Chapter 199 - Dr. Malachi - Ocean's Oldest Memories Part 2

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Abraham Malachi

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"OK." I literally saw Ocean shrug his shoulders out of the corner of my mind. "You're already here so it's not like I have much of a choice." He turned and grimaced at me. "Just don't look at anything embarrassing." He blushed a little.

"I won't." I laughed at him. "Don't worry, I am only looking at the day you were born and the first few days that followed that."

"See, you're going to see me naked. That is so embarrassing." He laughed as well, cracking a joke about his infancy.

"I will let you know if you were a cute baby." I rose to my feet, preparing to leave right then.

"I already know that I was." He laughed again. "I was told that by my parents and my siblings."

"You're a Siren, I bet you were very cute. And your family would have been very enamored with you."

After I assured him of this, I started to walk toward the beach. At least while I was here I wasn't that little chibi version of myself.

"I am going to go into the water now, Ocean. I am going to go into your deepest memories."

He didn't respond at all. He just watched me as I stepped into the water and shifted into the other version of myself. I was not a very large water dragon that could swim so much easier through his sea of memories. And it was possible that he might remember seeing this form and would be a little less curious about me.

I dove into the water and stretched my limbs that had been cramped up for way too long. It felt amazing to stretch them out and feel the water around me. Even if this was just metaphysical and it didn't affect my body in the real world, it was still a nice feeling.

I knew that the water, the actual ocean, would be where a Siren man named Ocean would keep his memories. It was poetic and punny all at the same time. He was a strange kid, but also a good kid. And that was why I wanted to help him and know about him.

I swam lower and lower, diving deeper into his memories. Contrary to what I had told Ocean, I had to pass by all of his most recent memories before I could get to his memories from when he was little.

I passed by the day that Ocean came home from the hospital, and it was clear that his mate wanted to take care of him. As thoroughly as possible. I didn't stick around, but I saw that his mate was treating him to a happy time.

I watched the attack that he went through, the stuff that happened at his school, his Christmas, and so much more. Well, I could say that these two boys had a healthy sexual appetite. They had a lot more sex than I typically had, and they have only been together for a few months.

I made it past their time together and then the memories started to fly by. I saw Ocean getting younger and younger. He was very obviously a man, just like you could tell now, but he was always a little bit on the pretty side. He seemed to have looked thin, delicate, and slightly feminine when he was younger. I wonder if he ever had anyone say anything to him about that when he was growing up? And how fiercely those siblings of his defended him.

Based on these memories, they protected him more than he actually realized. He was lucky that he had these people to help him grow up. If he had had a different family, then things might have been a lot different for him.

Time was moving swiftly now that I had reached his childhood and he had fewer memories. There was less to wade through and get past.

I saw that Ocean was a pretty little boy that loved to sing for his family but had been too shy to sing for anyone else. The singing was his Siren side, the shy part was not. That must be part of who he was and what made him different.

There were some things that gave me pause when I reached Ocean's memories as a baby. He would be with his mom getting a bath.  The mother would tell the toddler that bath time was over and that would make Ocean start to cry, but it wasn't a normal cry. The cry would be almost musical and it would cause a mystified smile to appear on his mom's face. After that, the mom would extend the bath time for the little boy that loved the water so much.

There weren't many signs like that, but there were some things that I saw that made it evident to me that the boy was not human. His parents, who were human, never noticed though. They did good raising him despite it all, and that was all that mattered.

Finally, I was able to see the bottom of the ocean that was the boy's memories. I could see the sea floor and knew that I would soon find the oldest memories that he possessed. 

I saw Ocean when he was a baby, being held by a woman I hadn't seen in any of his memories yet.

"He was found last month on the beach. No one has claimed him, and he needs a home." The memory panned out and I saw the parents that had adopted Ocean looking at him with tear filled eyes.

"I will give him all the love that I can. He and the others will all be so close." There were three other kids behind them, all of them smiling happily as they looked at the baby boy that was to be their brother.

Another memory showed the little baby sitting on the beach. He was not far from where his favorite spot was, actually I think that it was the same. I wonder if Ocean knew that this was where he was found or if this was a subconscious thing that he had done.

The baby was crying nonstop, it was just before sunrise and there were hardly any cars on the road. I couldn't see anyone around the beach, not even the mother who left the boy there. I could tell that Ocean had just been born not long before. He still had his umbilical cord attached and it was bleeding from when it was cut. This was literally less than an hour after he had been born. That tells me that his mother was close to the shore, or at least, she had been when she gave birth.

I could hear a shout in the distance. A man had heard the baby crying as was running toward the beach.

"What the hell?" He looked scared and pissed. "Someone left a baby by the water." I saw that Ocean was actually about to be hit with a wave and that the man was worried he would be washed away or drowned if he didn't get to him.

He wasn't that far off, really. The more time that Ocean spent out of the water as a baby, the faster his gills went away. If a merchild or siren child left the water too early, they had to stay away until adulthood. It was a sad consequence for the sea folk.

"Call 911. Someone get an ambulance and some cops here." 

The man was running as fast as he could as he shouted toward the people behind him. He got to the baby just as the water crashed over him. Ocean was not swept away, but he had gotten water in his mouth and was coughing while he cried incessantly.

"Shh. Shh. Shh. It's OK, little one, I have you." The man was taking his shirt off and wrapping the baby in it. "Look at you, you were born only hours ago. Who would do this?" The man looked around and tried to see if there were any prints for the mother or whoever left the baby. All he saw were prints coming out from and going back into the water. "Did she come out of the ocean?" He asked and the baby stopped crying a little. "You like that word? Ocean?" The baby calmed down some more. "I think you should be named Ocean if you like it so much."

There were sirens now and police were running onto the sand as the man walked back toward the parking lot. The man did his best to explain what happened and constantly referred to the baby as Ocean. Well, I guess the mystery of his name was settled. It was given to him by the man that found him. I didn't know they would keep names like that, but I guess they did."

This was a sad yet touching scene. So many people had come together to find the baby boy's mother, yet it was fruitless. And the baby was being well cared for at the local hospital, the same local hospital that he had gone to twice this school year. Isn't that quite the coincidence? Actually, I think that there is something at play here that is making sure he ends up in the same place every time.

That didn't matter right now. I needed to keep moving. This was a memory from just hours after he was born on October the thirty-first in the year two thousand and three. I was nearly there.. I had nearly gotten to the information that I needed.