By Ya Han Hsu

Days went by, as Eliza kept sailing. The deep cut on her heart hadn’t healed yet, but she had learnt to carry on. While waiting for her destiny to call her, she began to repair her boat, making it strong enough to face ferocious storms.

However, there was still one thing troubling her. She had seen Damla sail through thunderous windstorms and help save drowning ships like it was nothing more than a breeze. She could feel the power of her mentor, and Damla had said that she needed more power than her to stop the tragedy that was going to happen, but she just couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t overcome her fear towards storms, not when Damla wasn’t beside her. She doubted that she could ever be strong enough to undertake her mission.

One day, she noticed something strange about the sky. The sky was tinted with an odd yellow. It wasn’t like the sunset’s golden color. It was opaque, like a mist with unnatural yellow surrounding it. Eliza sensed danger immediately, she knew her time had come. A thousand thoughts flooded her mind. What would happen? She wasn’t ready yet.

Finally, Eliza calmed herself. She needed to find the Son of Earth, if her powers hadn’t appeared yet– or perhaps never– she had to at least warn him. Also, there was a nausea smell diffusing in the air. Something was wrong.

The problem for Eliza is– how could she find Son of Earth? The world is too big, how would she search all the places? Not to mention that she couldn’t be far from the ocean for more than a few days, she would be dead before she found the Son of Earth.

Days went by as Eliza got more worried, but she could do nothing except sailing endlessly to the horizon.

One day, Eliza was still sailing on the sea. Though it was a sunny day, the sky’s color hadn’t gotten any better, it was still that weird gray and yellow. Suddenly, a strange, shiny fish swam beside the boat. It was almost as big as Eliza herself. The fish made a few turns around the boat and swam away. Eliza followed it as it swam straight ahead, passing islands and reefs. After a few minutes, it suddenly dived down and disappeared, leaving Eliza on the boat, shocked.

Eliza got annoyed. But then she noticed something strange: she was surrounded by several islands, but there was no sign of life on them. The largest island was especially strange. It was like a mountain that had risen from the sea. There were dead plants and animals everywhere, and deaths seemed to diffuse from the middle of the island. Eliza examined the island carefully, after a moment of thought, she decided to go on the island to see where the problem was.

She took a deep breath, she hadn’t stepped on land ever since she was taken by Damla as an orphan, let alone to explore unknown woods with hidden danger inside. Eliza took the oar and climbed ashore. As she went into the forest, she carefully touched the dead bodies of plants. There wasn’t poison on them, but she could feel such deep sorrow from the dead leaves. After a few careful examinations, Eliza was no longer alerted, but also too mournful to say anything. The woods which were once green and beautiful… What happened?

As Eliza went nearer to the center of the island, she heard a low cry. Finally, when she was there, the sight stunned her. The same weird yellow in the sky was spread all over the trees, diffusing a disgusting smell. More strangely, there was a boy about her age crying on an old man’s body. The heart breaking cries could pierce through hearts like swords.

Eliza understood almost instantly— he was the Son of Earth.