Ocean Song Beneath the Waves
*UPDATED* Chapter 2: Searching

“Where the hell did he go?” Rodion wonders aloud in a gruff tone as he checks his phone for the sixth time.

Zale scratches at his messy hair that had been released from the ponytail it had been in earlier. “Did you talk to Rena? Was he at the beach?”

Rodion replies in a gruff tone. “I spoke with her, but he wasn’t there.”

Arion groans. “Even though we’re not little kids anymore, he never leaves for this long.” It had already been eleven hours since they had seen their father this morning. It’s well past four with school for Arion and Serena having gotten out two hours ago.

Caspian enters the room with his phone to his ear, but the call goes straight to voice mail.

Rodion glances over at him. “Still nothing?”

Caspian nods with a frown as he shoves his phone into his back pocket and crosses his arms over his chest. “What of Rena?”

Rodion collapses back onto the couch. “She says she’s on her way back. Should be here in about fifteen minutes or so.”

Caspian nods as he picks up the remote and turns on the TV. It’s not like they can do much else anyway. The four had already combed all of their father’s usual spots, and they couldn’t file a missing person’s report since he hadn’t been gone long enough for the police to deem his disappearance as relevant. At least here in Andomore the police aren’t very motivated to do their jobs and will most definitely tell them to wait 24 hours before contacting them again.

“You don’t think he drowned himself, do you?” Arion asks hesitantly after a moment.

Rodion growls as he looks over at him. “Don’t be stupid! Of course dad wouldn’t do that no matter how much he may miss mom!”

Arion falls silent as Zale speaks up. “Regardless of whether he did or not, he wouldn’t just up and abandon us. Especially Rena with her being his little princess and some such shit.” Zale shrugs his shoulders as he settles into the arm chair closest to the window overlooking the beach.

“Even an emotion as strong as loss can’t be ignored. It doesn’t matter how much he loves us. The loss is still there and that would drive him to do something like that given the chance,” Arion insists.

Caspian releases a tired sigh as he turns to his brothers. “How about we not jump to conclusions. For all we know, we could’ve missed him in our search and he’s just walking about somewhere with his phone on vibrate again.”

Nothing else is said as the four settle into an uncomfortable silence. Just then they hear the front door open. It’s not even a moment later before Serena walks through the entryway and into the living room. She glances around at all of her brothers faces, drops her bag to the floor and turns her full attention to Caspian.

“Has there been any word?”

Caspian shakes his head. “We’ll wait for now. If he’s not back by tomorrow morning then we’ll file a missing person’s report.”

Serena nods with a frown on her lips. She’d rather file the report right this moment, but she reminds herself that she shouldn’t jump to conclusions. And she further remembers just how “helpful” Andomore’s police is. Living in as peaceful a small coastal city such as this one makes room for a lot of lazy cops who aren’t the least bit motivated to do their jobs.

Serena sighs whilst picking her bag back up. “I’m going to go finish my homework. You know where to replace me,” she mutters as she disappears up the stairs to her bedroom.

Upon entering her room, she shuts the door and settles herself amongst the pillows of her bay window. She proceeds to pull out her homework and arrange it all before her. She glances at each individual assignment before deciding to work on her calculus homework since she’s less likely to do it if it were to be left for last.

She turns her gaze to the view beyond her bedroom window. The sun has begun to set on the horizon and the waves appear calm. Gulls are still flying about over the waters in the distance as the land is dyed orange. And for a brief moment an image of her mother fills her vision. Serena shakes her head and the image disappears. She focuses back on her homework, but a brief glance to the left has her looking back up at a picture that sits on her dresser. Within its frame is the smiling face of her mother standing with the ocean behind her. Her fair skin is illuminated by the sun’s shining rays and a smile lights up her face that reaches to those sea blue eyes that Serena inherited. Her creamy blonde hair, so much like Serena’s as well, is permanently fixed in the air after a particularly strong gust of wind that had blown in that day.

Serena turns away once more and sighs. “Back to calculus,” she mumbles quietly as she picks up her pencil and pulls out a calculator.

Today is Friday and Serena replaces herself standing outside at her brother’s car, waiting for him to get free. Once again that bloodhound of a girl, Raquel, managed to hunt him down like a cornered fox. Serena replaces herself wondering if she should tried to help him this time around, but simply shrugs after concluding that he would be fine without her help. Even Arion should be able to handle Raquel.

Serena idly kicks at a random pebble on the ground as she languidly leans against the car, watching as people walk by. There’s always the occasional group of jocks that would glance her way and snicker to his friends. That’s just the bad thing about high school. Once you do something to jeopardize your image, no one’ll ever let you live it down.

It had happened during her freshman year of high school. She had been idly swinging her legs about the water of the school’s pool. No one had been around and she had felt a need to dip her feet in for a moment. And as she was sitting there, she did what she usually did when left to her own devices. She began singing, but things went south after the fact. Just like what happened at the beach yesterday, a voice sang back to her. And she tried to talk to it. She had no idea where it came from or why it was talking to her specifically, but she didn’t think to ask at the time. No, instead she tried to coax it to speak again. And of course who should appear but the famous Raquel Woods with her entourage of poorly put together clowns trailing along behind her.

Raquel did see fit to mock Serena, gaining the unnecessary laughing in the background from her lackeys. But that’s not quite where things went wrong. Serena had impulsively raised her leg and brought it back down on the water which served to elicit a giant splash that targeted the squad of Barbies. A series of shrieks followed accompanied by a gathering crowd of high schoolers. Serena had quickly stood up and moved to apologize, but before she could, she managed to slip on some water and completely fell into the pool. Even before she fell in, she could hear their laughter, and it only worsened when she finally climbed out looking like a soaked cat.

Safe to say that after that day, she had gotten a new nickname. “Fish girl.” And for the entire year people would tease her about talking to her “imaginary fish friends” because, of course, Raquel told the whole school after she recovered from her “ordeal.”

Serena grimaces. She still can’t think about it without doing so.

And as if to save her from her depressing thoughts, her brother’s voice reaches her ears. “Get in the car!”

Something of a panicked look is present on his face as he runs over while unlocking the doors. Serena says nothing as she opens the door and climbs in, only tossing her bag in the back once she’s seated. Arion climbs in not a moment later and swiftly pushes the key into the ignition.

“Wait Arion!” Raquel calls as she desperately tries to get to the car in those painful looking pumps. However, Arion doesn’t seem too keen to do as asked as he starts up the car and tears off out of the parking lot.

Serena grins. “Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move so fast in my life,” she chuckles as Arion clicks his tongue.

“I don’t wanna hear it! That girl’s like a goddamn bloodhound!” He complains as Serena further settles into her seat once all the excitement had finally died down. “She was trying to get me to go to the mall with her,” says Arion with a shudder as he makes a left past a small clothing store.

Serena simply rolls her eyes as she props her arm up on the window and rests her head on her fist. Her gaze flickers over the rapidly changing scenery leading towards the familiar path home. As far as she could tell, neither she nor Arion has received any sort of contact from their father all day.

Her eyes flicker over to her brother’s hands as they clutch the steering wheel in a white-knuckle grip. Suffice it to say, she’s not the only one who’s anxious to get home and hear what her brothers have to say. Arion’s even pushing past the speed limit just the slightest bit, and for a moment she wonders if she should say anything at all.

Yet another glance at her brother tells her that she should keep silent for the time being. And every now and again he does catch himself speeding, quickly using the breaks to slow down to avoid an altercation with the local deadbeat law enforcement.

Her gaze immediately catches a glimpse of the sea as she replaces herself sitting up straighter to see it.

“Hey, drop me off at the beach, would you?” Arion seems reluctant to comply with that request but staring at the look on her face reminds him that he knows better than to tell her otherwise. She won’t listen anyway. Never does. So, he does just that. He pulls over just a few blocks from their house where the sand meets the pavement. Serena quickly grabs her bag and all but leaps from the car, making a beeline towards her usual hang out spot.

“Be back before dark!” Arion calls out as she throws up a hand to indicate her agreement. Arion releases a sigh as he continues on his way home once more.