What had his trainers been thinking, making him jump through fire? Surely they knew how stressful that was. Surely they knew he was, like all animals, instinctively afraid of fire?
Of course they knew. But they did it anyway. He had heard from the sea lions that the tourists were complaining about how boring the tricks he and his four podmates performed. They had wanted something daring and new!
They certainly got it.
It was during a night show. The lights had been shut off; the Ring of Fire provided the only source of light. The image had burned itself in his mind: the flaming hoop, fiercely blazing.
The shadows danced across the walls of the aquatheatre as though they were demons; the orange light illuminated the faces of the tourists, enhancing their already unnatural appearance.
It was a scene straight from the bowels of hell.
The trainer was getting impatient. She gave the signal again. He didn’t want to do it; he couldn’t do it! But if he didn’t, he would be punished; goes to show how irresponsible his trainers were, punishing for everything he did wrong instead of praising him for everything he did right.
He mustered up his courage. Every instinct told him to swim the other way; he swam towards the ring and leapt. It was just like jumping through a hoop, he told himself. But the heat, the searing heat, made him remember that this was nothing like jumping through a hoop. Jumping through hoops was fun. Jumping through flaming rings was torture.
The hoop was never properly cared for. They’d wanted to save money by using the ring until it splintered. Which it did. They simply hadn’t expected it to happen during a performance…or to their most loyal and determined performer.
The timing was impeccable. How could it have happened on accident? Apparently, destiny existed and was very spiteful towards him.
In his memory, it happened in slow motion. The hoop splintered near the bottom; a sliver of the burning hot, rusted metal sprung up, whacking him in the right eye just as he was leaping through. Due to the angle of his jump, the metal caught his eye and – he always gagged involuntarily at the memory of it – plucked it out. The pain and the shock caught Blowhole off guard, causing him to flail in mid-air, catch the ring, and pull it into the water with him.
He could hardly see through the blood in the water. The ring’s fire was slowly dying from the water, and there was a faint splash at the surface. In a panic, his trainer was signaling him to come back. He could hear the tourists already screaming in panic.
They’d wanted a show. Now he was going to give it to them.
He rocketed towards the surface, where his
trainer was splashing the water. Blinking the blood from his remaining eye, he bit his trainer’s wrist; for a split second, he saw his own blood splatter across her startled face. He pulled her into the water, twisting his body with enough strength to rip off her had. A hand for an eye.
The tourists were in a panic. Some ran past the tank; he killed some by bashing their skulls open with his powerful flukes. Others he reached over and bit on the neck, tearing their throats. By this time, the blood loss was crippling him. So he beached himself on the edge of the tank, where his trainer had stood. As he lay there, dying, he watched as the Ring of Fire went out, plunging him in darkness.
The humans sewed up his eye and sent him to a rehabilitation facility. But he refused to obey them any longer. They’d shattered his trust. He would never listen to them again. As the truck stopped, he gathered his strength and flung himself at the first person he could. That person had been a tourist on a segway; wonderful. He balanced himself on the segway, piloting it away. Instead of banding together to capture or kill him, as a dolphin pod would, the humans panicked, scattering in all directions. Blowhole escaped into an empty building, formerly a pool store.
From there, he began to build.
He built a larger, stronger, and more mobile segway. He built a replacement eye. He built a pool to keep himself cool and wet. He built up his muscles to support his weight, so that he could stay out of water for longer and longer periods of time. He built up plans for revenge.
The penguins had chanced upon him and destroyed his plans. They hadn’t understood why, and they couldn’t. They hadn’t been broken by humans before.
He continued his plans for revenge. As the years passed, he grew more bitter towards the humans and more antagonistic towards those penguins. His plans grew more elaborate as he grew older. And he became more and more aware of an interesting truth.
The Ring of Fire had never burned out completely. It was now embedded in his very spirit, burning and spitting ashes. It scarred his spirit, just as it had scarred his face. It burned his mind, just as it had burned his flesh. It fueled his hatred and need for vengeance.
Dr. Blowhole would never forget it.
