“Alright guys,” Jeremy said popping the cork on the champagne. “To a fun week!”
Pouring everyone a glass we all clank our glasses together.
With the car full of small talk and random explosives being thrown around, I sat back and enjoyed the view of the drive.
It didn’t take too long to get to the resort. By the time we pulled in the sun was just over the horizon, getting ready to set over the water.
Everyone was psyched. The resort was nothing but amazing. Fountains were everywhere, marble covered everything, there was more staff then there were patrons in the lobby.
Making a stop at the front desk, Jeremy grabbed a bunch of key cards from the hostess. Walking towards the back of the lobby, we all boarded the elevator as Jeremy passed out key cards to everyone as the elevator took off to the top floor.
As the elevator door opened, we were greeted with a stunning sunset. Walking out of the elevator, directly into the penthouse, the living was floor to ceiling glass, looking out over the water. Everyone gathered around in the living room and headed out to the patio to watch the sunset.
With the sunset, we made our way back inside to look around.
“What’s mine is yours,” Jeremy said to everyone. “There’s plenty of beds along with a few hammocks outside.”
This place was ginormous. At least three times larger than my house. It had 5 bedrooms, bathrooms, a huge living room, a TV room and a kitchen that deserved to be in a 5-star restaurant.
Looking around the place I decided to set up my stuff near a hammock outside on the patio. With the temperature never to drop below 70 tonight, I thought it would the perfect place to sleep.
“When you guys are all settled in,” Jeremy announced, “Head on downstairs, we’ll grab some dinner and drinks. Tonight is on me.”
—
Making my way to the restaurant, the place was bumpin. Music blaring and a few people dancing by the pool.
The setup was a bit more family style or buffet-like. Grabbing a plate, I dished up and grabbed a frozen drink from the bar. A Miami Vice, as it was labeled.
Taking a seat at the table with Brett, Rachel, and Stephanie, we made a bit of small talk as we ate.
As the night went on, so did the drunkenness. I had a few drinks, but I tried to stay as lucid as I could. As people danced, the more wild things got. Especially when the others arrived. It was like a whole new energy was brought upon everyone. Everyone but me that is.
I was exhausted. Sneaking back up to the room, I was snuck up on by Lexi and Craig.
“Done with the party too?” Craig asked me as the elevator door closed.
“Yeah, I think that’s enough for me tonight,” I said laughing.
“Yeah, us too,” replied Lexi, sinking in deep into Craig’s arms. “I think I wanna watch a movie and relax.”
“Oh yeah, looks like Jeremy has quite the movie room up there,” I said, “A movie sounds pretty good right now.”
“Yeah!” giggled Lexi.
Lexi was, well, Craig was quite the lucky guy. She was pretty cool. I took a class with her last quarter, and she’s pretty cool. She actually helped me through an English project. She reminded me of some of the other girls that stopped going to my dad’s church after they started their ‘rebellious’ phase as my dad put it.
She was tall, slim, and pretty darn white. Her short brown hair fit her face perfectly. Her arms, covered in tattoos, made her look a few years older than she really was. The best thing about Lexi tho was her upper body. She was one of the girls that should most definitely be wearing a bra but doesn’t. It revealed way to much. It was hard to not keep my eyes away…
Making our way into the theater room, we looked through the collection of movies on the Apple TV. Lexi ended up picking the Pixar movie, Wall-E.
Let’s just say I was pretty happy about that, considering most of the movie’s on the list looked pretty raunchy.
As the movie played, the closer Craig and Lexi got. The closer they got, the more and more uncomfortable I got.
Keeping my focus on the movie, it finally came to an end. I doubt Craig and Lexi watched more than half of it, they were still making out, unaware the movie had even ended.
Quietly getting up, I made my way out to the porch, getting up into the hammock ready for some sleep.
As I tried to sleep, I kept getting woken up as people started making their way back up to the room. At one point, things started getting really loud and crazy.
Peering out from the comfort of my hammock, I noticed a few people passed out on the living room floor and a few others walking around chugging from bottles of booze.
It was a mess. One of the girls inside was even walking around waisted with her top off. Closing my eyes once again, I tried to keep my focus on the sounds of the waves crashing, trying to fall asleep.
Drifting in and out, I was awakened again by the sounds of moans coming from an open window down the way.
Falling back asleep, my mind kept repeating, what have I gotten myself into?…
The next morning I was the first one up. Hanging around my hammock I noticed another couple, Amy and Dan, up as well.
“Mornin,” I said stepping inside.
“Mornin!” they both replied almost in unison.
“I wonder if there’s any coffee up in this bitch,” Dan replied rummaging through the kitchen.
“There sure is,” I said opening one of the cupboards, finding a coffee pot and coffee, “I’ll get some going.”
“Yesss,” Dan moaned in relief. “We got pretty wasted last night didn’t we?”
“We sure did,” I said getting the coffee going, “It was a fun night…”
“Oh, Eggs!” Amy spoke in an excited giggle as she opened the fridge. “Let’s make some breakfast!”
“That, sounds, great,” I said as my stomach rumbled.
I was actually having quite a bit of fun cooking with Amy and Dan. We worked pretty well together. We even got past the small talk bit. I knew Dan from the gym but didn’t really know Amy at all.
She’s actually a transfer student from Canada. And yes, she’s got the iconic accident to go along with it. Her complexion was as white as white could be. At a pretty petite figure, her fiery red hair fit her booming personality well. She definitely was afraid to flaunt what she had. Not as busty as the other girls, but she had an amazing backside.
As other people started waking up, we had breakfast pretty much all prepared.
“Geeze guys,” Jeremy said through a deep yawn, “That smells fucking amazing.”
As we all ate, we started talking about what was on the docket for today.
With snorkeling at the top of the list, Jeremy couldn’t stop talking about it. I could tell it was one of his favorite things to do here, other than drink that is.
“The beach outside has some of the best reefs in the area, so you’re all in for a fucking amazing experience.” he continued getting people excited. “There’s a bunch of gear here in the closet, so throw on your suits and grab some gear and let’s get the fuck outta here!”
Grabbing my trunks out of my suitcase, I ran into the powder room and changed.
I grabbed a mask and snorkel along with a pair of fins from the closet as we made our way back to the elevator.
“The reef is a few minutes walk that way,” Jeremy said pointing up the beach, “Then a 10 or so minute swim. The water is only a few feet deep for most of the way.”
As we made our way, I was like a kid in Disneyland, looking at everything with such amazement.
Making our down the sandbar, we set up camp for the day.
As people started putting their gear on, I was already in the water ready to go.
It was beautiful. Everything, everywhere. You could see parts of the reef underwater from a distance. As others joined in, we started swimming in that direction, my head already sunk, looking at everything the outskirts of the reef had to offer.
The closer we got to the reef, the more and more fish surrounded us. Fish I’ve never seen in my life before. I couldn’t help but just watch in amazement, watching God’s beautiful creation up close.
Taking a dive down, I swam towards a large colorful coral reef. Having to swim through a rainbow of a school of fish, I made my way just feet from the reef.
As I made my way back to the surface for another breath of air, I couldn’t help but notice something shimmer on the ocean bed below me. Taking note of where I saw it, I returned to the surface to take a breath.
Swimming back down, this time heading straight for the light shimmer, my hand reached out and blew away some of the ocean floor, revealing the source of the shimmer.
It was a round golden disk, maybe the size of a hockey puck. Grabbing it, my palm started to constrict around it, grasping it tightly. As I held it, a warmth slowly started emitting from the gold talisman. It looked old, really old. It had some strange, greek, like marking all over it, a subtle image of some satanic looking creature.
Repulsed at what I saw, I tried to drop it. Unable to open my hand, the warmth grew to a near burning like sensation as the talisman shimmered more and more bright.
Starting to freak out, I wailed my hands around the water, trying to detach the talisman from the palm of my hand.
As the burning sensation grew tenfold, scorching my skin, I screamed as I let our most of my remaining air.
Looking down the talisman started dissolving, melting into my skin.
Kicking myself off the ocean’s floor, I quickly started swimming to the surface, my hand still waving about, trying to toss it off my hand.
As I made it to the surface I let out a yelp as I gasped for air. With the look of fear struck against my face, I yelled looking at the palm of my hand. The talisman was gone, but in its place was that of a burnt scared outline of the contents of the talisman.
Brett, a few yards away from me started frantically swimming towards me hearing my cry for help.
“Dude!” he yelled as he swam closer, “You ok??”
“My, My hand!” I yelled back, “It-it, burnt!”
“Let me see,” Brett said as he swam in within arm’s length. “Dude, I don’t see anything.”
“You don’t see the big burn mark??” I yelled in a panic.
“No man,” Brett said laughing, “It looks fine to me. You ok?”
“I – I don’t know…” I replied frightened. “I think I’m overheated… Tell the others I’m gonna go take a nap… “
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