Set Me Free// L. Staley

Prologue

The lull of the ocean waves shook her from her unconscious slumber. Tenderly, the sweet sound of the tide in her ears aroused her to open her eyes.

Rowan's eyes slowly peaked from her eyelids to reveal the bright summer sun. She looked around and noticed she was on the sandy shore of a beach with crystal-clear water.

It was beyond anything she had ever seen before. Sure, she had been around the world and saw what it had to offer, but it was nothing compared to this. The warm breeze danced against her skin as the hot summer sun shone brightly onto her pale skin. There was something magical about that specific beach, and she had no idea why.

Nevertheless, Rowan wasn't curious as to where she was. She wasn't concerned that she was miles away from her small, run-down apartment in rainy, cold, Seattle. She didn't care that she had a job to go to in the morning. To Rowan, this beach was the perfect definition of paradise.

As much as she enjoyed laying on the soft sand, she didn't want to get it in her hair or her clothes. So she stood up and dusted off her clothed figure, as well as shaking any loose sand from the tendrils of her brown, curly locks. She made sure all the sand was out of her white-washed jeans and her cotton t-shirt before paying mind to her environment. Finally, she took in the rest of her surroundings.

The beach stretched as far as her eyes could see, and even then, it was like it never ended. She looked behind her to see that the sandy ground slowly faded to a nothingness of white. It was like the beach was slowly withering away a few feet behind her.

And there wasn't a soul in sight.

Rowan didn't think too hard about how the land vanished but instead focused her attention on the wooden dock that sat a couple of yards away from her. She approached it, suddenly drawn to its energy.

Once she reached the dock, she placed her bare feet onto the worn-wooden planks. The planks let out cries of age as she began to walk across the dock until she reached the outer-most part of it. She looked beyond into the sea and sighed with contentment. She drank in the moment of her own, little arcadia, and basked in the glory of her Newfoundland.

From below her, the lopping of the waves against the dock filled her with a sense of ease for her utopian paradise. She had always loved the ocean, even if it was a scarcely explored universe. The thought of their being a new creature to discover at any day filled her with determination. It was a type of determination to explore the ocean more and discover the undiscovered.

Before the waves against the wooden pillars put her into another content sleep, the peaceful sound was interrupted by furious splashing. With Rowan's curiosity piqued, she looked in between the cracks on the dock's planks. From what she could see, she saw a figure in the water.

"Who's there?" Rowan asked as she kept one of her eyes closed as she looked through the cracks. As soon as her voice pierced the air, the splashing stopped. She watched out of perplexment as the figure swam from underneath the dock to the side of it, where it could make its presence known.

Her features contorted to confusion when she saw that it was only a dolphin. Had the dolphin attempted to get her attention?

What confused Rowan more was when she noticed the scar along the common dolphin's left eye. That's when she noticed that it was her dolphin-in-rehabilitation, Konala. He received his name from the Polynesian definition of Konala, which meant "world leader." Rowan thought that was fitting, considering he helped lead his pod.

"Konala, what are you doing here? You should be at the marine center," Rowan sweetly spoke to him. She crouched down to sit comfortably on the edge of the pier. She let her feet dangle under her as she focused her undivided attention on the dolphin.