I sat in the lifeboat, clinging on for dear life. All around me, I saw nothing but water, save for a few birds flying overhead. There were 11 of them, and they all flew in a tight and dense formation. When the bird at the head of the V dived, the other ones dived in tandem. It was certainly a spectacle, to see the dexterity and coordination of these majestic creatures surpass the twists and turns of the most powerful roller coaster. I sat back in the lifeboat, passively viewing the avian acrobatics at work. Once again, there was a dive in the formation, but this one was much more steep, it was almost vertical, and they were on the face of the water as they leaned back ever so slightly to swoop forward. They were so low to the ground that I might have been hit by their airshow had I not been laying down. I smiled at the natural display, complacent as I laid in the raft, drifting on and waiting for where it would deposit me.

I sat up, only to see a large whirlpool ahead of me. The complacency that I had held but a moment earlier had turned to an air of panic and dread. Quickly, I scanned my eyes across the large, yellow vessel to find a pair of oars resting up against the opposite side. Like lightning, I lunged toward the sticks and furiously paddled away from the rapid current that was about to suck me in. Thankfully, the rowing did the trick, and after swinging about the outside edge for a few revolutions, I broke from the grasp of the sinking mass of water, and I was shot out in the direction I came.

Tired from the battle that I had just fought, I sank back into the comfort of the school bus hued boat to regain my composure. I wanted to resume my viewing of the birds, and I managed to do so. But following only fifteen seconds, I felt something bump up under my raft. I quickly shot my head to the side, hoping that the bump was the shore of a nearby island. But as I looked around in a circle, I still saw nothing but the crisp blue waters and the sun looming overhead. Then, I felt another bump. Rather than the first one, which just gave a quick tap, this one stayed, pushing the boat up almost to the point of capsizing. Whatever was trying to wedge against me certainly had a sense of dexterity, slowly scanning the bottom of the vessel, only to whip back to the other side like the carriage returning on a manual typewriter. It made its way to me, and once it did, traced a bit of a figure around me. Once it determined the curve of my legs, it retracted with a jolt, as I was pulled and subjected to an odd splash. The search subsided, but the mood was not a good one. Instead, it seemed ominous, as I knew by some gut instinct that I was in for an unpleasant experience.

The following moments were tense. I sat cowered in the corner of the raft. The sheer size of the thing, a moderate sized boat that could house a good 6 people, only served to heighten the fear that I had. The adrenaline started to course through my veins as I huddled myself up against the high walls of the raft. I was ready for anything at this point, mentally prepared to face the coming terror, but most certainly not willing to do so. A tense breath of air escaped from my mouth. The thoughts of what lurked under the surface of the ocean and what…. inspected me scared me terribly, and at the thought of it, I started to get that feeling. You know what feeling I am talking about, that gut instinct, the almost extrasensory feeling that something is behind you, something is about to get you. I felt it…. it rattled my bones, and knowing that it was to happen, I laid down in the raft, my head leaning against the high walls of the vessel. The clock ticked down, and I heard something.

A voice of sorts.

It started soft, a female, singing in a beautiful alto. Had I not been already asleep, I’d have been lulled to a peaceful dream, rather than the impending nightmare I was about to befall. The voice grew louder, singing her tune. It was a magnificent aria, and as her voice climbed north of the fifth C, her projection grew so loud that it was almost earth-shaking, a presence that would break the firmament of the sky and bring the floodwaters down from the seat of the divinity, flooding its populace. As the voice still managed to climb upward into a chillingly stark sopranino, at the break above the sixth C, the pleasant E major she had been singing in switched to a darker C sharp minor, its four sharps still intact.

At this point, I realized what was going on. The singing. A mainstay of…. oh no, not Greek mythology again! My breath quickened as I held on for dear life. The moment of reckoning was close at hand. And once I saw the peach colored tendril work its way up the other side of the raft, I knew what I was about to face. It was the scylla. And before I could finish processing the thought, I felt my little yellow vessel (well, little in comparison to what was lifting me up) shoot upwards, resting firmly and planted square in the bed of three rows of teeth. However, they weren’t teeth like a human would have. Instead, they were three rows of large, white suckers, holding my boat, but not me, firmly in its grasp. Her singing still continued in the minor most dark, but did not ascend any further. The music held, but as I was now discovering, the cecaelia-like creature’s hold on me was not.

I felt the grasp loosen as nine depressions in the middle of my boat filled back up. The beautiful music, the siren’s song was quite the score to the scene, encapsulating the air of my terror better than anything by John Williams. To my abject horror, I saw a twitch of muscle move up the tentacle which supported the boat. The snakelike whip eventually reached the tip of the tendril, tossing me to the edge of the boat. I would have fallen off and plummeted if not for the high walls of the life raft. I thanked Ganesha (there we go with him again) for the providence of the heavy padding. I decided to keep down there, finding a depression in the corner and crouching inside it. Again, a shockwave rippled up the arm of the scylla, and at its apex, another ripple shook the boat. The trench that housed me held firm, and I was not shaken.

At her failure, I had the feeling that the scylla was to try a new strategy to knock me. I felt a slow movement. Like the gears starting for the first time in a while on an old machine, there were a few creaks, then the movement hit its full stride. I feared this full stride, because I knew that once she hit her molluscan stride, nothing would break her side, nor would anything slow her down, oh no, she’s got to keep on moving. It was a horrifying experience. Like the roller coasters that I would endure tomorrow, the slow revolutions hit full blast, and the depressions started to appear again in the center of the boat. Scylla was sucking on to the bottom, with the yellow rubber of the raft combining with the white rubbery cartilage of her tentacles, making an unholy combination.

I was beginning to tire of the assault befalling me, so I apathetically sunk into the corner of the boat. But the apathy that I had adopted had quickly left once I saw the center of my vessel. The white that they had taken on was quickly returning to its bright yellow. Scylla was about to release me. However, this sweet release was not one that I wanted because the circle that I was swinging had slowly grown inward. She retracted, and before I knew it, I was being swung straight toward Charybdis! Fighting against the forces pushing me down, I clawed my way up the side of the raft (which quickly became its bottom, and after a final, quick prayer, sprung myself from the vessel, straightening myself flat so I would hit the water with the least amount of impact.

I fell down for about 100 feet, accelerating quicker and quicker with each passing second. I prayed to reach terminal velocity sometime soon, so that my acceleration would stop. The earth moved toward me at breakneck speed; I felt like I was on a Freefall ride. Eventually, I reached the water, plunging in at an incredible speed. I sunk lower and lower and lower, and running out of breath, scrambled to reach the surface. Just as I did, I wiped my eyes dry and treaded water. Scylla was on my left, and Charybdis on the right. I would have gone towards Charybdis to try to sling myself beyond it, but the incredible fatigue that had swept my body prevented me from doing so. Had I gone over there, I would have been surely trapped inside the sinkhole. But on the other hand, a swim towards Scylla would leave me at risk of being trapped by her tentacles, taken down to some underground lair of hers. At the very least, I would get to meet Lamia. However, that was irrelevant. The choice I had to make still remained.

After entertaining the thought of just sinking down and drowning out of exhaustion, I trudged toward Scylla lying at my left. I mustered enough energy to do a half hearted paddle towards the gargantuan cecaelia. The foolishness of my decision seemed to weigh even greater with each passing second, but I knew underneath all of that doubt that it was the best choice. Maybe. Possibly. Probably not.

At the sight of my figure approaching, an earth rattling cackle erupted. The sirenic laugh would have led me to cover my ears, except for the fact that I was too tired even to do that. She swiped a tentacle at me, and the nectarinous tinted tendril thrashed the water (and myself along with it) in a monstrous wave. I hit the water first with my right shoulder. With the animation of a ragdoll, I floundered in the deep water as Scylla mounted for her second offensive. The next strike was an upward blow, and before she was about to hit me, most peculiarly, she relented. Sure, the upward motion was just enough to knock me out of place, and my limp, lifeless, but still conscious body moved in tandem. However, her objective didn’t seem to be incapacitating me. Rather, I think she was trying to collect me.

Taking the deepest care (a pure oddity if I ever did see one) to handle me gently, she prodded me to a gigantic sucker pad located in the center of the tendril. I climbed in and huddled as tight as I could, shivering intensely at the bout from the sea. By the sole urge to see what was going on, I felt the adrenaline pump to keep me conscious for a few more fleeting moments. Scylla shifted, and I saw yet another tentacle climb up, and after a bit of a squeeze, set suction between two of her sucker pads. And with a lurch, she descended, probably to transport me to some underwater hideout.

As we sunk further and further into the sea, I got to see a partial view of the sea through the windows of her translucent suction cups. I felt something below me, and I wiggled to get it out. A smile came straight to my face when I saw the tiniest clownfish in my hands, but not when it flopped in my palm. Seeing as it was on the verge of death (and to be honest, I felt almost the same), I took it from my hands, pushed to the side of my organic bathysphere and lowered him into the pool of water at the bottom. Almost immediately, he sprang back to life, and I laughed a little bit as he patterned a little figure eight from what little room he had. And judging from the various bumps and noises coming from outside, I think that Scylla might have laughed as well.

But before I could relish in my delight, I saw something off in the distance. Since I could not see well in my translucent chamber, it only appeared as a faint white light. However, as I moved closer and closer, the luminescence only intensified. I think that we were just about to touch down at her cove! I tried to push towards the edges to get a better view, but pushing the rubbery tissue aside only made the view worse. The light brightened even further. I looked around frantically, hoping to get some sort of glimpse. Just then, the light got too bright. I was forced to close my eyes and wait….