As she lay there gripping the rope around her neck she was able to get the first real look at her captors. There were three of them. One had a lump under one eye where she had kicked it. They were small. A little smaller than her, but strong. She should have been able to get loose, but couldn’t budge. They had dark blue green skin with blotchy orange and yellow spots here and there, and they had scraggly wavy hair on their heads.
Kiddo began screaming, “MOM!! MOMMY!... DAAAAAADDEEEEE!
Huge bubbles came whooshing out of Kiddo’s mouth with her words and floated up and away into the darkness above. As she watched them disappear the realization hit Kiddo like a slap.
‘I’m underwater… breathing!’ she thought.
'I’m in the pond. - But this can’t be the pond. - It’s huge, like an ocean.'
[Excerpt from Kiddo Green and the Three Pearls Copyright 2024]