"The Case Of The Fire Inside."

People change like tide in the ocean 12

Dream sat on the docks and watched the tide roll in. The fishing ship he had currently wormed his way onto had come in for the night, netfuls of fish to feed the entire town. The other fishermen had already gone home, back to their loving husbands and wives, their loud children and boisterous pets. Some of them have instead gone to pubs to drink off the labour of the day, asking their buddies to go along with them.

They don't tell him to go home. They know he doesn't have one to return to anyways.

There are plenty of places he could go to. He knows that many people would pull him inside when they saw him wandering the streets, a sigh on their lips as they offered him a couch and a warm cup of hot chocolate. He much preferred to sit out on the docks, staring at the stars as the waves rolled under him. Their pity has always made him sick.

Dream had always wanted to be a sailor.

Ever since he was a young boy living by the sea he had wanted to be out on a ship, commanding a crew and ordering around the waves. He had decided at the young age of five that he would be a captain, the best captain there ever would be.

It was a childish dream, fueled by years living by the sea in a small fishing town. He was pretty much born and raised on a fishing ship, learning how to tie knots and steer a ship at the same time he was learning how to walk. Every night he would watch the tides roll in and smile, knowing that one day maybe he would be a part of them.

His ambitions were always too big for the town he grew up in. Dream thinks that this town was the place to go to kill your dreams. Everyone here seemed content to grow up and filter through the same retail jobs, selling fish and their souls whenever they saw the opportunity.

He wasn't like them. He worked for what he wanted. He had dreams and ambitions and he wasn't going to let anything get in his way. One day he was going to captain a ship, travelling the seven seas and exploring the great beyond. He wanted the riches and the fame, a crew that would listen to his every word and an abundance of money to shove in the faces of everyone who ever doubted him.

There were a lot of people who doubted him. People who were born on the island barely ever left. Dream wonders how anyone could ever be content to live in such an isolated place. Sure it was beautiful, but the view got boring when you saw it every single day.

Dream had never had parents. He was what they called the town's child, found abandoned on a ship and left behind in a pile of fishing nets. He bounced from house to house, sometimes on the streets, sometimes living in the back of stores. He was raised by every single adult in the town, but none of them ever wanted him for good.

He was always the forgotten child, the burden they were forced to raise. The kid that no one wanted but felt too bad to turn away. They all wanted him to settle down, to make a life and just accept what was around him. But he wanted more. He wanted to prove to them that he could always be more than this horrid town.

A seal was swimming up onto the beach, flopping down in the sand with a huff. The animals were never spooked by him anymore. He was ten years old and he knew them like the back of his hand. Sometimes he thinks he prefers their company to the people around him.

He stays out here with them at night, curled up on the wooden dock with the oceans spray on his face. He doesn't own anything other than the clothes on his back and a few bucks in his back pocket that he earned by doing the work on the boats. He thinks that maybe he should invest in a blanket at some point. He knows he probably won't hold onto it for long.

He likes sleeping out here, just staring up at the sky. The sky never judged him. The stars never sighed and gossiped whenever he stepped out of line without even knowing where it was drawn. They never scolded him for things he didn't understand or tell him to settle down and find his place in a world he never wanted to exist in.