In this place. The bottom curves upward. Everywhere I go, there is the bottom. It is all around. I can not even see down here. If I use my voice to see. It comes back and tells me nothing, hurts me. It tells me that I am in a place where the bottom curves upward. It is all around.

I feel punished by all of this. I move and that is my only thing to do. My movement comes back to me then I move a bit on my own. I turn around look for something out, a way to leave. There is nothing. The more I look, the more it hurts. Like the movement I create, that comes back to me. My sound comes back too. When I try to look, it hurts, comes back and bangs my head. I feel, left out of myself. I feel stranded with no escape. I feel... guilty.

They needed me to do for them. I failed. Now they keep me here. I have become a shame, a failure. Now this visit of darkness. It is my doom returning. It comes with my voice to hurt me. No, no, no. The men will destroy me slowly. I must get out.

Skipper dove to the bottom and rested in the darkness for a bit. He uttered out loud, for someone to hear, a few words. I feel like I haven't been. I feel like I haven't been a real thing. I am giving myself back to whoever has put me here. I have failed at living. With frightening power, Skipper released a sounding against the wall. It stunned him, crashing back into his skull harshly. He sent out another sounding, and another. Each sounding hurt him more. A tear of pain slipped out of his eye and floated off into the dark water. Skipper gathered his strength and released the most ferocious sounding he could. The pain hurled him backwards and drove him into unconsciousness. He slipped into a darkness that was cold and ungiving. He was unconscious when his lungs started to bleed, he was in another place. Gradually the cold darkness turned to a warm light. Skipper floated towards the light and it took him in, embraced him. I am home.

The walls of the tank opened up and revealed the soft dark blues of the open sea. The coral and the fishes were all around him. A pod of others approached him and carried him away in their wake. They pulled him through the water to a great underwater cavern. They then carried him through the cavern and up to a lagoon. There, he and the other dolphins flipped through the air and rejoiced. Skipper tasteed freedom.

Back to the home page.