from it all; I couldn't speak, breathe and then--

The boat, out of its own accord, sharply turned back, sending us speeding across the bay. As Omar and I stood paralysed, completely petrified at where the boat was taking us, I could see Yousseyaqub fiddling with something while staring intently at us. The boat turned to face the cliff directly. We were going to slam straight into the cliff and there was nothing we could do. Those eyes, frothing with rage like lava bursting out of a volcano, boring into me would be the last thing we saw. There was no time to dive off, but suddenly--

The boat turned sharply to the right again. We were in view now of the public beach on the other side of the cliff, and what appeared to be the same man on the deck chair earlier was holding something slender over his shoulder. Before I knew it, I found a streak of gold charging at me before falling, falling, falling...

A/N= So I took a break from the novel and I used it to plan it out. I hope it helped; I think it did as I’m more enthusiastic about it now.

If you do review it (thanks!), please shred it but ignore any spelling/grammar issues there are :3