••••••???'s Perspective••••••

I scrambled over to the rock, after watching him getting pulled into the water. I frantically searched the sea for him, until I finally saw someone swimming to the surface. Realizing it was him with someone else, I ducked behind the rock, shielding my face behind the boy's leather... I don't know what this is.

It's some sort of brown web that's soft and it has no holes like a normal cobweb I could spin. There's a few human things inside, but all I recognize is the feather with a sharp tip that gives off squid ink called a quill and a book.

Back at the science facility the scientists has loads of books, but this one has no pictures on the front or letters, so I flipped it open to find what made it different from the books at the facility.

I peeked out from the rock to check on the boy again, and he looked sort of pissed off. He was talking to the grey-haired mermaid but she isn't important to me right now.

I look at the boy, and I realize that he was drenched all over. His soft golden locks stuck to his skin, but I don't understand how he can keep his beauty, even when wet. His back was facing me, and I noticed that I was leaning far out, and the mermaid locked eyes with me.

She gave me a cocky smirk, and I hissed back. She rolled her eyes before her eyes darted back to the boy. I leaned back and took the book gently between my claws. It was hard to flip the pages, but I could manage. This wasn't a book though.

There was no color at all, and the words sometimes trailed off the lines. The words didn't look like the letters in a regular book, and these letters were curled and neat.

Well, I have seen the boy use the quill on this, so this must be his...

I slowly grabbed the guill, and pressed its grey tip on a semi-empty page. As he pulled away, it left a black dot. I tested that out to check if that still had ink. I learnt that from the boy himself. He actually would make a testing black dot right before he starts every two lines. There were dots nearly everywhere.

I began to write, and realized that it was sort of as hard as spinning a web.

What is your name? -Arache

The writing was not as perfect as the boy's but I was satisfied. I didn't want to use my first name just yet, maybe next time.

I continued.

I won't hurt you. Leave this on your rock when you talk to the mermaid. I won't come till you leave. -Arache

I am terrible at writing, but I really want to know more about the boy. I hoped that it didn't seem too creepy and flipped the pages back, starting to read.

I would check on the water every few minutes, making sure that the mermaid and boy wouldn't come back too soon while I was here clearly invading the brunet's space.

Or is he a blond?

I turned back to the page on the boy's research on bats, discarding the mental debate in my head on the boy's hair color. I finished the last few sentences and stared at the diagram of a bat, how the boy would label each part and what it could do.

I flipped to tell next page and searched for the darkest dot, since that means the boy started writing from there. I found it and began to read aloud to myself.

"Roses. There was a rose patch growing near the cabin, just seven trees south of the cobweb-ridden tree I found when I was out collecting berries..."

Hold on a second.

'Cobweb-ridden tree.' That was my feeding tree! Every spider has that. We set up small cobwebs on areas we know that insects like to go, like somewhere sweet-smelling or brightly colored.

The tree I used was a normal tree, but just lay a few animal carcasses and insects of all kinds would come. Maggots, very juicy. Flies, tiny but sweet. One time I found two moths feeding on meat!

Back at the mining shaft, where my clan of cave spiders lived, moths were considered to bring bad luck and death to spiders who harm one. The elders said that a friend of theirs ate one and died from a miner three hours following her short-lasted meal. They said that she hated the taste as well, but said that it was food, and nothing changed that fact.

But they're tasty, not nasty at all.

I shook my head, realizing I was trailing off and continued to read.

"The roses growing there were very lovely. I would love to pick one, but I just want their beauty to last longer. If Dianne read this she'll tease me everyday, calling me 'way too innocent'. My favorite are the rare blue roses, they look stunning and really compliment my eyes...'

So he has blue eyes.

Nice.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

After the lovely swim with Melanie, Hero scrambed up the rock, panting as he searched around for his satchel. He grabbed it and pulled it close, searching through it's contents as he checked if all his belongings were there, and not in the water.

Melanie bade him goodbye as she swam away, to her home on the seabed. Hero grumbled back and held his satchel away from his drenched clothes. He sauntered back to the cabin, and rushed to his room to change.

Dianne did not bother to knock and walked in the room, when the boy was busy taking off his shirt. He turned to greet his friend with a nod as the girl fell to his bed, stretching and yawning.

Her hands and boots were all muddy, so Hero assumed she was tending to her farm right before. "Did you fall in the water? You're really wet, I saw the mess you left at the doorstep," she muttered.

Hero hastily put on a clean green long-sleeved shirt and replied, "Yes, but you're leaving mud all over my bed. Get off."

Dianne sat up and threw a pillow at him, saying matter-of-factly, "Mud is natural, and I was busy planting the watermelon seeds. It'll make you sleep nicely, and you'll wake up smelling like melons." She put up a hand. "Thank me later."

Hero glared at her back as she left. He chuckled to himself as he dusted the dried mud off his bed sheets and retrieved his research book and quill.

He knocked on his brother's bedroom door, and Markus swung it open, hugging Hero before inviting him in. The two studied together, and Markus was the only other person who read the older boy's research book.

Hero jumped onto his brother's comfy bed, bouncing a few times before settling down to take down notes on what he witnessed that day when he swam with Melanie.

He flipped the pages, and stopped on the page where he stopped writing for a bit. There were extra sentences he doesn't remember writing, and he scanned the page for the starting dot.

He didn't write that. There was no dot.

Someone read his book, and wrote in it.

"Markus?"

The younger boy didn't look up from his book as he muttered, "Yeah?" Hero slid his research book over to his brother and pointed at the rather messy handwriting in the corner. "Did you write this?"

Markus read over the short note and raised an eyebrow. He shook his head and looked up at his brother. He whispered, "Is someone stalking you? Brother, be careful. What if this 'Arache' guy is from the old village? He could be a guard, and send us back..."

Hero watched his brother go into a panic attack and he wrapped his thin arms around the boy. He pulled the boy's head to his chest and whispered, "It's gonna be alright. I'm here. I'm safe. The guy says he won't harm anyone anyway."

Markus kept breathing before pulling away and whispering harshly to his brother in a scolding manner, "That's no excuse! Someone's watching you, isn't that weird?"

Hero chuckled as he leaned on the wall and said, "I expected it, actually. Seriously, who doesn't want this piece of fine ass." He gestured to himself, laughing as Markus spat...

"¹Ingen gör. Du förgäves skit."

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Swedish:

1: Nobody does. You vain shit.