NOVEL NEXT Chapter 90: Another Ayota
Byron stared at the monsters wide-eyed, his limbs suddenly jelly.
He had only one option. Just one option. Any sane person would have immediately turned around and swam for the safety of the shore.
Except, Byron wasn't a sane person at the moment. He was frozen in fear, therefore, not in his right mind. He felt as if if he took his eyes off the monsters they would suddenly reach him.
Luckily, Lucille had scrambled to her feet when she saw him dive into the water and now she was yelling at him, telling him to swim back.
Her incoherent shouts took Byron out of his trance and he turned around and started swimming frantically toward her.
It took him so much willpower to avoid glancing back at the monsters. The urge to turn around and check if they were onto him was strong but he fought it. He knew nothing good would come out of turning back. It would only slow him down. It would only add to his fear.
'I have to swim!' He kept repeating this to himself internally. 'I have to swim!'
Swimming was the most important thing at the moment. Anything else would just be wasting his time.
He swam faster than he had ever swam in his life... But it was still slower than he needed to.
He could hear the monsters getting closer and closer. The droplets of water raining onto him as the monsters splashed into the water behind him was proof of that.
Despite his decision not to look back, he found himself instinctively glancing over his shoulder... And he instantly regretted it.
One of the monsters was onto him. He looked in horror as it shot in the air and he watched frozen as the momentum carried it toward him in a downward curve.
Its huge maw that was filled with elongated jagged white fangs the size of a pen was open and Byron was so sure there was no escaping from them. His life started flashing before his eyes.
His mind started feeding him with images of his body caught up within those fangs, squished like an insect. With a shudder, he reminded himself that he had to swim.
It was too late.
Something coiled around his waist and he screamed as it pulled him into the air. He kicked his feet like a person hanging on the gallows as he tried to escape its grip. He wasn't strong enough.
'I can't die! I can't die!'
That's when something else caught his attention. The monster. Byron was so confused when he saw the monster that had been onto him splash into the water beneath him.
All this while, he had thought it was that monster that had caught him. Obviously, it wasn't. What was it then?
Whatever that had caught him was now bringing him toward Lucille. To his surprise, it gently laid his feet on the ground.
One of the monsters tried to rip out of the water to snatch him back but it hit an invisible barrier and returned into the water with a disturbing shriek of agony.
As for Byron, he was staring wide-eyed at the tree beside Lucille. One of its branches was around his waist.
This was the same tree that Lucille had been sitting under when Byron dived into the lake. This tree had been several meters away from the lake when he woke up. How was it suddenly here then? Byron had never heard of a tree that could walk.
Suddenly, something clicked. He realized this was the same tree in his nightmares. Except, right now he didn't even know if they had been dreams or not.
His lips trembled as he tried to ask how, but then something more astonishing happened.
The tree suddenly started shaking and he watched as its trunk took a humanoid shape that detached itself from the rest of the tree, shrouded in a blend of blue and amethyst mists only to turn into a beautiful girl with leaves for hair.
She was naked, but she didn't seem perturbed by it.
Lucille smiled at Byron before gesturing to the naked girl beside her to say, "Byron, meet one of my maids, Ayota. As you can see, she's a dryad. She helped me take care of you all this time you were asleep. She provided most of the herbs I treated you with."
Lucille then turned to Ayota before continuing, "Ayota, you already know Byron."
Ayota smiled and took a step closer and hugged Byron as if she had known him all her life. "I'm so glad I'm finally being introduced to you."
Byron didn't know how to react to this news.
During his conversation with Lucile earlier, she had told him that she lived all alone. That she had been on that island all alone for hundreds of years.
She had told him that one day she was in the normal world, living as a river should live, flowing down the meadows and into villages to give people fish and water when out of nowhere mountains started to form all around her.
Her water, trapped, became the lake and the agony she felt gave birth to the monsters currently under its calm surface.
The little ember of hope that remained within her was what sustained the small river on the island, her only sanctuary.
Byron had suspected that the forming of the hills was probably when Hera banished the amazons. That it might have been a precaution. After all, some rivers were known to be forms of divine beings and goddess Hera didn't want any of such to ever come into contact with the amazons if it turned out to be male.
Hera's goal was to torture the Amazons by boosting their lust and a presence of a male being whether a river god or a lake one would have prevented her from achieving that goal.
Byron had felt sorry for Lucille. He could imagine how devastating it must have been to be that lonely.
That's why he was now looking at her with a disappointed look on his face.
"Why did you lie to me?" he asked.
"I didn't lie to you."
"But you did. You said you were all alone."
"Except I am. I have no romantic partner."
"That's not what you said."
"What did I say then?"
"That you haven't had anyone to talk to in hundreds of years. What about Ayota?"
Lucille lowered her gaze, ashamed. Her lips parted but no words came out.
Byron decided to press her. "Well?"
Lucille looked at him before parting her lips again. "Ayota is not... Uhm... To be honest, I was afraid you might find her more beautiful than me and choose her instead of me."