Tirad feels a sudden banging on the boat hull. He sits up frightened. He didn’t want to fall asleep but he had. He turns around. Dalia is not there. The boat trembles and goes up and down. He rushes out. The boat lights are on but Dalia is not on the deck. He hurries towards the gunwale and sees a school of white fish attacking the boat, banging their bodies against the hull and striking it with their tales and muzzles. He can’t say how many of them there are. They keep coming up to the surface and diving back in. Where is Dalia? Tirad shouts her name and looks around the boat and on the waves until he finally sees her. She is on the surface surrounded by dolphins that turn around her in circles. Tirad turns on the flashlight, shining it on Dalia and the dolphins, hoping the strong beam would frighten off the fish. But the dolphins continue their dance-like turning around Dalia. Tirad stands on the gunwale to jump in the water and swim to her that Dalia’s sudden scream freezes him. There is blood all over her body, darkening the surface, turning the black water into red. Tirad jumps and swims towards her.

The dolphins make their circle wider and tighter. As he swims, he sees one of the dolphins holding Dalia’s back under the surface, making her float in supine position. Her legs open under the water. He catches his breath and stays under to see the hairless baby slide out from between her legs. Tirad swims faster, moving her arms and thighs as fast as he can and trying not to lose sight of Dalia and the baby. The raindrops dull his vision and the seawater makes his eyes soar. His breathing sound is deafened by the squeaking song of the dolphins. He feels his heart’s hole is wide open again and he is breathless. The more he tries, the further he gets away from Dalia. But he won’t give in. He uses all his strength and swims forward. The dolphins dive in and the sky and the sea settle simultaneously.

Tirad sees Dalia floating on the water. A dolphin is still holding her back with its muzzle. There is no sign of the baby. Tirad goes under the water and looks around with soaring eyes, searching for his baby. The dolphins go down deep circling around like a white cone in the water. A female dolphin is standing still in the centre of the cone with its baby dolphin. Tirad’s baby swims towards her and sticks to her body, wrapping its arms around the dolphin’s tail. The baby takes its head forward and seems to be nursing from the dolphin’s breast. Tirad can’t say whether his baby is a girl or a boy; its legs are conjoined, like Asin’s babies that Dalia had told him about. Tirad swims towards the dolphins to take his baby back. But the big dolphins start attacking him, pushing him back and not allowing him to move forward and swim. Tirad comes to the surface and takes another deep breath and dives in, trying to reach Dalia and the baby and the fish stop him again. He should have brought a knife with him!