He felt an intense fear as the intuition that overcame him became reality. Before he could turn and run, the water and the sand beneath it reared up into an ugly, malformed cloak and crashed down around Conor with a thunderous thwump. The one thought that kept repeating itself as he saw the huge form rising up behind him, blocking out the sun, was his uncle’s stern warning to never take the ocean for granted.
Conor couldn’t decide whether it was water or sand that collapsed around him. He lay on the shoreline with the wind knocked from his lungs. He pushed himself up, turning just in time to see another wall of sandy water cascading down onto him. The impact of the second wave shattered his rib cage much more severely than the first. He felt his small body being tossed around like a dog’s play toy, crashing this way and that and rolling endlessly against the ground. He felt the skin from his face and hands chafing away as he landed again and again on the sand. For the first time since his adventures with Purugama and the other champions began, Conor felt terrified that his life would end right here on this beach, far away from everyone and everything he knew and loved.
Feeling nothing gripping his body for a moment, he rolled his head to one side and looked out of his left eye. He saw that the second wave had tossed him clear to the sand dune, where he sat earlier with Maya. He sensed a momentary feeling of relief, realizing that he might be far enough away from the rampaging horror of the possessed ocean. His reprieve proved brief, however, as Conor felt something grab hold of his right ankle. As he felt himself being dragged back down to the water’s edge, he looked around to see a long arm of grainy sand, tipped by a malformed human hand grasping his ankle. The immense arm and hand stretched from the shoreline to the dune, a distance of twenty yards. The hand that held his foot was so huge it could have crushed a basketball like a grape. Conor sensed the hopelessness of the situation and began to cry quietly to himself.
* * * * *
“Conor,” whispered a voice into the young lad’s mind. “Conor, take hold of yourself, boy.” “Will you give in to your fear and die this day?” asked the giant tiger, Surmitang.
Conor shook himself from his morose trance, realizing who was calling out to him. Suddenly gripped by a ravenous desire to live, he screamed as loudly as he could.
“Surmitang!” boomed Conor. “Help me! This foe is too strong and too strange for me to fight! Come through a corridor now and help me, please!”
“Listen to the newest champion of the crossworlds now, whimpering like a newborn cub,” answered Surmitang. “I cannot come to you, small earthling, but never fear, I will help you defeat this foe. His name is Fumemos, and he is not an entity like any you and I have ever known. In fact, Fumemos claims no physical form at all, so he must use the properties of other entities in order to cause mayhem.”
Conor appreciated Surmitang’s counsel, but his primary concern lay in the shrinking distance between himself and the shoreline. The giant hand had dragged him half way back to the water. He didn’t think he could take another pounding from the waves of water and sand.
“Surmitang, please!” cried Conor. “I don’t have any time. I’m out of breath, I’m injured, and another wave is going to crash down on me again. I need to know what to do.”
“You will know, young earthling,” said Surmitang. “You will know by instinct what to do.”
With that last comforting instruction, Conor felt the presence of Surmitang leave his consciousness. His psyche alternated back to one of total fear. He looked down his legs and watched the hand that had dragged him back to the shoreline slowly release its grip on his foot. After letting him go, the form collapsed back into the sand. Almost simultaneously, Conor felt the ground bump and roll as the entity Fumemos gathered the sand and water from all around him and rose up into a massive wave. Conor inhaled a last gasp of breath while he watched the huge wave eclipse the sun as it approached him.
