GARIN

Part I - "GARIN"

PROLOGUE

"Amadea, ma said ten more minutes till' we leave!" My older brother Isaac shouted from across the beach. It was yet another summer break and here we are doing the same old routine; visiting - and living with - grandma and grandpa at Finsville for the next two months. It was always that mom and dad would stay for a week, then leave my brother and I in the care of our grandparents for the whole of summer break. Tomorrow morning, mom and dad would leave back to Ohio - where we were born and raised.

"Okay!" I responded as I turned my sight back to the ocean. I've always loved the ocean breeze. It's so calm, and care-free - something that I wasn't. I was rather boring and very uptight for a nine year-old girl.

I never left the house and I just stayed in all day, watching television or read books that are called "boring" to others.

I let out a sigh and stood up from my sitting spot and took one last glimpse at the ocean, before turning around and going back to where my family was. All of the sudden, I heard a loud plopping noise, somewhat like a fish plopping on land. I turned around, taunting carefully towards the edge, before taking a peek over. I let out a horrific gasp as I took in what it is. It was a small but quite chubby fish. It looked like a small baby Orca whale but the patterns were different - it was plain white with a black spot over its left eye; like an eye patch.

 It continued to plop around on the set of huge rocks and stones. I looked around panicking, not wanting the poor little fish to die. I saw my bucket, filled with sea-shells and beautiful colored marbles I've collected along the shore. I took it and emptied it into a plastic bag then filled it with as much sea water I could carry with my weak skinny arms. I leaned down to grasp the small fish - it was bigger than my whole two palms but what shock me were its rather odd looking eyes. They were smoky blue and at the outside of each iris as well as the middle, were darker rings - it was filled with fear.

"Shh, it's alright little fishy, I got you." I whispered silently as I carefully placed it in the bucket. It started to swim around in the tight space of the bucket, bumping on each curve of the bucket, trying to escape. Even he was as big as the bucket's diamete. He then pointed upwards, he swam and all that happened was a small bounce out the water and back in the bucket.

I let out a soft chuckle at his failed attempt, "Keep trying, you can't escape with the short amount of space to swim in." I snorted at it. It's head bobbed out and it started to squirt water at me. I scoffed, "HEY!" I clenched my jaw as it started to oddly laugh, those high pitched laugh, almost like how a dolphin sounds like, but it was slightly higher. I glared at it as I was charging towards it, my brother shouted for me saying I had to leave. I looked back at the odd sea creature who was staring right at me.

***

I might've been stupid! I should've just threw him back in the ocean. But being the stupid nine year old that I am, I brought it with me, I stared at it intently as we were driving back to Grandma's and Grandpa's beach house. "I can't believe you brought a stupid fish with us home." Isaac scoffed at me, looking at the odd creature as well. "Isaac, that's rude. I'm sure your grandfather would figure out what this creature is." Mom defended me from the passenger seat. "That was quite a rather odd looking fish you caught there Amadea." Dad looked at me at the rear view mirror.

Grandpa was an animal scientist, he knew nearly everything about animals. He had traveled all around the world, discovering about all the species to the rarest species in the world. I just hope bringing this fish home is worth it.

"So grandpa, what is it?" I asked as I stood next to grandpa, examining the odd looking Orca Whale swimming around grandpa's fish tank. He seemed so intrigued at the creature. Everywhere it went all the other fishes swam away or would hide. As if they were scared of it, the creature swam chasing the small clown fish, it stopped and stared intently at it, it's haunting smoky blue eyes turned pitch black - its whole eye ball turned black. All of the sudden the clown fish stopped in its track, it orange, black and white color faded, and it was now colorless - like just pure white fish flesh! It turned upside down, floating to the surface.

"I can't believe it, it died." I watched in shock, as the creature swam to the dead fish, eating it. Grandpa furrowed his brows, "Well, this can't be." He shook his head in disbelief. "What is it grandpa?" I asked, concerned of what's this strange creature who has a weird way on feeding itself. "Amadea, you have just conquered the most rarest specie, known to be extinct." Grandpa gripped my small shoulders in his huge hands. "W-what?" I stuttered.

"You found yourself a Hubris." Grandpa stood up straight and walked over to his computer. "A what?" I asked. "A Hubris." Grandpa repeated. "What's that?" I asked. "Hubris Neckros means Deadly Arrogance in Greek mythology. They are known to kill its prey by draining their blood by bloodstream hypnosis, almost like a vampire sucking blood, once they took their blood for them to use, they'll start gnawing on the flesh. Kinda what it did just now to that clown fish." Grandpa showed us a photo of its skeleton. "Why do they have to drain someone else's blood first, when they're going to eat it anyways?" I asked. "Well, when they're hungry, their blood system will slow down, and they will need more blood in order to have the strength to bite and chew on its prey's flesh."

"It can grow up to 2-3 meters long, so we need to get this back on the sea, but we will have to put it a place where it cannot be harmed. We can't risk loosing such a great specie." Grandpa said. "Wait how about that beach that has that bridge separating half of the ocean, it can live there, there's food for him, and I doubt there's any dangerous sea creature in there, and barely anyone fishes there."

"Alright, we can drop him in there maybe after he's trained enough to go by himself." Grandpa plotted. I nodded in agreement, but then something crossed my mind, "What about it's parents? Won't they go look for him?" Grandpa shook his head, "Its rare for an offspring to be swimming alone without it's parent's around him." I furrowed my brows, looking back at the Hubris who was looking straight at me. I walked towards it, taking a sit on the coffee table, looking at him, whilst it stare back - almost like a staring contest. Its haunting smoky blue eyes, were so hypnotizing, suddenly I felt myself feeling light-headed. "NO!" I heard my grandpa protest, he disturbed my staring contest by blocking my view.

I looked up at him in confusion, "DON NOT STARE IN ITS EYES FOR A LONG PERIOD OF TIME!" He snapped. "It nearly drained your blood." I looked down, "I'm sorry grandpa." I apologized. He brought my chin up and kissed my forehead softly, "You're lucky I blocked your sight before he could've drained you." I let out a giggle.

"So any names for him?" Grandpa said as he stood back up, going back to his computer. I looked over at the Hubris who was swimming around the tank. "How do you know it's a male?" I asked. "Males have only one black spot on them, while females have two or none." Grandpa said, his eyes fixed on the computer. I nodded in understatement - well how cliché. "So, what's the name to this lovely creature?" Grandpa looked up at me. I continued to watch it swimming about, the corners of my lips twitched upwards to a smile,

"I'll name him... Garin."

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(Author's Note)

Hello everybody, author here!

How I started this book was all inspired from this dream I had that was very much similar to this. For weeks I've been thinking about it and holding onto that dream as I thought it was very interesting and felt very underrated.

So I decided to officially write a book about it.

I truly hope you enjoy this lovely chapter. 

First of I would like to make a clear fact that if there are any similar scenes or similar characters that may exist in real life. I'd just like to say that it is just out of pure coincidence.

Cheers,xxF