Part VI Bastion stepped in front of me, blocking me from The Duke. And I’m sure Bastion knew that The Duke could kill him if he wanted. I felt my heart swell. The courage that Bastion had flowed into me, causing me to do something, that now that I think about it, seemed pretty stupid. I paddled forward, past Bastion ignoring his protests for me to stay back. I felt everyone staring at me, probably wishing me good fortune in the afterlife. But I felt no fear, I did not surrender to the The Duke, I fought back, mentally. You see, The Duke has never had to be afraid. No one has ever double crossed him to tell the tale, and no one has ever stood up to him. I stopped right in front of him. The Duke looked almost amused. I took out my notebook to tell him to go away and leave me alone, but before I could write, he snatched the notebook out of my hands, and started leafing through its pages. I didn’t tell Bastion this, but a couple days ago I had started writing letters to mother. I had at least 10 that I had yet to send. I suppose The Duke flipped to a page where I had written the letter to mother. I was surprised that he even knew how to read, but nevertheless his eyes scanned the pages. For nearly 15 minutes everyone stood silent as The Duke read my letters. After he was done, he looked up, like way up, at the ceiling for a couple moments, and then looked down at me. I didn't know how to react. I thought for sure I would already be reincarnated as a lobster by now. But this really caught me off guard. He bent down so he was on my level. He was so close I could smell his muscles. He then outstretched his arm so as to twist my neck, or so I thought at first. Instead he shook my hand. I might have been imagining this but I could almost swear I saw his eyes tearing up. As I thought about it later, I suppose he might have felt remorse for his actions against his family. Nonetheless, I learned a very important lesson that day. Words reach down to people on a more personal level, and in the case of The Duke, they can change a person for the better. The next morning I was so drowsy from all the talking Bastion had done the previous night about the encounter with The Duke, and about how glad he was that I wasn't dead. He seemed so excited and nervous at the same time, I was wondering how he didn't explode. We sat at our usual small table by ourselves and quietly, except for Bastions talking, ate our breakfast. Suddenly The Duke appeared. Bastion stopped talking and tensed, but there was no point. The Duke just sat down at our table, gave me a nod, and quietly ate his food. I guess we were friends now. Part V Code: It was lunchtime on Saturday. Bastion and I left our cell to go to the mess hall. As we were walking Bastion was telling me about a novel he was thinking about writing. But as I pushed myself along in my stretcher/cart, I faintly even heard Bastion speaking; I was concentrating on a different matter. For some reason, everyone that I passed on the way to the mess hall was whispering to each other, quickly making eye contact, and then looking away. For some reason they looked almost scared. This troubled me. And before long I had a great sense of dread. As we entered the mess hall, it became quiet, too quiet. It was later that I realized what had happened. The Duke had made me his target, here’s a little background on the Duke that I learned from Bastion. At age 13, The Duke murdered both his parents and his dog. He then stuffed the evidence inside the dog, and called the Police. It was said that while he was being questioned, he was smiling the whole time. Two years later it was also said that he was transporting drugs across the Mexican border for the Cartel. His cover was of course his age, and his innocent smile. Eventually he made a mistake by killing a border patrol officer with a knife when the officer said hello to him. He was then sent to a reformation camp where he was forced to do farm work. That’s where he got big and muscular, from farming all day long. The Duke knew no boundaries; he swabs his cell floor with the blood of his cellmates. Even the guards had no control over him. It was said that he could leave anytime he wanted to. But he chose to stay. The Duke was standing in the middle of the mess hall. That’s when Bastion did something I will never forget. Part IV Code: The following are events that occurred to Delphin while serving his 4 months in jail, told through his eyes. Mature content. I gave my big brother a hug right before I left. I wish I could have told him that I loved him with all my heart, but I couldn't. The guards threw me into the armored truck and I fell heavily onto the floor. I had no idea why they were treating me like a serial killer, I didn't do anything! As I slowly picked myself up from the floor I looked around and saw three buff dudes staring at me. Frightened, I dared not make eye contact with them for fear that they would tear me to pieces and eat me for dinner. Who knows, maybe they liked seafood. It was deathly quiet as we drove to the prison. A few hours later we arrived. We were told to strip and put on prisoner clothes. I only saw this kind of stuff on T.V; I’d never thought I would actually be doing it! I was assigned a prison cell with my roommate that would become my friend for years to come. His name was Peter, but he preferred the nickname, Bastion. As soon as I walked in he came straight up to me and politely introduced himself and nervously asked me not to kill him. As if I would hurt a fly! Because I could not speak ,I started to write in a journal that Coma had got for me (I started learning how to write when I was no more than a few weeks old. I must have gotten the fast learning gene that dolphins have). The guards let me keep it so I wrote to Bastion telling him that I was a peaceful being and would never even think about hurting him. But what I was most curious about was the fact that he didn't even seem to think twice about my appearance. Most people that saw me had their jaws hanging open for a couple minutes. I was so used to it by now that I was surprised that he didn't even care about my appearance. Immediately I grew attached to him like a hermit crab and its shell. Peter was young, about twenty though I never really asked how old he was. He had a very sweet and funny personality. He was also a writer, he often wrote short comedy stories that he would read to me on nights where I felt depressed about my future. This is where I started to pick up writing as a hobby. I even started writing my own short stories (that I might one day share with you). I started writing to Coma every day telling him my experiences in a prison. He replied, sending me letters about how he missed me every single moment. However, every time I asked about mother, he completely ignored it. It was about a month into my sentence where I started to get in contact with the other inmates. Part II Code: Dedicated to my beloved brother, Delphin Last I left off, Delphin was a mere year old, little did he know that he would have many hardships in the years to come. Ever since I named my baby brother, it seemed as if I gained sub-conscious connection with him. Since that day I barely did anything without him. It soon became a habit to go to the local swimming pool. That's when little baby Delphin first started realizing that he was different from all the other little boys. The first time we went to the pool Delphin saw the water, his eyes widened, his mouth widened, and his breathing deepened. I had barely time to blink before he ran and dived in to the pool as if he was an Olympic athlete. This kid turned 1 three weeks before. He swam the entire length of the pool and back in five seconds! And he never came up to breath! When he reached the edge of the pool where I was standing he brought his head up and said his first words, "eeeeeeik eeik eeeek!" Astonished I stared at my baby brother and instantly, I knew that one day, he would become one of the greatest people in the world. I didn't get a chance to say this to him because a group of kids that go to the local middle school swam up to Delphin and asked him how he did that. He replied," eeeik eeiiik eeerek!" "The hell?" "Who the is this wierdo?" "FREAK!" "Lets dunk him!" And yet again I barely had a chance to react before the boys were on top of him forcing him to stay under water. Fortunately, my brother was half dolphin and so he literally kicked their little tooshes out of the pool. Atta boy Delphin 8-) Unfortunately, my brother seemed to have a faraway look in his eyes. As if he knew that he wasn't normal. But I knew, I knew, that my brother was special. And I never let him forget that. Part I Code: *These are stories depicting the life of my brother. He is a great inspiration to me and I look up to him, even though he is 12 years my junior. This is his story. Prologue Swimming, darting through the sea, jumping, soaring, flying. Suddenly he sees her. The most beautiful egg of all. Excited he swims smoothly and quickly towards her and then makes connection and… *Removed for Sexual Content. Year 1 I was at School when it happened. We were learning about the different species of aquatic animals. It’s kind of Ironic now that I think about it. The Principle came into the room and told me to come to his office. I was scared out of my mind. Maybe he had heard about me dealing gum to 2nd graders. I sat down in his office and was told the news. Half an hour later I was in the hospital looking through the window as a C-section was being performed on my mother. A few minutes later all the doctors and nurses went into panic mode. Rushing around bumping into each other, grabbing tools and performing tasks on my mother’s stomach. I just stood there in shock wondering what happened looking at my father who stood wide-eyed next to my mother. A short few minutes later the doctor held up my new baby brother. Except it was a dolphin. Or so I thought. Immediately I started laughing as if it was some kind of practical joke. A few second later I stared stone-faced at my new dolphin for a brother. Everything was a blur from there. Doctors escorted me to my mother’s room. Where she lay exhausted, with my baby brother in her arms. It had been several hours before the doctors allowed her to hold him because of extensive checks they did on him. It turns out; he wasn’t a dolphin, at least not completely. He had a Dolphins mouth, elongated with small sharp teeth. Regular human arms but his legs were merged together to form a flipper where his feet should be. He also had a small fin on his back, and his skin was a light shade of grey. I had barely any time to speak when my father burst into the room in rage. He commanded me to leave the room. Scared out of my mind I left, but stayed behind the door to listen. This is what I heard: “Why Marie!? Why?! How could you do this to me! After all that I have sacrificed for this family! Working three jobs, trying to provide for you both! Why?! After all that I have done for you, would you go and cheat on me with that stupid, brainless, disgusting dolphin!?!” “I just…couldn’t help myself Dave… He was just so enchanting, the way he would squeak to me, and his skin, so soft and glorious under the moonlight. I just couldn’t resist myself, a woman has her needs, and you just weren’t there to fulfill them. At least he listened to me when I had problems!” “I…I can’t do this anymore. Live a wondrous and happy life without me Marie. Goodbye.” “Dave! No! We can talk about this! Dave!” That’s when the door burst open and my dad shoved me aside, and left without saying a word. That would be the last time I ever saw him The next couple weeks were tough. Mother was so weak from the ordeal that had happened to her at the hospital. And she wasn’t strong enough to work yet, so we had no money coming in. I had to stop going to school to help support our family. My baby brother was our only source of happiness. He would laugh all day, brightening our spirits. In order for him to move around with ease, I built a wide skateboard that would let him move around the house with ease. Kind of like he was swimming with a surfboard. He would also play with my when I got bored or unhappy, and would always smile at both mother and I. We soon realized that he enjoyed fish greatly. This made sense, considering… And before long, he was growing into a strong young mutant Dolphin. There was only one problem. We had yet to name him. It was a cool day and both me and him were laying in the grass looking at the clouds. It was then that I came up with the perfect name for him. I used the name Delora, which meant from the seashore in latin, and combined it with dolphin. Since that was what he was, and I didn’t want him to want to be the same as the other kids, I wanted him to be special, one of a kind. My baby brother now had a name… Delphin. *These are stories depicting the life of my brother. He is a great inspiration to me and I look up to him, even though he is 12 years my junior. This is his story.