Siren Eyes Epic Skies (DNF)

Chapter One: Untangling Nets (Holding Our Breath)

The first time Dream hears the song he doesn't know what it is or what it means, only that it's haunting, echoing through the streets of his coastal town, finding its way into every crack like a cool draft seeking the crevices of the window over his bed.

It's a mournful, melancholy tune that strikes his soul, sung in low, moaning notes. It keeps him up all night, gazing at the moonlight on his windowsill, wondering.

His mother has always said his curiosity would be the death of him.

Despite his want to explore the source of the song, he decides against it and curls up as close as he can to the window, listening. The song is like a lullaby and its melody pulls him under.

The next morning, his mother has his lunch packed with his favorite sweet potato cakes and he forgets all about the song as he makes his way down to the harbor to help his father.

There's not much a kid his age is good for (according to his father). He's too old to be in school with the other kids (their small coastal town was only big enough to warrant an elementary school and not a full fledged highschool), but he's too small and weak to lift heavy crates or toss a fishing net very far. Instead he sits on the docks and unravels tangled netting until his finger tips are red from the bristles of the rope.

The sun is hot on the back of his neck, shimmering off the ocean before him and the docks are loud and overwhelming. New fishing boats with shiny name plates pull into the harbor, bells ringing and seagulls crying from the top of the sails. Sailors bustle over the wooden docks, carrying barrels of produce, fish, and other supplies for their town and Dream does his best to not get caught up under foot.

With permission from his father, Dream scurries away when the sun reaches its highest point, lunch pail in hand. He's old enough to accompany his father to work but his childish nature has not yet been squashed and he wastes no time in climbing up onto the breakwater. The line of rocks that surrounds the cove and protects it from dangerous waves makes for a perfect picnic area and he runs barefoot over the boulders until he finds a good one to sit on.

From the rock he's chosen he can see the docks but isn't subjected to its noise. He can throw bits of his sandwich into the water and watch the sunfish soar to the surface to accept his offerings, flashing their silver stomachs at him in thanks.

As long as he's been able to, he's loved the ocean and been loved by it in return.

"I wish I had named you after the sea," his mother had told him one day. "You take to it like you belong within it."

Her fingers combing through his hair while his head rests on her lap has always been his comfort, his lull in the stormy sea.

"I'd name you after something beneath its waves, something blanketed and protected by it. Something people have to dive through water to get to."

"Sand?"

"Clay," she corrected, "but up here, on the surface, you are my Dream."

Now, looking down into the water of the cove, he can't even see the sandy bottom. There's only a dark blue void and the occasional flicker of schools of fish flitting past beneath him. The water is turquoise and vibrant, Dream kicks his feet in the water as he eats. The water cools the heat of the sun and when he leans down to wash his hands off, it soothes the slight rope burns on his palms.

As he splashes water on his arms, a black mass, almost like an underwater shadow, streams beneath him. His first panicked thoughts are shark and orca. He immediately yanks his feet out of the water before realizing he's never seen an orca move that fast, not even when he saw a pod moving at full speed from the bow of one of his father's fishing boats. Besides, the cove and harbor are too shallow for whales to want to be in, at least on purpose.