The eerie harmony of the whales mixed with the crash of waves, the bellows of seals, and shrieking gulls.  Whiskers tingling, ears twitching, I raced with my brothers and sisters to hear the whale song.  They always sang of the places they'd been in their roving travels.  Images of sunkissed sandbanks and fish more colorful than the sunrise intermixed with visions of giant white polar bears and bone-chilling tides tangled among their choruses. On our little island we had none of this glory and splendor. The whales were my escape to places I would never visit.
    Their voices reached my ears. I flattened them in horror, my tail lashing. There was no harmony in their song, only terror and discord. Pursuing them was a giant monster. It had a spike coming from its back with white wings attached. Its skin was like the dull brown of driftwood that wased up on the beach. Stranger still were the two-legged bird-beasts with oddly colored fur and bright, bright eyes. They threw giant claws at the whales. The most horrid sound came from the nearest whale. One by one I watched them fall as they were dragged onto the monster. Redness filled the water. The monster lurched away.
    Numb with shock we watched them disappear. A petrified silence captured us. Seals stopped arguing, sand crabs stopped dancing, even gulls were unmoving, Only the waves crashed. One hit me with an anguished fury. I felt detached somehow from seeing my amber fur soaked in blood. I was pelted with memories of that peaceful pod, peaceful mothers, watchful males, chuckling calves, tides, songs of orange coral, fish with arms like jellied seaweed, frozen tides, even otters like me eagerly awaiting the whale song. I came back to reality, all around me waves stained the sand crimson death. The gulls began a slow, mournful cry. The songs are over. The joy is departed. The magic is forgotten.
The whales are gone, gone, gone.