~*Chapter Eighteen *~

Nobody knew where to begin looking. It wasn’t exactly going to be easy to search the sea for a princess with no voice, especially when nobody had the slightest clue what she looked like. When you had explained the story to the Lost Boys, none of them had ever heard of the Lost Princess before which was highly irritating.

You had all decided to split up. Suho and Sehun were going to search the island, Kyungsoo, Chanyeol and Kai were going to make a start in the sea and Baekhyun and yourself were going to search the lagoon.

Baekhyun had asked Tinkerbell to use her magic and enact a simple spell that would allow you to both see and breathe underwater for two hours maximum. It felt strange to be under the water, but breathing naturally at the same time. It was like you had a bubble of oxygen around your head at all times and strapless goggles. Since you weren’t really used to going so deep underwater, Baekhyun had to hold your hand to bring you down at first.

You travelled right down to the rocky floor of the lagoon, swimming back and forth , keeping a look out the entire time for something, anything that would give you a clue as to where the Princess could be. You couldn’t even find any of the mermaids from yesterday, let alone the lost one. You swam right down to the bottom, moving the multicoloured rocks and pushing away the seaweed only to find absolutely nothing. Eventually, the two hours were up and your lungs began to burn.

“This is going to take forever,” you heaved a sigh as you reached the surface and spat out a mouthful of salty water. You swam over to the rocks again and heaved yourself out, shortly followed by Baekhyun.

“We’ll find her,” he nodded, running a hand through his hair, shaking off the excess water. “Let’s go back, get dry and wait for the guys to come back, maybe they found something. We’ll try again tomorrow, I promise.”

You nodded and took his outstretched hand just before he shot up in to the sky and flew you above the trees, all the way back to the tree house. You weren’t happy having found nothing all day; you were really hoping you could maybe find at least one clue.

***

As soon as the Lost Boys came back, you leapt off the sofa and rushed over to them immediately. However, they just all shook their heads. Disheartened further, you let out an exasperated sigh and slumped back down in your seat. This search was not going as well as you had hoped.

“We’ll search again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next,” Chanyeol chirped up, “We’ll search for as long as it takes to find her.” He gave you an encouraging smile which you returned with a “thank you” before excusing yourself. You’d spent the whole day looking and you had to admit, you were exhausted. You dragged your feet all the way to your room, throwing yourself face first in to the soft pillow.

You woke up god-knows how long later and yawned, sitting up, stretching your arms behind your head. As you rubbed your eyes, you noticed the glow of the shell from where it was placed on top of your desk and you crawled to the edge of your bed, reaching out as far as you could to grab it without having to actually get up. After almost falling on the floor, you managed to grasp it, smiling triumphantly as you sat back in bed. You put the shell to your ear again and listened to the whispers that were still emanating from it.

“Close…still alone…still lost…”

You hung on one word. Close. But who was close? Were you and Baekhyun close? Sehun and Suho? Or Chanyeol, Kyungsoo and Kai? You groaned, “Where are you? Who was close?” you whispered out loud in frustration.

“You…“

Your eyes widened when you heard that single word come from the shell. “Can you hear me?” you asked it, speaking in to it like a phone.

“You…were…close…”

“How close?” you asked it urgently, “I want to help you!”

“Look…check the rocks….on the wall…”

“The wall?” you asked almost to yourself. You held the shell tighter and you suddenly felt like you wanted to go back out and look again immediately but you knew Tinkerbell didn’t have enough magic left to try again today. You sighed in frustration and ran your free hand through your hair, pushing your fringe out of your face.

“I’ll find you tomorrow, I promise. I’ll be there, just hold on.”

You could almost hear sobs coming from the shell now and you weren’t sure whether they were happy or sad ones.

“Thank you… so…much…”

With that, you decided they were in fact happy ones and a smile spread across your face. With your newly found enthusiasm, you put the shell back down and bounced downstairs. All of the Lost Boys were assembled in the living room, chatting amongst themselves contently with their feet up on the coffee table.

“I just spoke to the shell,” you cried out as soon as you stepped through the doorframe.

“You spoke to it?” Kyungsoo asked, tilting his head as he brought his feet off of the table and tucked them underneath him. He put one arm over the back of the sofa so he could turn around and face you properly. You nodded earnestly before speaking again.

“It said we were close,” you explained, “She said something about a wall, to check the rocks on the wall. I don’t know, do any of you know anything about that?”

They all shook their heads simultaneously and your shoulders dropped in disappointment, of course they wouldn’t.

“We’ll all go to the lagoon tomorrow,” Baekhyun announced, “We’ll find her tomorrow.”

***

Tomorrow came. You didn’t know why you were getting so passionate over saving this mermaid, maybe it was just because it gave you something to do or maybe it was because you felt like a hero and the thrill of it was exciting. You got dressed and rushed downstairs as soon as you could, this time making sure to bring the shell with you so you could maybe talk to it again and see if you were getting closer. It was also decided that this time, only half of you would go down in order for Tinkerbell to give you more time, so in the end it was you, Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. Suho, Sehun and Kai were going to stay on the rocks and get ready for your return, they had blankets, changes of clothes and a first aid kit just in case the mermaid was hurt.

Tinkerbell cast her fairy spell, showering the four of you with the same dust as yesterday. You wasted no time and you all jumped straight in. Your new found confidence left you swimming on your own without the hand of Baekhyun this time, although you did miss the comfort of his hand locked in yours. You all split off to separate sides of the lagoon, assigning yourselves certain walls. The plan was to search the surface of each rocky wall until you found something. With the extra added three hours of time, you were almost positive you’d find her today.

You tied a piece of string around the shell as tight as you could so you were sure it wouldn’t fall off and then tied the rest of the long string around your waist so the glowing light of the shell followed you as you swam. It acted as a sort of torch and only seemed to get brighter as you entered the water. You swam downwards, deciding to work from the bottom until the top and you started from the rightmost corner, right where Chanyeol was about to start going in the opposite direction with his wall. You gave him a nod before beginning, running your hands across the rocks, pulling, pushing and wiggling them in their place as you swam upwards.

Your hands were starting to blister and ache after what felt like as good hour. So far, you’d found nothing and you’d only covered one meter of wall. Although you could breathe fine, your head was starting to ache from swimming down so deep and concentrating so hard on the wall’s rocky surface. You’d broken several finger nails and cut a few fingers on the surprisingly sharp rocks that jutted out from the wall too, earning a few swear words to slip across your mind.

Yet another hour passed by, you were exhausted by now. Your limbs were crying for a rest under the pressure it took you to stay in a certain place for a lengthy period of time. You had to hold on to the rocks and keep your feet jammed in between some so you wouldn’t just float to the surface or sink to the bottom. You were about to give up and swim to the surface for a short rest when the shell that was still attached to your waist blasted out a blinding white light. You had to shield your eyes as you tugged on the string and brought it closer to you. When you did, you could hear the whisper that had turned to a shout through the dense, dark water.

“You’re so close… I can hear you!”

Your eyes widened and you threw your energy back at the wall where you tugged at the rocks furiously again. You pressed, pushed, pulled and scraped at them but you still found nothing. The shell was flickering on and off now, like a strobe light or an alarm and you reeled it back in to hear it again.

“Look right at the bottom…the stone darker than the others…”

You swam straight down, ignoring the throbbing in your head as you used the flickering shell as a torch to look for the stone that was darker. You didn’t see it at first, but then you noticed it, a small rock, much smaller than the others. You probably wouldn’t have noticed it or touched it had you not been specifically looking for the darker one. You pushed yourself downwards so your knees rested on the lagoon floor and you held yourself there as best as you could against the force of the water. You placed the shell down, which had stopped flickering and pushed the darker stone down with as much force as you could and it seemed to retract like a button.  

The shell’s light completely went out and it was somewhat dark again as you heard a deep grumble. You looked around frantically for someone, but they were all too busy still searching. You wanted to tell them that you had found it, that they should come and help you, but you hadn’t exactly thought of a signal to use if someone found something. You hoped that the loud grumbling of the wall moving would be enough to draw their attention.

The wall withdrew and a dark corridor was revealed; you were shocked to see that the water didn’t rush inside. It just stayed where it was; it was like there was a clear doorway stopping the water from flooding the corridor. You had learnt not to question anything in Neverland though.  

You floated where you were, holding on to the rocks for balance and you waited for someone to arrive.  Luckily, you didn’t have to wait long for Chanyeol and Baekhyun to arrive. They stared at you with wide eyes , looking from the corridor to you and then to the corridor again. Kyungsoo shortly followed and you all nodded at each other before you took the first step and plunged your foot through the water barrier and on to the hard stone floor of the corridor. 

Hehe, I can't wait to write the next chapter~~ thank you all so much for your upvotes, i'll do another shoutout soon to thank you all~!