The Water People

I had a dream that followed me throughout my entire childhood. It returned again and again, almost identical every time. I was out swimming. The water was calm, as if it were waiting for something. Then they arrived. I called them the water people. They didn’t appear suddenly. They were just there, as if they had always been in the water, watching me long before I noticed them. They were tall, luminous—not like mermaids or anything I had seen in movies. There was something calm about them. Something that didn't need to explain itself. Then they took me down. Not violently. Not frighteningly. Just firmly. As if it were perfectly natural. The strange thing wasn’t that they pulled me underwater. The strange thing was that I wasn't afraid. I remember thinking: "Now I am dying," and it was completely okay.

And then they said:

"You can breathe here. You just have to believe it." And I believed it. I breathed in. The water wasn’t water anymore. It was like air, only heavier, softer. And I became calm. Completely calm.

Then the journey began. They led me to a place I could never quite bring back with me. A kind of underwater castle, but not the way we usually think of castles. It was alive. And the light didn't come from lamps, but from the place itself. Everything had its own stillness and its own pulse.

Every time I was there, it felt as if I understood something. And every time, I knew I was going to forget it. Before they led me back up, they always said: "You won’t remember this when you wake up." And they were right. I only remembered fragments. The feeling. The calm. The light. And the certainty that there was more. The strange thing was how convinced I remained after waking up. I felt a deep certainty that the rules of the dream were real, though in the waking world, it was impossible. Yet, the feeling wouldn't let go.

This dream followed me for many years. Until I was around eighteen. Then it stopped.

I hadn't thought much about it until the writing of Project Earth began.

In the fourth book, the girls encounter something again called the water people. This time in Lake Titicaca, which in the story represents the Earth's sacral chakra. It wasn't planned that way. It just happened. As if something old was allowed to resurface, a little clearer this time. It is still unknown what that dream was. A fantasy? A way for the brain to process something? Or just a child experiencing the world a little differently? Perhaps. Or perhaps there are places only accessible when one stops trying to understand them.