Chapter 2 - Dead Men Tell No Tales, Especially When They're Recounting Days When They Were Alive

I made my way up to the attic. I moved slowly. I couldn't believe that had worked. Jim had given me a music player, too. It had all of SEVEN SONGS!!! 

Vivaldi's Four Seasons took up the bulk of the space on the MP3, since they were never sold as one track. The other three were Drown by Bring Me The Horizon, some song by a band I had never heard of, and Katy Perry's Firework. That one was almost confusingly out of place - more than any other song on the whole playlist.

I turned on Drown. I recognized and enjoyed that song. The bed sat pushed against one wall with a pillow on it. It didn't have a frame, but it was nicely made and the sheets were clean.

As I sat on the pillow, I looked around the room. It had a surprisingly high ceiling for an attic, and a very large skylight. There was a file cabinet with four drawers. That was compelling. I plopped the music player on my bed and walked over to it.

I opened one of the drawers. Printer paper. I opened another. Six gold headphone jacks next to a pair of Skullcandy over-ears. I grabbed those. Jim wouldn't miss em. He was never the musical type anyway.

There were two drawers remaining. I opened the one on the bottom. Patterns annoyed me. I preferred chaos in everything I did - even opening file cabinet drawers. Reaching in, I found... three envelopes. Sealed envelopes.

The first: Dear Mr. James Smith,

I have read your published works, and I must say, they intrigue me. Your work in genetic mutation is extremely interesting. The concept of combining sentient organisms has always been an exciting one, and the idea of combining dolphins and humans sounds especially incredible. The two smartest creatures in the animal kingdom combining as one sounds absolutely brilliant. 

Most Respectfully, Alexander Watterson

Wow. There's an information dump. Jim published works about me? Why didn't he open this letter? What was it doing in this cabinet? Why did it deserve its own drawer?

I opened the second: Dear Mr. James Smith,

Your studies are most intriguing, and I am interested to hear about your specimen. Should it survive the early stages of life, I will be interested to meet the experiment and see how its mammalian instincts have changed based on its genetics. I imagine it will become a highly social individual, so I would advise against sheltering it too much. I am intrigued by this interesting young individual.

Yours, Alexander Watterson.

Well, Jim sure didn't take that golden advice. Maybe I was still in the early stages of life? Maybe I wasn't prepared to meet Mr. Watterson? Quite frankly I didn't care. I knew I was being sheltered beyond belief, and I knew normal humans would have problems with that, but now I knew if Rapunzel was, say, a wolf-dolphin-baby, she would have some trouble remaining happy. 

With this new found information, I made the journey downstairs. As soon as I got to the hallway below our attic, I met Jim's friend.