Chapter 8: Altair

  “Is there something wrong, Altair?”

  Amber frowned in concern as I squirmed and tried my hardest to not bang against the cubicle’s glass walls in panic.

  “I’m not used to-”

  My voice was cut off as the water fully enveloped me, and I could only burble and gasp bubbles of water.

  “Do you know Ocean Speech?”

  She glanced at me as she clicked and whistled in the water, her gills flashing along with what she said. My ears pricked at the familiar sounds as they slowly formed into words. This was what Mom taught me too.

  Ocean speech had two forms: through clicks or through the flashes of your gills.

  “Yeah. Mom taught me that,” I admitted, clicking under the same tongue.

  “That’s good. We were worried that we couldn’t communicate with you underwater,” Edana dryly clicked back, and Amber frowned at Edana.

  “What she meant was that we are grateful that you can speak to us underwater. Where do you want to go first, Altair? Do you feel hungry, or do you want to see some action?”

  Amber smiled at me kindly, just like Dr. Liam.

  “I don’t think I can feel hungry yet,” I meekly said when I saw a tiger shark stare at me beadily from the edge of the trimmed kelp.

  “Ah, don’t worry about him. He’s a Guardian on… well, I guess guard duty.”

  Amber looked over in the direction that I was facing, and I relaxed.

  “Amber, Edana, who is this human? A guest?”

  The tiger shark watched me warily.

  “Yep. Altair, this is Kailao. Kailao is Professor Orion’s animal partner and Guardian, and he is in charge of security. So, if you are ever lost, you can see him here and ask,” Amber introduced.

  “Nice to meet you, Altair. I hope you aren’t a trouble maker. I hate to bare my jaws at unruly students because they think that I’m actually out to eat them,” he sighed, and Edana chuckled softly.

  “Ah, I can understand why,” I nervously responded, and he huffed.

  “Off to your little tour, Little Ones. I won’t keep you here any longer.”

  His eyes glazed over us lazily but lingered over me like he wanted to say something.

  “Yep, see you soon, Kailao!” she waved.

  “Hey, tell Misty that she has guarding duty on the South wing too!”

  Kailao twitched his tail. She only responded with a backwards wave and grabbed my hand, which startled me.

  “Wait-”

  I still didn’t know her. Were we allowed to touch so easily? Was this how strangers acted around each other? Shoot, I didn’t know how to act around her! What was I supposed to do-

  “Come here. We won’t go anywhere if you’re this slow underwater.”

  She winked at me, and before I was about to protest, Amber and Edana torpedoed through the water, propelling their bodies at speeds that I thought were impossible to reach. Thank goodness that my stomach was empty, or otherwise food particles might explode out of my mouth in a mushroom cloud of disgustingness.

  “Here is the Learning Hall, where our hybrid professors will teach us the basic classes of math, science, english, and the arts. But, we also have additional survival classes that we have to learn with the Elders in the Training Hall. There, we learn how to defend ourselves and live in the ocean. You’ll have a chance to join these classes, which are continuous all year long, but you just missed the normal classes as it’s summer now. It’s okay, though; you’ll be placed in your respective year when the school year resumes.”

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  School? Classes with other people? That sounded… pretty exciting.

  “You mean, if he makes it through this summer,” Edana dryly replied, which didn’t help my self-esteem or mental state at all.

  “Hey, don’t scare him away, Edana. He’s just been here for a week,” Amber chided, but she only scoffed.

  “I’m just telling the truth. We’re all preparing for war. He’s definitely not going to make it through if he can’t even breathe properly underwater.”

  She rolled her eyes, and I couldn’t argue with what she said. I really was useless down here; I was like a kid learning to walk all over again, except that I was underwater.

  “That’s why Dr. Liam is not putting him out to fight. He’ll be with the little children and Eir. Anyway, Altair, don’t listen to Edana. She can get pessimistic at times, but she’s a good person. Do you have any questions?”

  Amber turned back to me while we continued to zoom over the Learning Hall, which was about the size of two shopping malls put together.

  “Who are Elders?”

  Before I had the time to ask another question, she immediately answered mine.

  “Elders are retired Guardians who have lost their partners or are too old to continue their active duties. Just like how humans retire on land, Elders retire and have a chance to share their experiences with the younger animals training to be Guardians and our teachers for our students as well. Since their race has lived in the ocean for their entire life, they are the best teachers when it comes to living in the ocean. However, Elders are massive and usually outlast their hybrid partners. We have Elders who are reaching a hundred years old already still teaching us, so their living quarters are always expanding to crazy heights and lengths. Look, we’re reaching the Training Hall.” She pointed out to a building that made the Learning Hall look like a dwarf.

  This majestic, tall stone building seemed to span leagues of ocean, and about here, the scenery began to change. Instead of cracked stone walls, there were leagues of beautiful coral reefs growing along the walls, blooming in gorgeous fiery hues of red, orange, yellow, and pink with spots of purple in between.

  “Woah.”

  The words literally escaped from my mouth.

  It was beautiful. There were blobs of bioluminescent light floating along the paths, lighting up the atmosphere with their shifting, pretty lights, while animals and students were mingling everywhere along it. There were sea snakes, dolphins, whales, parrotfish, and eels swimming up and down the paths, greeting each other while their hybrid partners hugged and gossiped to each other.

  “Do you have any other-”

  Amber turned around to look at me, but when she saw my open mouth, she smiled.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Dr. Liam wanted to preserve the last beauty of the oceans, so he built this Institute out of the coral reefs. With a bit of genetic modification to make them sturdy enough to be used as construction material, he built this entire place out of it, making it a safe haven for all students and animals alike.”

  She looked tenderly at the beautiful reefs that were blooming sea flowers along the walls of the buildings around us.

  “Yeah… Dr. Liam’s amazing,” I gasped in awe, watching sea horses languidly hanging on to the reefs and chatting with each other about the day’s events.

  “Save your breath for the Aquarium. That’s even more breathtaking,” Edana smirked, evidently noticing my shocked expression.

  “Oh yeah, let’s go to the Aquarium! You’ll love it there, Altair!” Amber squealed, but we were interrupted by a beautiful, dove-gray dolphin.

  “Would you like a ride, Amber?”

  Amber’s head turned toward the sound of the dolphin and she beamed.

  “Misty! Can you take us to the Aquarium?”

  “Of course, my little girl. Who is this? A newcomer?”

  She gazed at me with polite interest.

  “How interesting. Newcomers are rare down here,” another smooth, silky voice emerged, and I finally saw the animal.

  She was an elegant, graceful-looking spotted eagle ray, and when Edana saw her, she immediately broke into a carefree and pretty smile.

  “Soar! You’re finally here! Where were you two?”

  She flipped up comfortably on the ray’s back.

  “We were at a briefing, Edana. I’ll tell you about it later,” the ray purred, watching me with her sharp, curious eyes.

  “Oh, Misty, Soar, this is Altair. He’s going to be our new student. Altair, Misty is my Guardian, while Soar is Edana’s Guardian. You’ll get your own too, if Dr. Liam seals the bond for you.”

  She smiled up at Misty while Misty nuzzled her back.

  “Well met, Little One. You seem different from others.”

  “Really? Aren’t we just hybrids?”

  “Little One, just because you are the same species doesn’t mean everything about you is the same. You are very different from the others. You have a presence that is… unsettling. I can’t tell what it is, but something is different about you. Your appearance is also… disorganized, as if no one tried to genetically alter your genes in any way, shape, or form. Most students here have their genes genetically altered either for appearance or for special abilities, but you don’t seem to have that at all. Maybe that could be a good thing or not, depending on how you look at it. I might be wrong, though. Your geneticist might have overlooked appearance and just focused on special abilities, but I have no proof. It’s just a theory,” Soar, the spotted eagle ray, explained.

  “Oh. Wow, is genetic modification here as easy as that?” I looked at them in surprise.

  “It’s not that easy, but it’s possible. These are special children after all. They were made to live in the ocean,” Misty calmly explained.

  “You’ll understand this more as you stay here. Now, let’s go to the Aquarium before he doesn’t have enough time to see everything else,” Edana softly spoke, which was the first time that I heard her speak so kindly.

  But, her eyes seemed to mean something else as she looked away with sorrowful eyes. Before I could ask anything about it, I was whisked away to the Aquarium, out of sight from those sad, pain-filled eyes.

  What was her story?

  What did she experience?

  And... who hurt her that badly?