“Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.”

Bil Keane

Back then, there was much that I did not know nor that I understood. I was scared, I thought that nothing worse could happen. But in reality, I was just ignorant of everything around me.

Three months ago, I thought that Jessica and I were treated horribly. We had to train for four hours straight, we had to jump out of the water as if it was nothing, we were only fed fish, others got punished for what we did wrong and we weren’t let out of the water tank.

I thought that we were punished as much as the others and treated as horribly as the others but I was wrong. If we had to train for four hours straight, they had to work for eight hours straight. If we had to jump out of the water as if it was nothing, they had to smile and had to be nice to the people that were hurting them and were laughing at them. If we only had fish to eat, they had barely enough to eat at all. If others were punished for us, they were punished and saw their loved ones get punished. And if we weren’t let out of our cage, they were only let out after they got through a lot of pain because of the change and then they could only look at the trapped people inside the cages which they knew that they would join again after a couple of hours.

Apparently, Jessica and I were special, maybe because of the fact that we were mythical creatures. The ringmaster took better care of us than he took of anyone else… But I just could not understand why we were special.

Not that it mattered, I had other things to worry about: I was lonely, I missed home despite everything what had happened and tried to find someone or something to get comfortable with. Ah, sure you would think that it was Hyukjae who after we trained got closer to me, who held me, who stood by my side. But he wasn’t by my side. He wasn’t angry at me, he wasn’t ignoring me, he wasn’t loving me…

He was indifferent towards me. And it hurt, terribly, horribly, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it and after two months, I felt the sting go away, it was only a dull pain now. I had accepted that I didn’t mean anything to Hyukjae and I made peace with that.

And I was not the only one who had to forget a loved one. Instead of what everyone had expected, Yesung didn’t come back. He had successfully escaped using the water pipes thereby leaving Ryeowook behind. Ryeowook was devastated and he refused to swim no matter how much they hurt anybody, it didn’t matter if it was him or someone else.

Everyone was very surprised about what Yesung did. He had not only left a loved one behind, he had also left his human life behind. He would have to live the rest of his life as a snake. Siwon, who had come by our tank a couple of times too, told me and Jessica that there was a rumor that Yesung had found a way to stay human but no one really knew for sure and I suspected that that rumor just started to keep the hope of becoming human again.

But unbeknownst to me or Jessica, there were people who didn’t think that the animals would ever become human again and they decided that we had to make the best of it so they designed a plan to get out of the circus. However, that plan would bring us much more than our freedom…

-~*~-

The whip landed hard against the sand that laid in the ring. It even resounded in the tank and I dared to take a peek at the tamer. He didn’t look to annoyed so apparently I wasn’t disappointing him.

I made some powerful movements wi