Ben the Dragonborn Read Online Free PDF

nightmare was becoming a reality.  He was falling from the sky into water.

4 Rescued I Think
     
     
    The gym bag saved Ben’s life.  It had a rubber lining and was well made.  With the zipper closed it held air – at least temporarily. 
    Ben floated on top of it. Every once in a while he lost his balance and was dumped into the water, but he had his arm through the strap of the gym bag and never lost his hold on it. 
    “This is just a dream…this is just a dream… just a dream,” Ben repeated over and over again.  Logic told Ben that this whole horrible day was a new variation on the nightmares he’d been having.  Yet the water was wet, the sun warm, and everything felt very real. 
    Whenever Ben lost his balance he got a taste of the water, which was sweet rather than the salty water that surrounded Fairhaven.    
    The gym bag was slowly losing air.  Ben wondered what would happen when all the air was gone.  Would he wake up, or would this be the day of his death, the day his nightmare became reality.
    The water was quite warm, but Ben’s teeth chattered anyway.  Ben was not only afraid of sinking below the waves, but he was afraid of what might live in this much water.  As he thought about what might lie beneath he pulled up his feet, but became unstable.  He had no choice but to kick gently as he scanned the horizon, looking anxiously for land. 
    As if fear had conjured it up, a fin broke the surface about ten feet away. Ben pulled his feet as close to his body as he could without losing his balance. He tried to stop his teeth from chattering, but they chattered even louder.  
    When the water began to swell about two feet away Ben let go of the gym bag.  It went one way and he went the other. With nothing to hold onto Ben sank below the gentle waves.  He held his breath, closed his eyes and kicked his legs frantically which caused him to bob back up to the surface.  He waited in dread for whatever terrible thing was about to happen.  When an attack did not come, Ben opened his eyes.      
    “Hello,” a musical voice trilled.
    Shock caused Ben to stop kicking and he sank below the waves.  He came up sputtering with his eyes open.  There was no doubt.   This was all a dream. There in front of him, holding his gym bag and looking at it with great, big, curious dark eyes, was a girl. A girl like no other Ben had ever seen.  She had dark brownish-black eyes with no white and short blond hair with green tips that stood up in spikes all over her scalp.  It was a girl like the one Denzel had claimed to see. This girl was staring at Ben with a quizzical look on her face.   
    “Wh…wh…who…who…,” Ben began, but anything else he intended to say was lost as he sank beneath the waves once more.  He forgot to hold his breath and came up spitting water.  When he opened his eyes the girl was wiping spit off her face with one hand while holding onto the gym bag with the other.  Ben grabbed the bag from the girl and held onto it as if his life depended on it.  He floated on the water as he stared at the girl in astonishment.  
    “Have you seen anyone else around here?  Someone older than you are? Someone with muscles?  Someone special?  Someone who doesn’t spit on people they don’t know?”  Someone who knows how to talk?  As she hammered Ben with questions the girl swam circles around him.  The final question was, “Someone who just drops out of the sky?”  
    Ben stared at the girl. 
    “Well?” she asked, “Have you?”
    “No, I... this is ridiculous. You’re not real. None of this is real. There is no water. There is no girl.”
    The girl reached out and pinched Ben’s ear.
    “Owww!” Ben howled. 
    “Does that feel real to you?”
    “What are you doing out here?” Ben asked. “I don’t see land nearby. How did you get here? Do you have a boat?”
    The girl ignored Ben and said, “No, I guess there is no one else. You must be the one.  They must