{F-5-C}

Looking around, you find a steel bar lying close by. It is rusty and encrusted, but it seems strong enough. When you try to pry the door open, it snaps instantly.

“No good,” you say, and search for something else.

“Try this,” Toby says, holding up what appears to be a pin bone from a nearby pile of skeletons.

“Heh, a skeleton key!” you joke, but it is no use trying to pick the lock with the pin bone either.

Shells, pieces of sharp coral, and even a rusty old wrench that you find in the wreck are all useless, but the more you fail, the more determined you are to find a way of opening that lock.

“Can we use magic to open the lock?” you ask. “Aren’t you a magical fish?”

“It doesn’t work that way, my friend,” Toby says. It’s obvious that he’s becoming increasingly impatient.

“Well, then what good is magic anyway?” you say. “We have to rescue those trapped fish!”

“We’re wasting time here,” Toby says. “Dr. Volitan is planning something big, and we need to stop him now!”

Ignoring Toby’s urgency, you continue to look for ways of opening that lock. It seems impossible that nothing will work, not even a little bit.

“If you’re not coming with me, then I’m going alone,” Toby says, but you hardly listen to him as you are so intent on solving the problem before you. Toby shakes his head in frustration, and swims away.

Almost immediately, you are overcome with the urge to take a breath. You swim as fast as you can out of the wreck, and make your way to the surface, gasping for air at last as the waves break over your head.

“What happened, and where is Toby?” you say out loud, as you suddenly realize you are in the middle of the lagoon all by yourself. Eventually, you are rescued by a group of islanders out fishing in their boat.

“What kind of fish have we caught here?” one of them jokes, but you are in no mood for jokes. You are grateful to the fishermen for rescuing you, but also sad that you couldn’t do the same for Toby and the fish representatives.

Destiny Discovered