Tears seeped from Father Hawk’s stinging eyes, befuddling his vision as they splayed out, merging into the volumes of the Shadowlake. The sight of Mother Hawk’s burning grew blurrier and distant.
It was then at the welling of further anguished tears, trembling at the brink of the wavering scene of Mother Hawk that Father Hawk thought with clarity. Mother Hawk was haunting. That was all there was to her essence. When the brightness of the searing sight diminished under the blur of tears, Father Hawk could see clearer. The burning body below was merely a spectre of his projected fears and insecurities.
He knew better. Mother Hawk was not at the bottom of a lake with the Huntsman’s soul. She was far up in Father Hawk’s former haven against the stars.
“THE QUEST”
“DON’T-LEAVE-”
“Don’t leave the quest, muttered Father Hawk, spluttering as water seeped in his beak and he spit it out.
“Don’t leave the quest!” he thought as clearly as he could.
It was all he had left after all………
Father Hawk whirled his head, pushing against the weight of the lake’s deepness. He squinted at the pale grey light jutting from the surface, so as not to hurt his already stinging eyes anymore.
The Eagle reaching for him appeared to be suspended in a slowed movement. His panic seemed frozen– etched in his still wide eyes, unblinking. Tendrils and waves of water slithered and morphed around him. They cascaded, frothed– vines turning into rock walls, melting into oncoming serpents and sea-stallions.
Pressure mounted in Father Hawk’s chest. The distractions of the Shadowlake had blinded him to his own drowning.
He’d pulled away and noticed the sensations too late. By now, the pressure and torrents of water streaming through his beak, suffocated him– hit him in a startling wave.
It seemed like he’d moved from one terrible sight to the terrible reality of struggling for air in a lake. Which one was worse?
The Eagle winced, his eyes squinting and his beak opened wide in a gurgling scream.
“COOME…. HAAA..WWK!”
Father Hawk clawed at the water helplessly as it bubbled with a rising force that seemed to crowd him out. Just when his wings sloshed down in defeat, a hot bubble swelled under him, searing his back and pushing him up.
The bubble’s fizzing consumed his hearing as he shot up, jiggling on its burning viscous surface. He rose swiftly, quickly passing many of the surrounding bubbles that had overtaken and loomed over him in their ascent.
Father Hawk was fixated on the Eagle and his capsule of slowly descending froth. The Eagle barely receded in size while the walls of rising bubbles blurred away in a passing vortex. A vortex leading to the Eagle.
Father Hawk’s rear was slipping back along the bubble. He was also getting blasted with an intake of water as he struggled to control his beak. He turned to the left and used his right wing to slap his beak.
His movement caused him to teeter off the bubble. As he fell over it, the bubble burst under his cascading weight.
The scalding slippery surface dissolved into a wave of heat that emanated outwards before dissipating.
Father Hawk was once again fighting against his weight in the rapids of the sizzling, bubbling furnace of dark water.
He frantically waved his wings ahead, trying to swim in and dent the thick liquid.
The vortex seemed to undergo a reversal; the Eagle slowly receded and the bubbles stopped moving back. Instead, they flew up past him in their usual latitude.
The pale grey light of the Eagle dimmed.
“No!”
Father Hawk kicked his legs. A bubble burst at one of his kicks, creating a heat wave that pushed him farther up to the side. He could use these waves to shoot up! Father Hawk had moved to the right, further away from the Eagle.
He kicked a bubble rising underneath him to the left. It fizzled in its dissolution and sent a rippling wave of heat, pushing him up.
He kicked another bubble below. Pop! He rocketed up, doubling over in the process. His vision blurred. He was choking on water. The arrays of rising bubbles started to merge at their blurred edges in his eyesight.
He quickly kicked another bubble. Pop! Phoo! Father Hawk shot up.
Kick! Pop! Phoo!
Kick! Pop! Phoo!
Kick! Pop! Phoo!
Kick! Pop! Phoo!
Father Hawk was near the surface. The Eagle hung above him to his left. He kicked his claws, mustering his final strides before his body gave way.
The lake’s surface and the Eagle’s cascading froth no longer glimmered just a pale grey. Splotches of yellow, asky grey and orange sparkled and slivered around the froth and across the roof of the Shadowlake.
Pinpricks of yellow flashed through the lake surface.
Father Hawk mustered his final kicks, shooting up so his legs grazed the Eagle’s froth. Father Hawk doubled over backwards in his motion. His face neared the surface, allowing him to make out the faint green shapes of trees, whipping to and fro. A mass of leaves lunged backwards and shot over, snapping from the rim of the trees.
As Father Hawk’s head dipped back, falling through the water again, he could hear the jangled, rippling crash of the leaves and their branches, splashing into the lake.
He arched over, causing his head and the rest of his body to dive back.
He had risen, only to fall once again.
“My story doesn’t end like that,” thought Father Hawk. He screamed in fury, allowing more water to enter his beak. The shrill noise was warbled in the water. He waved his wings above him and kicked his legs a few more times. The vortex closed in on him until the tip of his left wing lapped the expanse of the sky reflecting on the water surface. Then, his body did give. Father Hawk’s pressure threatened to pinch his entire body and being into oblivion. His eyes dimmed, eyelids closing in. Black creeped across his vision.
A roaring torrent ripped through the water above him, sending whirls and waves of froth pushing into him. A thick wing of drenched dense black feathered plumage snaked around Father Hawk’s wing, pulling him up out of the Shadowlake. Father Hawk’s eyes reopened to a hellish world.
G.R. Nanda 