A long time ago, before humans, when the world was young, there was magic; wizards accompanied mighty warriors on quests for treasure, and selkies, the mystical half-sea creature, ruled the sea and everything in it. But as the world moved on, we didn’t need magic any more, and so one by one, the magical creatures chose a simpler life and lost their magic. But the selkies didn’t change; we hid from the world in a cave miles beneath the surface, and we’re still there waiting until the world needs magic to return from the long-forgotten history books.

Before I go on, there’s something you should know about selkies: we live for a really long time, and once we reach adulthood, we stop getting older. For instance, my dad is about 500 years old, give or take a couple centuries. But this story doesn’t start with me; it starts with a girl named Haley who lives on the surface in a place called California. At school, Haley wasn’t a very popular girl; she kept to herself and was very quiet for a girl her age. Her only friends were the fish and the waves. Haley had learned how to dive before she knew how to read and write. On her birthday, her father took her snorkeling in a deeper part than normal as a special treat. However, the rip current was stronger in that part of the ocean, and she got sucked away. She kicked as hard as she could but couldn’t get out of the current as she struggled.

Her snorkel was pulled away just as the current spat her out into a deep ocean cave. as the water started closing in around her and the world was fading to black. She realized that the cave was full of air! She swam to the surface to find a vast cavern full of passages and huge caves with people living inside of them. And that’s how we were discovered by the world.  

THE END

Or is it?