By: Emma Wang

A sunny beach. Warm, but not blisteringly hot. Ilia had six “horns”, three on each side. She was a tender pink, and came with tiny, black eyes and a smiling mouth. Ilia was an axolotl.

Spending the first few careless days of her life swimming around and chasing tadpoles for her dinner, she learnt an important lesson–she was practically at the top of the food chain.

However, a week later, she spotted a large shadow–one several times her size. She drifted closer, curious about whether she could eat it. Suddenly, the shadow, which turned out to be a large, golden carp, lunged at the delicate pink creature–only to turn away at the last second. Tentatively, Ilia moved closer, and saw that an unknown species–a human–had caught it.

Seeing that the human had helped her, Ilia stuck her head above the water. When the human gently lifted her out of the water. Ilia, seeing the mounds of fish on the boat, didn’t struggle or fight. The human, seeing that Ilia didn’t struggle, brought her back to her home. Although the pond that the human let her live in was slightly small, the human, whose name turned out to be Everyl, took her on fishing trips every day.

Everyl went to the large, bustling, market in the village twice a week, rising early to set up her shop, which was called Everyl’s Enormous Excellent Fish. Although Everyl was far into her adult years, she was lonely, but now, she had Ilia. Despite this, her village life was very dull–she was the only person in the village who fished for a living, so she didn’t have much competition in terms of business. Everyl’s day-to-day life was practically the same–go fishing, bring Ilia home, and store the fish in the pond she owned near her shop–so that the fish were always fresh. The sameness of her life, for her, was extremely boring. Therefore, Everyl decided to leave for the legendary Island of Wind north of the village.

One morning, the weather was bright and sunny, with a good northern wind. Seeing that there weren’t many clouds and such good conditions, they set off with a course north for the Island of Wind. However, when they were a long distance out to sea, they felt a raindrop. And another. Within minutes, it was pouring. Hard. Because Everyl only had a small rowboat, the wind easily capsized the boat–and everything went black.

Something was seriously digging into Everyl’s arm. With a groan, she got up–only to find that there was a piece of wood wedged underneath her arm–and an axolotl whacking her face with its tail. Ilia had woken up a while earlier, and had been trying to figure out whether Everyl was alive or not.

Seeing the picturesque hills and the white-sand beaches, Everyl knew that they had arrived at their destination–the Island of Wind.