Dolphin Knight

Chapter 1-2

That night, Raka had a dream. She had versions of the same dream often; she had had them for as long as she could remember.

Sometimes, in her dream, she was gazing at the sea from the window of her family's house. Sometimes, she was sitting on a hill overlooking the shore, as she had with Bey that afternoon. Sometimes, she was nowhere near the water, which meant that what happened in the dream shouldn't have been able to happen at all.

Tonight, she was walking along the beach in her dream.

As she walked, Raka realized that she wasn't afraid of the foamy waves sliding over her bare feet. For once, she felt comfortable in the surf. She enjoyed the warm sun and the salty breeze and the way the undertow pulled the sand from between her toes in a tickling rush.

In her dream, Raka felt like she didn't have a care in the world. She had no responsibilities or destination, no worries or fear. The only thing on her mind was how pretty the blue sky looked...how the sunlight winked like fireflies on the rippling waves...how good it felt when her long, red hair fluttered in the breeze.

And then, in the distance, she heard voices.

At first, Raka thought they were coming from somewhere on the beach...but when she looked ahead and then behind her, there was no one as far as she could see in either direction.

Raka turned to scan the rolling dunes above the beach. Shading her eyes from the sun, she looked one way and then another. From what she could see, the waving sea oats and bright green dune grass were the only living things up there.

Then, she turned to face the sea. This time, when she heard the voices, she realized that they were coming from that direction.

As she gazed out over the water, she saw what she thought were men, their shining shaved heads bobbing on distant waves. The longer she looked at them, though, the less they looked like men. Their skin was gray, not tanned and tattooed; when they tipped their heads back, she could see that they had long snouts.

The whole time she watched them, the distant figures continued to call out from across the waves. Though she couldn't understand the language that they used, Raka somehow knew that they were speaking to her.

They were summoning her. She could feel it. Without understanding a single word that they said, she knew that they wanted her to come with them.

Knowing this, for the first time in her dream, she felt frightened. She stepped back out of the surf, away from the lapping tide.

"Who are you?" she called to the bobbing figures. "What do you want with me?"

Suddenly, one of the figures shot up out of the water. It stood there for an instant, balancing on its churning tail, its wet, sleek body gleaming in the sunlight.

And in that instant, she knew what it was.

Grayfish. It was a grayfish.

Her people hunted grayfish. They ate grayfish all the time.

She ate grayfish.

And now the grayfish were calling to her, beckoning her to join them. Maybe they were angry. Maybe they were hungry.

Suddenly, Raka's fear of the ocean rushed back into her. Without looking back, she ran from the surf and up over the dunes.

Her heart hammered and she gasped for breath. She felt like she was being chased, chased by the sea, and a tidal wave was about to smash down over her like a hand and haul her away.

Waves pounded the shore as she ran, but she could still hear the grayfish calling between them. She thought that she could make out a word, though she didn't know what it meant.

"Cryssa..."

That was what it sounded like, though it came from far away and she couldn't be sure.

"Cryssa..."