One hot summer day, I sat relaxing near the top of the river that I live in, listening to the other water droplets argue about who will get chosen by the Sun Queen, to be evaporated next. I have absolutely no desire to leave the river at all! Who would want to leave such a wonderful place?!

“Come over here Pearl! Who do you think will be chosen next?” Says a rather annoying water droplet named, Rose.

I sigh, and swim over to Rose and her friends, "I'm not sure Rose. No one can predict who the Sun Queen will choose. You know that already." I say.

"But if you had to choose?"

"Rose, I don't-"

Just then a very loud siren blares over everyone's voices.

"Flash flood!" Rose yells at the top of her lungs. Swimming as fast as she could, pushing other droplets out of her way.

I silently thank whoever sent the flood our way, stoping my conversation with Rose. Flash floods were normal, everyone would panic, hide in their homes and then in maybe an hour or two everything would be fine.

Realizing that I am standing out in the open I make my way over to my home. But for some reason it is getting harder and harder to swim. It takes me a minute of fighting the water to realize that the flash flood has swept me up and it's taking me far away from my peaceful river!

"Ahhhh!" I scream at the top of my lungs. But instead of coming out clear and bright it came out all muffled because of the water that got in my mouth. And then everything goes black.

When I awake I'm laying on damp soil.

"Where am I?" I ask myself.

I look around, I appear to be in a meadow of sorts, with a blue squiggly line in the distance.

"Wait that's not a line! That's my river!" I exclaim.

I stand up and start to walk to the river,but find that my feet are sinking!

"Oh, no!" I exclaim

I've heard about this, I'm not the only droplet who has been taken from the river, some of the elderly drops who have been far and wide have told me story's about getting eaten up by the ground. Taken prisoner for centuries!

" I'm infiltrating!" I groan in disbelief, "I might never go back to my river!"

Powered with new found energy I try to walk though this sea of dirt,but it is like walking thourgh syrup. I am not going anywhere! The dirt is up to my waist now and I stop walking.

" Maybe I will find a nice droplet who will help me." I think, as the dirt claims everything but my head.

It's up to my neck now, I take a gulp of air and squeeze my eyes tight as it takes my mouth, nose, and ears.

When I wake up I am lying in a small puddle of water with two elderly droplets around me ,they looked like they could be someone's grandma and grandpa.

"Shh... I think she's awake." Says the woman droplet, she has a plump belly and rosy cheeks that make me remember my grandma, I immediately feel homesick.

"Nonsense, Charlette, she had quite the fall, there is no way she is awake this soon." Says the man, he has the same rosy cheeks as Charlette,but he is skinner and has a full beard.

"I'm awake." I protest, while trying to sit up. " Oww! My head!"

"Sit down sweetie." Charlette says pushing me back down. "Albert,go get her some water, when she can stand we will take her back to our house."

When Albert comes back with a glass of water, I drink for a few minutes and when I feel ready to stand Charlette and Albert take me back to their home.

"Come on sweetie just a little further." Says Albert, about two steps ahead of her.

After about five minutes of walking we reach a small hut made of dirt, inside is a simple multi room house. Off to the right there is a small kitchen, then there is two small beds and a couch.

"It's simple, but it's home." Albert declared.

"It's better than sleeping out in the dirt." I reply, but then I realize that they are letting me stay in their home," Thank you." I add.

"It's no problem at all." Charlette assures.

About two or three years have past and we were all called to the royal courtyard for a speech from the Soil Duke. We find seats near the front.

"Welcome everyone! I have great news! The drill 3.0 is ready for its first trip of breaking through the soil leading to groundwater!" Declared the Soil Duke, there was a lot of cheering after that.

"Settle down, settle down please!" Everyone stopped talking but I had a feeling that once the Soil Duke told us what to do everyone would be buzzing around faster than bees in a beehive." Now if you want to go then please put your name on these sheets of paper. Whatever spot you get will determine which launch you will be on. Now you can start coming up here slowly and make sure-" the Soil Duke didn't even finish his sentence before water droplets of every size were pushing their way to the front to try to get their name on the paper.

It took me half a second to realize that I was still just standing there! I was a small drop so I most likely would be able to make my way to the front by slipping through gaps. I was on my way before I could finish that thought. I couldn't spend a million years down here waiting for my chance on the drill!

I had just reached the papers when someone tripped me and I fell headfirst into a puddle.

"Ow!" I said loudly so that they could hear me and someone might stop to help me up.

But no one did I lay there trying to get back up but I just kept falling back down after about five minutes I got backup just in time to sign my name on the first paper!

The next day I woke up early to leave for the drill. Charlette made me breakfast and then I was off to the courtyard where everyone was loading into the drill.

Once we got on it took a while for us to get going and even longer until we started drilling. It took an hour or two until we heard groundwater flow.

"Okay everyone, please unbuckle and prepare for the groundwater flow." Said the drill driver.

I unbuckled quickly and joined everyone by the door.

"I need you to jump out one by one please."

I was last in line and when it was my turn I got a full look at the groundwater flow, it moved slower than the many earth worms we had seen done here and would most likely take a while to reach wherever it was taking me. I jumped and was surprised because it was deeper than I expected I saw some other drops around me to.

It took a long time untill the water started to turn into a bigger body of water even more time for it to turn into the lake.

"Splash!"

I smile very big and swim up to the surface. It's so bright! I am so happy to be away from groundwater. I swim around for a while when I hear someone crying. I follow the sound untill I reach a lone water droplet, that looked strangely familiar.

"Hello?" I asked

The droplet sniffles then turns to look at me and I gasp.

"Rose?" I ask started

"Pearl?"

Rose swims up and gives me a big hug and I hug her back, happy to see someone from home even though she was pretty annoying.

"What are you doing here?" I ask

"I evaporated not to long ago, this lake isn't very far away from our river you know."

"Wow, what form of precipitation did you take?"

"Rain, I think, it was all so sudden,one minute I was visiting with the cloud princess, than these two drops started stomping on the cloud so hard it started to shake and we all fell!"

"Wow that's sounds terrible."

"Yeah it was."

"Why were you crying?"

" I miss home. I wish I never evaporated."

"Yeah I wish that flash flood never came."

Just then a dark shape loomed over the surface of the lake.

"What is that?" Rose asked

"I have no idea."

But then it moved closer and we got a full look at a cougar's open mouth.

"Swim!" I screamed

But it was to late the cougar jaw closed around me and Rose and many other drops and we experienced the horrifying felling of being swallowed.

We weren't in the cougar for long when something weird happened it felt like the cougar was running or something we were being jostled around when finally the cougar started to sweat and we were free!

We fell to cold wet ground and immediately started sinking!

" No! We can't infiltrate! No!" Said Rose

"Relax I said to Rose the ground isn't very soft here we most likely will just sink to soil surface and that might spit us back into the river!"

" Okay I trust you."

I was right we just infiltrated to soil Surface and then slowly it started taking us to our river!

And finally after about an hour we were spit into familiar waters.

" We made it!" I yelled

"Were home!"

Rose and I started making our way back our home. When we finally made it everyone was super happy and we were happy to see our old friends. Rose and I became best friends and spent many years in our peaceful river telling our story to anyone who wanted to hear it.