Neville stirred slightly, his ocean-blue eyes fluttering behind closed lids.

In his dreams, he was a young mermaid swimming through deep waters. He was chasing after the light peering from the surface. He just ran away from their kingdom in the deep sea to search for something shiny to give to his mother.

His mother repeatedly told him not to go to the surface, but his mother wasn’t there. He figured that if his mother wasn’t there, there was no need to follow his mother’s nagging; she was just overprotective.

Then, the moment his head slowly rose above the surface. It unraveled a whole new world above. A wonderful sandy shore could be seen nearby.

The coral reef was fascinating; there were all sorts of fish, all sorts of colored corals, and sea creatures. A crab even pinched his hand, and it hurt.

Then, when he curiously tried to push himself onto the shore, his luck ran out.

He was stuck.

He waited and waited for someone to notice and save him. But the moment everything was dry, he was basically slowly being grilled fish under the sun.

Since he was still a baby, he couldn’t help but cry.

His cry was so loud that he didn’t hear the wooshing sound of wings getting closer and closer until it hovered over his head. It got dark and cool, and he wondered whether it was already nighttime and looked at his tummy to see if it was already hungry.

But then, when he looked around, the light was still high in the sky. And there was a moving shadow looming over him.

Terrified, he still mustered up the courage to look up.

And up in the sky, flapping his wings, was a black creature.

His eyes instantly sparkled brightly. It was his first time seeing such a flapping creature.

But the black creature looked down at him and said, "What are you? What are you doing here?"

He just blinked his eyes and tilted his head. He didn’t understand what the black creature had just said. He didn’t even consider whether they were using the same language or not.

He just mimicked what the black creature had just said with his mesmerizing voice, "What are you? What chuuu doing?"

The black creature tilted his head and figured something. It did something ’talked’ using telepathy. It repeated, "What are you? What are you doing here?"

He clapped with glee and replied, pointing happily, "I, mermaid. Sea, home. Sand, here. Me, happy!"

The black creature nodded and continued to ask, "Do you need help?"

"Yay!" he replied, flapping his dried tail.

The black creature went down and towards the sea, and he could now see its eyes.

It was silver and imposing.

He unconsciously reached out towards the creature, but was met with splashes of salted water.

Although he found it rude at first, the water re-energized him to the point that he could now wiggle his butt to push himself against the sand back towards the sea.

The black creature waited for him towards it as he continued to splash water.

The moment his tail was submerged to enough level of water. The black creature immediately flapped its wings up. But he managed to grab its long, slender tail.

"What are you doing?" the black creature asked as it tried to get out of his clutches.

"Who?" He asked gleefully.

The black creature stopped struggling and hesitated to reply.

"Who?" He asked again, gripping even tighter this time.

"D-" The head of the black creature turned away from him and continued, "Dragon." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

His eyes sparkled brightly against the sunlight.

His grip loosened after getting blinded by the sun.

The black dragon flew up, enough to just stay out of reach. Each time he tried to get close, the black dragon would turn to look at him full of longing before it flew away again.

"Don’t go," he called out, his mermaid tail propping him up clumsily. "No hurt."

The black dragon paused, its small form widened as it stretched out its wings gracefully.

"I know," its voice became deep, just like Grayson’s, but there was a growl at the end. "But I shouldn’t."

"Play," he said, reaching out to touch the black dragon’s flying figure. "With me."

"No," the black dragon harshly said as it flew away.

He didn’t move and stayed by the waters along the shore.

He waited and waited for the black dragon, but the sun began to set. He thought about finding a gift for his mother while roaming the coral reef. But if he did bring a gift from here, his mother would find out that he went above water.

Pouting and splashing water around with his tail. He waited for the black dragon.

Finally, a wooshing sound was heard again coming over to the shore,

It was the black dragon.

He smiled widely, welcoming his newfound friend.

But the black dragon seemed to be annoyed and irritated at him.

The black dragon flapped its wings and quickly came to his side.

It asked, "Why are you still here?"

He beamingly replied, "Waiting!"

It continued to ask, "What if I didn’t come?"

He puckered his mouth, thinking. Then, nonsensically, replied, "Still waiting!"

The black dragon sighed and thought of something. "I’ll show you something. After that, leave. Don’t come back. I won’t come here anymore."

He blinked his eyes a couple of times before smiling brightly, "Okay!"

Then, he swam as he followed the black dragon flying in the sky. It didn’t take that long before they arrived at the coral reef filled with black rocks.

At first, he thought that the black dragon wanted to show him these smooth black rocks since it was the same color as him. But then he saw an interesting cluster of corals not far from them.

It was a combination of white and red corals that formed an interesting shape.

A heart-shaped coral.

A naturally formed, heart-shaped coral amid black rocks.

He was about to happily tell the black dragon what he found, but when he looked up, the black dragon was gone.

He sighed, sad, but eventually he went back into the deep sea happy.

...

Grayson watched as Neville’s lips frowned and groaned in his sleep. He occasionally formed words he couldn’t quite understand. Neville scrunched his face in frustration and made a whining sound. Then Neville smiled, and his breathing became even. He slept peacefully and was happy again.

Whether from dreams or the lingering effects of the drugs, Grayson couldn’t tell. But he really needed to leave now.

So, Grayson took a final glance at Neville and shut the door behind him.