Rachel toweled down, the droplets of water rolling off her creamy flesh causing it to glisten as the sunlight hit the rivets at the right angel. She rubbed her long brown hair with the towel then picked up her watch from a nearby towel.

The band was fashioned of old leather and she glanced at the time. "Goosh! I got to get going." She frantically picked up her things with barely a good bye she hurried off to the school leaving the girls at the beach. Joan traced her with her eyes until she was far enough away before turning to Mel.

"What a slut. Art project my ass, I bet she's got a lesbian tryrst prepared."

The surf roared lightly in her ears, foam lapping on the sandy beach as the tide was beginning to come in, though there bobbing in the water was something ... there were pieces of wood and metal that washed up onto the beach too as the object drifted closer to them ...

"Oh come on," Melanie grinned back at Joan prepared to laugh it off. She was prepared to come up with a rude quip about the look Joan had given Rachel as she scampered off, but a thought intruded in her mind. She would've invited us along if she did. Melanie blushed slightly at the thought, and murmured "Whatever..." to move along with the conversation.

Ever since her dream about the monster name Aegir, Melanie tried to come to terms with her sudden influx of sexual tension. Usually, a girl would masturbate. But this was not any textbook example of horny teen life. Her mind was teased by strange thoughts, interesting, but wrong in the most fundamental of ways. She often distracted herself, dulling the sensation by reading a book or two. Stephen King always helped. But around these girls and their strange way of doing... everything, she couldn't help but be distracted.

Why did she have to have that awful dream?

Melanie suddenly noticed something on the Horizon. In addition, chunks of wood were floating in the water. "Hey," Melanie said, tapping Joan on the arm to alert her, "Do you see that?"

"Huh?" Jo turned and looked out at the water. The pieces of board and metal were easy enough to see since they've been washing up on shore through their time on the beach tough she strained to notice the floating object. "What is that?"

She watched for a moment longer as if drifted near before her jaw opened showing the roundness of her mouth as she identified the thing in the water ... "It's a person!"

Joan rushed to the waters unraveling the make shift skirt she had been wearing as she went revealing the pink bikini bottoms beneath. Tanned calves kicked up sand as she went and a moment later she was running across water until she got out deep enough to swim and dove forward, broad strokes pumping her closer to the floating object.

Melanie rushed to dive in after her friend. Melanie was not an experienced swimmer, but she had a lot of stamina, meaning that she would be in a better position to pull the person ashore. Jo seemed to be pretty serious, so Melanie knew that this had to be real. A person was washing ashore Shokushu? She did not stop to think of the implications. The blot against the horizon was getting closer, and Melanie followed Jo until they reached the body.

The two of them were able to get to the body and bring it to shore. He was a young man, early 20's with dark hair, his flesh was pale and his lips had a bluish tint as if he had been submerged in the cold water for some time now.

Neither was aware of the true nature of the man in the tattered blue uniform. It was Aegir and he was in no danger of course but he had sensed their brain waves while swimming near here. He recognized the pattern of Mel's thoughts amongst the girls present and decided to take a closer look.

The guy was heaped onto the shore at last. Joan checked for a pulse, not finding one she went to work on him using CPR until after a minute or so, the guy coughed up some sea water and his eyes fluttered opened. Eyes an unusual shade of blue-green.

He coughed up at the pair, then sat up, Jo urging him not to stand right away though he made no effort to do so.

His eyes flicked around him as if he were quickly assessing things. ""The others ..."

"Don't move so much- we just got you back to land. What are you doing here?" Melanie asked, jumping straight into doctor mode. Her emerald eyes quickly scanned the man for any outstanding injuries, taking a longer than usual look into his eyes. Was is her or did this man seem... familiar? "Quick, someone, get him a towel or something. We need to warm him up," she continued, shaking off this nostalgic feeling in favor of saving the man's life. She called out to the girls that had gathered around the scene, quickly delivering orders.

And yet, she forgot to tell someone to get the teachers.

"Jo, do you have anything that'll help him warm up?"

"Huh? What? Where am I?" The man glanced around as Joan returned to his side draping a towel about his shoulders. The man glanced around unsure of where he was and as Melanie brought her eyes over his water logged body she was able to see a gash on his right temple surrounding a large purplish bruise where something seemed to have him with a good degree of force.

When he had learned where he was and glanced about the sea of faces uncertainly he spoke his tale or rather a portion of it. "I'm Vaugh, first mate on the Sea Sirine. We were porting cargo back from South America which was to be featured in a display in New York or rather displays.

"Most of it was stuff uncovered from one of the temples there ... Mayan I think ... Aztecs where Mexico, right, Mayans might be Mexican too, possible Inca," he mumbled to himself. "Anyway, we had a crate, a live specimen of some sort of beetle we were to bring back ... where's Jeff and Mo? Where's Cap?"

"Look, Vaughn, I need you to listen carefully. Your ship malfunctioned, or-or something, we don't know. We found you floating in the water," Melanie carefully explained to the water-logged sailor. She turned to the First-aid kit she had asked for and took out the gauze. "I'm going to administer some gauze. Please, stay still." She leaned over his body, intent on getting the cotton onto the bleeding the wound, before taking a bottle of water and pouring it lightly over the wound to clean the area. She would have preferred to have applied Alcohol, but she doubted that any of her classmates, even the older ones, would carry any CLEAN alcohol to the beach. She proceeded to clean the wound, before placing the gauze on top.

"Ok. You are currently on Shokushu Island, a privately-owned property, owned by Shokushu University. Its an all-girls college, so if we hurry to the principal's office, we can avoid any extraordinary trouble. Whenever you're ready to move, we'll take you to the school for some better clothes and stuff. Just take a minute to relax."

"Shokushu? Isn't that a Japanese word for ..." he struggled for a bit and got to his feet while thinking about it. He was on an all girl island, well minus the faculty he presumed. He took charge of the situation his hand going up to his wound but stopping and falling away without touching it.

"No, if I was found then there's a chance the others made it too. We got to find the others and the exhibit. The tide's coming in and according to the charts Shokushu was near our route so stuff from the ship might wash in on the tide or survivors could have even swam her.

"If we go back to your school our chances in finding anything or anyone decreases by the second. You," he pointed at one girl, "go to your principal and relate what happen, you three check the beach in that direction, I'll go in this one with you two."

He indicated Joan and Melanie as he cast his eyes along the coast line up shore.

Melanie calmly let him take control and order her friends to their tasks. She did not have more to add, though she was glad he did not say or do anything... misleading. He was genuinely worried for his crew. But he was still hurt. She could not make him move, not in good conscience. He could easily keep an eye out for any of his crew-mates from his current position, and seemed be very keen.
As the girls left, Melanie cast an eye over the weakened man of the sea.
"Listen- I can't let you move too far away. Who knows- perhaps you received some damage durning the disaster that we can't see just yet. Please, just relax. Joan and I will take intervals, patrolling the beach. But you can't move from here. We'll keep a close eye on the horizon, so don't worry." Melanie had expected him to panic, but so far, he was taking this well.

Being the first mate on a ship allowed him to give out orders. Relatively alone now, Vaughn cast his gaze down the beach where some of the girls were going. He glanced back then lowered his voice conspitory. "My health isn't import if it means saving lives. Besides ... you may need my help ...

"The beetle is rather ... unique."

Melanie was starting to get strange vibes from this man. Choosing to believe that he was being sarcastic, Melanie chose to be cautious anyways.
"I'm sure," she replied, almost in disbelief. She turned to Joan. "Hey, if you find the beetle, be sure to come back and get Vaughn. Apparently, it's 'unique.'"

She was starting to get suspicious. Did he have anything dubious planned?

"You don't understand ... this isn't your everyday little beetle that might be on the rare side taken from a rain forest or something. It's actually one found in a tomb there subsisting on bats and the like. One of six that were found it's vicious, about the size of a poodle but more then capable of hurting or even killing a man.

"It got loose from it's crate somehow, Mo and I were in the ship's hold when something fell on me and ... well, the next thing I remember is this."

Aegir could sense Mel's suspicion in this but soldiered on attempt to dissuade that portion of her just a little.

"It's attracted to dark places and is lulled by sound the scientists there found." He reached beneath his tattered shirt pulling out a whistle attached to his necklace. "The captain and rest of the crew had them just incase something like this happened."

Melanie could not tell if he was being sincere, but she still looked down incredulously at him. "Why didn't you mention this when you sent those girls down the beach there? What's going to happen if they find this 'beetle.'" She motioned for Joan to stay where she was, so that she could be nearby in case the man tried anything funny. Something about his story seemed dodgy. Poodle-sized beetles? Either way, the man was desperately trying to come along. Melanie, finally giving up, sighed and said,
"Fine, let's go." She needed to keep a close eye on him anyway.

Vaugh pointed in the direction of the other girls. "Look, what do you see?" He waited for a moment. "And there?"

He pointed in the opposite and then waited a few more seconds before realization dawned as to what he was trying to relay to her. The direction that the other girls headed in had nothing but beach as far as the eye could see, the other gave way to a forest further up away from the lapping water.

He did mention that the thing preferred darker places and thus was more likely to be found there then on a sandy beach. He said nothing though as he got up to his full height then cast his glance in that direction then starting towards it rather slowly as if the blow to the side of his head took more out of him then he initially realized.

It was more due to the fact that Aegir was slower than a typical human though he hoped that his slowness could be disguised in this manner. "The others will find my friends if they made it here. The beetle is something we'll have too deal with, worse case scenario it lays eggs here and breeds. Something I rather not think of. Best case it drowned at sea."