Tides: Years of Dawn

Geraint woke up profusely in sweat. When he sat up, he was in a daze for a while before realizing where he was.

There were three other people in the room, and their snoring reminded him that time hadn't stopped, it was still idly moving forward.

Geraint buried his face in his hands, rubbed vigorously, and got out of bed.

The room in the control station was small, but two bunk beds and a desk were squeezed into it.There were four kettles on the desk, and behind the kettles was a window with iron bars.

Geraint picked up his water bottle and took several sips in one go. When he put the bottle down, he saw his thin face and growing hair from the reflective surface of the bottle.

He looked up and out the window.Today's moonlight is very good, clearly illuminating the lawn outside the house and the stone road next to the lawn.At the end of the stone road is a small forest. During the day, Geraint and some prisoners in the control center work in the forest.

Some are logging, some are chopping firewood, some are mining, and some are washing sand.

In his days as the lord's son, he had never wondered where his house and Jade's beautiful jewelry had come from, thinking that he could just go to the fair and buy them all.

Perhaps the merchant hired a large number of workers to do this, and then sold them at a high price to people from large families.

But he never thought that these crafts actually come from prisons and detention centers.

All the work done outside is raw material collection, but in the workshop in the control station, some prisoners who have served longer sentences do some finer crafts.Such as beading, tailoring, jewelry making, etc.

He only found out this morning that even those stone carvings came from their calloused hands.

Those he thought had a large number of well-recognized vendors actually only came here once in a while, picked out some interesting things, and packed them away very cheaply.

How Geraint fell into this situation, he really couldn't figure it out.

He has to stay here for three years—when his peers are scolding the teacher at school, secretly reading handwritten books in class, or running out of Haicheng school to eat and drink after class, he has to get up early and be greedy. Black land works in woodland or factory buildings.

Three years, and now he hasn't even survived one percent.

Geraint closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.

The previous dream came back to his mind, causing him to drink a few more sips of water quickly.

Yes, he had a nightmare.But when he opened his eyes, he found that it was better to stay in the nightmare.At least he still had hope in his nightmare, but now even the hope of being released after serving his sentence is too extravagant for him.

He dreamed of the past when he was hijacked into the snow-capped mountains.

In fact, he was very young at that time, and the impression was not deep.He had no memory of the robber's face at all. He didn't know if he couldn't remember clearly, or because he was wearing a big hood all the time.

And the only thing that remained in his mind was the heavy snow and the boundless white mountains.

That feeling is really cold, so cold that I can't speak clearly, and my vocal cords are frozen.His hands and feet couldn't be controlled, and he kept trembling.

The robbers only gave him a blanket, and he felt himself shrinking to infinitesimal size.He even wanted to bury his whole head in it to resist the pervasive cold.

He didn't know how long he stayed there, and there was only one thought in his mind from beginning to end—that was to hope that his father or his supporting adoptive mother would take him back sooner.Receive a warm fireside, and drink a bowl of hot coral soup.

Thinking about it, the fishy-sweet taste of the coral soup seems to have spread in the mouth.The brown color of the rock wall with ice cones falling in front of it but not completely covered by snow is like a blazing fire.

Extremely cold, first numb, then hot.

He couldn't tell the difference between the scorching heat and the extreme cold. He was too young to even realize how dangerous his situation was. How many times did the hostages give up the idea that the hostage family would redeem the child, Instead, he planned to kill Geraint directly.

Geraint didn't know all this.

All he knew was that the fire was burning, getting darker and darker.The flame seemed to grow together with the fireplace, but the burning firewood was as white as snow.

The black toner melted away, replaced by pieces of sea salt, the sea salt covered the entire beach, and at the end of the fine sand beach was the blue sea.

He came here along the sea, and he felt that the place with the sea was not far from home.But his father and assistants didn't come to pick him up. He waited for a long time, and the white firewood was almost burned out, and he didn't see the luxurious clothes and calm and majestic face.

He didn't know the horror of death, so he wasn't afraid at that time.He was just a little annoyed, irritated by his father who had made him wait for so long, and the cold that he didn't know when it would end.

When he drank the Flametail Potion from his mouth, all the whiteness disappeared.He thought that his waiting had finally come to fruition. Although they arrived late, they did not forget him anyway.

But when he opened his eyes, he saw a strange face.He saw a human being, and that person carried him out, and he saw many, many human beings.

It was strange, he had heard that human beings were crueler than the fiercest beasts, but they seemed not to want to eat him.They admired his snake-like scales, admired his curled tail, admired his uncontrollably exposed horns and fangs, as well as yellow-green eyes and snake-like vertical pupils.

The person who carried him out carried him into the carriage again.

He asked him, is it still cold?Are you uncomfortable?Is there a wound bleeding somewhere?Was it under some kind of spell? ...

There were so many questions that Geraint couldn't remember clearly.He didn't answer because he was too sleepy.Huge tiredness hijacked his reason, but his lips and teeth were still clumsy, unable to utter a word for a long time.

Eat it or not, that's about it.At that time, Geraint thought, at least let him be eaten warm, and he doesn't want to freeze into a piece of ice and then smash it to pieces.

But in the end he was not eaten, but woke up in another warm bed.

The human being who rescued him sat by the bed and told him—you can wait a little longer, after a while, I will send you home.

When the memory reaches this point, it diverges from the dream.

In reality, Geraint didn't speak, but in the dream, Geraint suddenly grabbed the other person's arm, and asked in panic—"Where are you going? To what home? I don't have a home anymore...why should I go home?" ?”

The human lowered his head, looked at Geraint, and smiled—"Of course you have a home, you want to go back to the Cracked Rock Islands, to the control station. We don't eat you, but the island eats you. The island eats you. They are all vicious and cruel monsters, we have heard this legend since we were young."

Geraint was startled, and wanted to ask more questions, but saw that half of the man's face began to rot, and the intact face changed rapidly.

He took the form of the jellyfish that Geraint had seen on the boat.

Geraint quickly let go of his hand, kept moving back, and shouted loudly—"I'm not going back! I didn't make a mistake...I didn't hurt anyone! I don't know what you're talking about, I didn't enter the control center Guilty!"

The jellyfish stood up, snapped its fingers, and spread its palms.

The original stone of the Sea Snake family appeared in the palm, instantly illuminating the dark but warm room extremely brightly.

"Of course you have to go back. How can you be arrested if you don't go back? If you are not arrested, how will you be deprived of the qualification to run for the lord after graduation?"

The jellyfish laughed, but it was not a laugh of one person, it was a laugh of many people together.

Geraint listened carefully, and he recognized Crewe's voice, Gawain's voice, and Pei Di's voice.

"You have to be exiled. Only after you are exiled can the sea monster family completely occupy the original stone of your house. You are no longer a sea snake, your life is worthless, you have to go back, you have to—"

The dream came to an abrupt end here.Geraint woke up suddenly without listening to what the jellyfish said, but his whole body was as tired as if he had swam thousands of meters.

Now his legs are also a little numb, probably because he stood by the window for a long time.The sky is already showing signs of turning white, and it may not be long before their wake-up call will drive them into the woodland and factory buildings again.

He turned to the other side of the room to scoop up another jug ​​of water from the bucket. Perhaps he had sweated too much, but his mouth was still dry and his throat was hot.

At the moment when he refilled the kettle, a picture suddenly flashed in his mind - he remembered the scene where he once poisoned the sea crocodile brothers.

The sea snake's venom is deadly, but it also has hypnotic and hallucinogenic effects.In the age of great navigation, they relied on this ability to divert human ships from the course time and time again.

The management of the control center is not that harsh, so they don't have the conditions of a prison for one person.Of course, no one would want to escape from here - after all, the control center is not a prison, and the sentence generally does not exceed ten years.

But even for three years, Geraint didn't want to endure it.

He looked back at the two raised beds, and the three of them were still soundly asleep.They are an electric ray and two groupers.The former came in because of stealing, while the latter two were fighting and wounding—but in fact, Geraint understood that it was just a step forward during a group fight, and as a result, he ran a few steps slower than his companion.

Geraint can do a lot.

Having lost his right to compete for lordship and been expelled from Haicheng School, Crewe has even become Gao Wen's assistant, and the entire Sea Snake family has completely become an empty house—he doesn't want to spend three years here.

Someone on the island wanted him dead, and he felt it.But on land, he had never seen anyone who wanted his life.

Since he will be expelled sooner or later, Geraint would rather choose to leave by himself.

He did not forget the address given to him by the jellyfish, and he naively thought that the jellyfish was still safe and sound at the address shown in the address, waiting for him to sail across the ocean.

TBC

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[There will be two updates tomorrow, one around [-] pm and one around [-] pm, okay! 】

[There will be two updates tomorrow, one around [-] pm and one around [-] pm, okay! 】

[There will be two updates tomorrow, one around [-] pm and one around [-] pm, okay! 】