Chapter 32The Battle of the Elements

Friday, August twenty-first. This morning, the amazing geyser was totally gone. The wind had picked up, and we were heading out of Henry's Island pretty fast. Even the loud roar of the huge column was gone.

The weather, if you can even call it that right now, is about to change super suddenly.

The air is getting loaded with moisture, which is carrying all the electricity from the saltwater constantly evaporating; the clouds are slowly but noticeably dropping towards the sea, and they’ve got this dark-olive color.

Electric rays can barely get through the thick curtain that’s fallen like a backdrop for this crazy theater, where another, way scarier drama is about to go down. This isn’t an animal fight; it's a full-on battle between the elements.

I feel really weird, like all the creatures on land do when a flood is coming.

The cumuli - these perfectly oval clouds - were piled up to the south and looked seriously ominous, with that heartless look you often see before a storm. The air is super heavy, and the sea is pretty calm.

Way off, the clouds looked like giant balls of cotton, or more like pods, piled on top of each other in a cool, messy way. Slowly, they started to swell, break apart, and gain numbers as they lost their size.

They’re so heavy they can't lift themselves off the horizon, but the winds up high are breaking them up, making them darker, and turning them into this one solid, intimidating layer. Sometimes a lighter cloud, still lit up, bounces off this grey blanket and disappears into the thick mass.

Seriously, the whole vibe is buzzing with electricity; I'm totally charged up myself. My hair's literally standing on end, like I’m hooked up to a battery. If a friend touched me, I bet they’d get a nasty shock.

Around ten in the morning, the storm signs got way more intense. The wind died down, like it was gathering energy for another push. That huge, gloomy cloud above us looked massive - like Aeolus’s cave, where the storm was building up its power.

I tried not to freak out about what the sky was saying, but I blurted out, "We’re gonna get hit with some serious weather."

The Professor didn’t even respond. He was in a terrible mood, staring out at the endless ocean. When I said that, he just shrugged.

"We’re in for a crazy storm," I said again, pointing to the horizon.

"Those clouds are dropping lower and lower, like they’re trying to squash the sea."

Everything went quiet. The wind completely stopped. Nature froze, not even breathing. On the mast, where I saw a faint glow, the sail hung in loose, heavy folds. The raft was still, stuck in a dark, heavy sea - no waves, no movement. It was as smooth as glass.

But we weren't going anywhere, so keeping the sail up was pointless, it could even doom us if the storm suddenly hits us outta nowhere.

"Let’s take down the sail," I said. "Just being smart, you know?"

"No - no," my uncle shouted, totally stressed, "a hundred times, no. Let the wind hit us, do whatever it wants, let the storm carry us off anywhere - just let me see a coastline, even some rocky cliffs, even if it smashes our raft to bits. No! keep the sail up - no matter what!"

Those words were barely out when the southern horizon totally flipped. All that built-up mist turned into water, and the air rushing in to fill the space became a crazy, wild storm.

It came from every corner of the huge cavern. It raged from every direction. It roared, yelled, and shrieked with glee, like demons unleashed. The darkness got thicker - seriously dark.

The raft went up and down with the storm, bouncing over the waves. My uncle was thrown onto the deck. I struggled to get to him. He was hanging on tight to a cable and seemed to be watching the unleashed storm with pure joy.

Hans didnn't move a thing. His long hair, whipped around by the storm and scattered across his face, made him look wild - every single hair was lit up with tiny sparkles.

His face looked like an ancient dude, a real contemporary of the Megatherium.

The mast was still holding up against the storm. The sail spread out and filled up like a soap bubble about to pop. The raft was flying forward, so fast it was hard to guess, but still slower than the water it was pushing aside - you could see how fast it was going by the lines flying out behind us.

"The sail, the sail!" I yelled, cupping my hands around my mouth, then trying to pull it down.

"Leave it!" my uncle said, even more stressed than before.

"Nej," Hans said gently, shaking his head.

The rain was like a crazy waterfall ahead of us, and we were rushing toward it like total lunatics.

But before that wall of water hit, the clouds ripped open. The sea started foaming like crazy, and electricity - probably from some huge, weird chemical reaction way up in the clouds - went wild. There were thunderclaps like nothing I'd ever heard, plus lightning flashes that were blinding.

They crisscrossed everywhere, and the thunder echoed all around. The clouds glowed, the hailstones hitting our boots and weapons actually lit up, and the waves looked like fire-breathing monsters, with flames all along the tops. Seriously intense.

I was totally blinded and deafened by the light and noise. I had to grab the mast - it was bending like a reed - because the storm was unlike anything sailors had ever seen.

My travel notes got super messy after that, all over the place and vague. I could only scribble down a couple of quick observations, just mechanically. But even those short, confusing notes show how overwhelmed I was.

Sunday, August twenty-third. Where are we? What region are we even in? We’re still flying forward, ridiculously fast.

The night was insane, you couldn't even describe it. The storm isn’t letting up at all. We’re stuck in some kind of chaos with no name. The explosions sound like constant artillery fire. Our ears are literally bleeding. We can’t even talk or hear each other.

The lightning doesn’t stop flashing, not even for a second. I can see the zigzags after a quick dart hits the roof of this huge vault. If it collapsed and fell on us! More lightning sends forked streaks everywhere, like fireballs exploding over a city under attack.

The noise is insane, way beyond anything we can really hear. Even if every powder magazine in the world blew up at once, it couldn't be louder.

There’s this constant glow from the storm clouds; electric stuff just keeps coming out. The air is totally messed up. Loads of water columns shoot up like waterspouts and crash back into the ocean in foam.

"Where are we headed?" My uncle's still stretched out on the raft, not saying a word, not even keeping track of time.

It's getting hotter. I look at the thermometer - wow, it's showing... the exact number is rubbed out in my notes.

Monday, August twenty-fourth. This storm is never gonna end. Why can't this crazy, thick atmosphere just settle down and stay that way?

We're totally exhausted and worn out. Hans is just being Hans. The raft keeps going southeast, no question. We're already two hundred leagues from that island we found.

Around noon, the storm got even worse. We had to tie down every last thing on the raft, or it would all be swept away. We tied each other together, too. Waves crashed over us, and we were underwater more than once.

We’d been totally silent for three whole days and nights. We opened our mouths, moved our lips, but nothing came out. Even putting our mouths to each other's ears didn’t work.

The wind just blew the sound away.

My uncle finally managed to get close enough to me after a bunch of tries. To my senses, which were pretty fried by then, it sounded like he was trying to say something. I just knew, more like a gut feeling, that he said, "We're lost."

I pulled out my notebook - I never left home without it, no matter how bad things got - and scribbled a few words as clearly as I could: "Take in sail." He sighed deep and nodded.

Barely had his head settled back when this ball of fire popped up right on the edge of the raft - our poor, doomed thing. The mast and sail just flew off, swept away super high like a kite.

We were frozen, legit shivering with fear. The ball of fire, half white, half blue, about the size of a ten-inch bomb, zipped along, spinning fast to get away from the storm.

It was bouncing everywhere, climbing up one of the raft’s sides, jumping on the food pile, and then just dropped lightly, landed like a football, and hit our gunpowder.

Seriously bad situation. An explosion was totally coming. Thank goodness, it didn't.

The bright disk moved to the side, it came towards Hans, who just stared at it; then it came towards my uncle, who dropped to his knees to get out of the way; it came towards me, as I stood pale and shaking in the blinding light and heat; it spun around my feet, which I tried to pull back.

The air filled with this weird smell, like nitrous gas; it went down my throat, into my lungs. I felt like I was gonna choke.

Why can’t I lift my feet? Are they stuck to the raft’s floor? No.

The electric globe shorted out and now all the iron on board is magnets - the instruments, the tools, the weapons are clanging together with a crazy, awful noise. My heavy boots’ nails are glued to the iron plates in the wood. I can’t move my foot.

It’s that old story again about the adamant mountain.

Finally, with a huge, almost impossible effort, I rip it free just as the ball, still spinning, is about to circle around it and drag me with it - if -

Oh, what intense, crazy light! The fireball bursts - we’re covered in waves of living fire, flooding the space around us with glowing stuff.

Then, everything went dark and the deep was covered in darkness again! I just had time to see my uncle sprawled out on the raft’s floor, looking totally out of it, and Hans at the helm, "spitting fire" from the electricity that seemed to have gone right through him.

Where are we going? I ask. And the echo replies, Where? ...

Tuesday, August twenty-fifth. I just woke up from a long blackout. That awful storm is still raging; the lightning’s even more intense, pouring out its fiery wrath like a bunch of snakes unleashed in the air.

Are we still on the sea? Yeah, and we’re being carried along super fast.

We’re past England, past the Channel, past France - probably past all of Europe.

Another huge noise in the distance. This time, it’s for sure that the sea is crashing against rocks nearby. Then - ... ...