Chapter 200 - Dr. Malachi - Ocean's Oldest Memories Part 3

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Abraham Malachi

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The sooner I found the memory, the better this would be. I didn't want to invade Ocean's mind more than I already had. I didn't want to get stuck in here, and I didn't want to cause him any more problems than the ones that he already had.

No, I just wanted to help Ocean in the long run. I just wanted to make sure that I could take care of him properly in the future. I needed to know what was so different about him. About what made him so special compared to the others. And the only way to do that was to track down his origins. I needed to find his mother and his father. I needed to trace his origins and test them all.

Yes, I wanted to study Ocean, what person interested in knowledge wouldn't want to do that? But that wasn't all that it was. No. I wanted to make sure that I was able to handle any future incidents with him in the proper manner. That involved a lot of different points coming together.

I pushed on, looking for the first of all the memories that Ocean would have. These memories, though seen through the eyes of an infant, were not seen through Ocean's eyes. No, instead, it was like watching a movie, through the eyes of a third party observer. It was almost like I was watching a movie of Ocean's life more than anything else. All of the memories that I had come across so far had been like that.

I didn't want to know what that meant right now. Most of the times that I had done this to people, I saw the memories through their own eyes and not like they were watching themselves. This was new, but I guess it all depended on the person.

Finally, I saw the memory that I was looking for. At least I think that I did. It was the last one in the line of images. It looked like it was completely black to start. It seemed it was from the moment that Ocean first opened his eyes.

"NNNNGGGHHHH! GGAAAHHHH!" I heard a woman screaming in pain as the images started to play before me.

"Come on Cora, you're almost there." I heard a woman's calming voice coaching the one that had been in pain.

"NNGGHH! I CAN'T DO IT!"

"Yes, you can. Come on. Push!"

The baby was already mostly out, at least his head was. And apparently, tiny little baby Ocean remembered this woman coaching his mother from all those years ago. I heard the woman grunt in pain again and then shortly after that there was the sound of a baby crying.

"She's here." The calming woman said as I watched her pull the baby from between the other woman's legs. She had been clinging to the seaweed at the bottom of the ocean. Now that baby Ocean was born, the images were given light and color. 

The woman that was currently holding the baby was older with silver hair floating out behind her. She was beautiful, like all Sirens were. She had mesmerizing eyes and a perfect figure, even though she was past her prime.

I saw her just standing there, staring at the baby in her arms. Her eyes, a pretty pinkish color, were wide with shock.

"What is it? What's wrong with my little girl?" The mother, the woman that I was here to see asked with wide, worried eyes.

"I..i..it's a boy." The older woman gasped out and I saw the mother react physically.

The mother, one of the most beautiful Sirens that I had ever seen, was completely horrified by that revelation. Her eyes, which were a beautiful shade of robin's egg blue, went wide and darkened to be more of a navy blue. Her hair, which was blue and gold, fluttered behind her in the current. The pale, perfection that was her magazine-worthy face seemed to darken as well as her lips twisted with rage.

"What did you just say?" Her voice, which had been musical and sounded like a lullaby when she asked if her baby was OK, was now like the sound of screeching violins. "What did you say about my daughter?!" There was nothing but pure rage in the woman's voice.

"I..it's not a girl. It's a boy. Y..you have a..a.. son." The older woman finally looked away from the baby as she looked at the woman who had just given birth. "Cora, this is unheard of. You have given birth to the first ever male Siren." The older woman was clearly excited about this. "Do you know what this means?" I don't know exactly what she was getting at, but she was over the moon with joy when she saw the boy. That was not something that I would have expected. 

"It means that my baby is a freak. He's an abomination. And that is exactly what everyone else will say about him too."

"But Cora, everyone has wanted male Sirens to be born. For generations we have been hoping that we can have male children and stop relying on humans to have children. This is amazing. He will be revered."

"He's a freak!" Cora screamed at her. "Do you hear me, Dolfine? He's a freak and he will be treated like one his entire life. And likewise, I will be treated the same way. Do you think that I want to be treated like a freak? Do you think that I want to be an outcast? I am the most popular woman in our clan. Do you know what the others would do if they found out that my most recent baby was a boy? They would throw me and my other six children out. They will never let us stay."

"Cora, I think that you're overreacting. He will be welcomed with the utmost respect. He will be revered. He will have a harem when he becomes a man. All the women in the clan will want him. He will usher in a new age for us."

"HE WILL NOT!" Cora snapped angrily. "I WILL NOT ALLOW IT! I WILL NOT HAVE A SON! I WILL NOT LET ANYONE KNOW ABOUT THIS!"

"You have no choice, Cora." Dolfine glared at her as she pulled a knife from a belt tied around her waist. "I will not let you hide him. He will be treated like a king. They will give him everything."

After Dolfine cut the umbilical cord, she set the baby boy aside as she turned back to tend to Cora. She needed to finish the delivery by dealing with the afterbirth. It was a quick process and neither of the women talked to each other while the business was dealt with.

I could see Cora staring at the baby where he was laying in a small bassinet. He was already cleaned off, the benefits to being born in water, it was easy to clean him up.

Dolfine went about her work as she took care of the woman and the baby. It was clear to see that she was used to this type of work. It was most likely her actual job.

All the while, Cora didn't take her angry eyes off of Ocean. She apparently got more and more upset about him being there and existing. Her eyes grew darker and darker by the minute. By the time that Dolfine turned around to tend to the baby that was crying for food, I could see that Cora had made up her mind for what she was about to do. I could sense it, too bad Dolfine hadn't.

"I won't take him back, Dolfine. I won't let them know that my baby was such an abomination."

"And how are you going to do that, Cora? I know that women in the past got rid of unwanted babies, but I am here with you right now and I won't let you do that. How do you plan to make this go away?" Dolfine was angry now, the baby in her arms still screaming.

"I will silence you and dispose of him."

"CORA!?" Dolfine recoiled at her words, but she didn't notice that the woman was already attacking. She was swinging down with the knife in her hand. The very same knife that Dolfine had used to cut the cord.

The knife caught Dolfine in the chest. It struck her right in the heart and I watched her die almost immediately. That was definitely one wound that no shifter in the world could survive.

"You won't tell anyone, Dolfine. I will tell my story and make sure that no one will ever find this abomination. I will tell them that the merfolk attacked and stole my daughter. I was too weak to fend them off and they killed you while I lay there defenseless."

The look in Cora's eyes were pure evil, she was literally the very epitome of a true Siren, completely self-absorbed and only focused on herself. However, even this went further than anything that I could have imagined.

"Now, to get rid of you." Cora looked at the baby with the knife in her raised hand. "I need to make you disappear as well."

Even though I knew that she didn't kill baby Ocean, I was still scared shitless. I saw the knife moving toward him and I wanted to step in. It wouldn't have done any good though so all I could do was watch on in horror.

When the knife was less than an inch away from the baby's face, I saw that Cora froze. She seemed to think about something.

"If I kill you here, they will find your body when they come to look for clues. No, I need to do something else."

I watched her thinking for just a few moments. She seemed to have her plan almost instantly.

"I will just drown you. If I put you out of the water, you will lose your gills instantly and then the water can have you. You will be far away from here and no longer my problem."

With that decided, Cora took off for the shore. It was toward the beach that Ocean was currently sitting on in his mind, but it was from several years earlier. 

It took Cora maybe a half an hour to swim to the surface and face the beach. I could see the beach that was in the last memory. She was maybe fifty feet away from the shore, watching it cautiously for anyone that might be nearby.

It was dark in the wee hours of the morning so there was no one there. Seeing that, she swam closer to the shore as quickly as she could. The baby was no longer crying under the surface of the water, instead he had latched on and started to nurse from his mother on instinct.

Cora pulled Ocean away from her roughly, ending his meal early and causing him to cry. She walked out onto the beach and set him just on the other side of the water line. She intended that the tide would take him when it came in.

"That should do." She said after setting him down. "Sorry little boy, but you're just not qualified to be my child." Ocean, laying on the beach, was crying incessantly. And with no remorse whatsoever, Cora turned and walked away. I saw that she never looked back, she never cared about her baby at all.

I already knew what happened after that. I already knew about when Ocean was found. There was no reason for me to stay here any longer. I had learned what I needed to. I had seen what Ocean's mom looked like. I have even learned her name. And I had found out just how much of a psychopath that she truly was. And I was so glad that Ocean had been raised by someone other than her.. She didn't deserve him at all.