There are always bigger fishes in the waters.
They said. And I agreed. Even in real life, there were and are big fishes. Fishes who could swallow everything you had without even opening their mouth. I was just a fish, a growing fish well into his adulthood. I didn't had much room to grow. I was stuck in a small pond watching the ripples, knowing the vast oceans lay just beyond my reach. I was stuck in a small pond in a world where there were oceans just a leap away.
Whenever I tried leaping into the vast oceans, the pond would call for . The other fishes in the pond influenced by herd ntality, would swarm their collective fears of the vast ocean, would let do no such thing. And I caved in to them. I stayed. I stayed in a pond with just dreams to swim in the ocean regardless of the danger. Dreams that ant nothing if they remained just that.
I would hear stories of other fishes that jumped. Snatched and devoured by the eagles mid air, before they even touch the water. When they reach the ocean, all the fish in the ocean would make them a pariah, an outcast in their own species. They would be feasted on whatever fat they stored on the pond. Feasted just enough to let them live but just enough to let them be useful, let them live. They swan, not as equals but as prey, fattened again and again till the big fishes decided for a feast or a snack.
So I heard had jumped from a tiny fish to whales. Not the proper whale but big enough to be called one. By luck or by capability. I don't know. They don't speak much to the fishes in the pond. They have a new world, a new ho, a new current to swim in. A new odd to go against.
I wished I could swim like them in the current.
So I heard were brought to the ocean, courtesy of the big fishes there. The eagles would carry the said fishes to the ocean for other fishes. The said fishes had to do nothing, not even swim against the current. The big fishes would have schools of smaller fishes that would protect the said fishes, shield the said fishes from the current, hunt for the said fishes. The big fishes would take care of them and fatten them, raise them till they beca a big fish. The fishes that ruled a part or the whole ocean cared for them. Last I heard all were arrogant even for the ocean standard.
Then there were so fishes. Fishes who ca back.
Fishes who ca back from the ocean happy, satisfied, wounded, hurt, sad. So brought corals from the ocean to the little pond. They wanted peace of the pond. So were old. So had a family. So just wanted the slow current of the pond. I couldn't bla them.
So ca here with nothing but hunger. They plundered the pond for resources to rise as a big fish to tread the ocean waters. They disrupted the pond to grow big. Most did. So still visit to plunder. I couldn't bla them.
So ca back broken. So lost the hope of living. I could still see them swimming with the current, not resisting it at all. They swam but they had no direction. Those fishes had no ho, no will, no desire. Those fishes were already dead the mont they ca to the pond from the ocean. The current carried them, lifeless in spirit. Honestly, I couldn't bla them.
I never even been out of the pond. Even if I wanted to. Too Bound by the fishes and the water of the pond. I had grown past the age of easy adaptation. The ocean would be even harsher to , as I am currently.
But.
I do wish to know what the waters in the ocean would look like.
A foolish dream but it was mine.
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A bigger fish in the water, huh.
A taphor that ca true in front of my very eyes.
A Leviathan Class Anglerfish eaten in a single gulp.
The Lightning still lighting the whole area. I could see it. Not the angler fish. The one that ate it.
It was rising, upwards. A mass of darkness, so dark that even the light couldn't tell any other color. Nothing was visible of it. Nothing. Just glimpses. Glimpse of the endless.
Just how big is this thing?
The Anglerfish was at worst 300 ter to the best a Kiloter long. And ca out a bigger fish who swallowed it whole. Not hunted but swallowed.
It wasn't just bigger. It was faster. Faster than what my eyes could comprehend. Faster than the Anglerfish.
A second. That's all it had taken. A single second for a creature that could destroy cruise ships, capsize freighters, sink entire vessels without a trace.
A second. A second was all it took to swallow that Behemoth.
If I had so sort of awe for the Anglerfish size and its majestic. Then all I had was fear for this thing.
Every movent of this thing could shift oceans. A flick of its tail and it could make waves that would drown the costal cities.
Just like this hunting movent. Fuck.
I turned and ran.
If my luck was rotten as it always was, then a wave was coming. A big wave.
First ca the winds, sharper and more powerful than the storm. It hit like a hamr. My feet left the ground before I could even comprehend. I was airborne, a ragdoll caught in the chaos.
The winds threw far away. Very far away. And to remind of my luck, the light from the Lightning disappeared as well. I landed not on the barnacles but on the clean patch of skin. Pain shot through my body in an instant, sharp and blinding. Sothing cracked. Sothing gave way. Few back ribs were broken, no doubt.
But there was no ti to dwell. Because the wave was coming.
No, it ca. The wave hit . It hit like a wall of water, crashing down like a collapsing building. My ribs scread. My lungs emptied. Then the world spun. There was no up and down. just the ocean crushing under its weight from every direction.
I could do nothing against the force of nature. I was swept with it.
A booming thunder cracked overhead, loud enough to shake the air and with it violent convulsion upon my body. I coughed, choking, gasping as my lungs forced the water out. A sharp pain seized my heart.
I couldn't move. I couldn't even sit up. My lungs hurt. Every attempt to breathe felt like plunging a knife on my flesh. It wasn't just pain. Sothing was wrong.
I tried. A swallow inhale. A second. But no matter how much I tried, no matter how desperately my body begged for air, I wasn't getting enough. My vision blurred. My thoughts slowed. I was suffocating.
Sothing was wrong with my lungs.
I forced my trembling hand to move. The movent sluggish, uncoordinated, nothing worked right. My arm acted like it wasn't mine.
But I had to check. I had to know what was wrong.
And I felt it.
The jagged edges. The circular ends.
Barnacles. They had punctured . The waves had slamd into them. They had pierced straight through my right lung.
The realization ca slow, like a delayed horror finally setting in. I could feel them even in the agony. I could feel them, embedded deep, stuck in my flesh. The rough texture of their shells scraped with my flesh with every movent.
I took a breath. Too sharp. The pain nearly knocked unconscious. I coughed and a tallic texture coated my tongue.
Blood and Chunks of flesh.
I had to move. I had to get them out.
I gritted my teeth. I pushed against the ground, forcing my upper body up. The movent was hell. I could feel the barnacle lodged inside shift, tear more wounds grind with my ribs. the sharp edges scraped against the wound as they ca loose slowly, painfully.
Fuck.
I bit down on my lips hard enough to draw blood. Every centiter I lifted, the shells dragged against the raw flesh, rubbing salt into the gashes. Literally. The barnacles were covered in salty layers. Coarse, Rough, Jagged. And my body was feeling every second of it.
But I kept moving.
One breath at a ti. One centiter at a ti. Even if it hurt like hell, even if every fiber in my body scread.
I kept going.
The barnacles were out.
I could feel it—the gaping wounds they left behind, the raw, open flesh screaming with every breath. But I could breathe. It hurt like hell but I could breathe.
The storm raged on, the wind howled like so unseen predator circling its prey. Rain fell harder. Every drop stung as it washed over my wounds, mixing with the blood, thinning it, carrying it away.
But I didn't care.
I stayed on my knees, forcing deep, uneven breaths through gritted teeth. Each inhale felt like fire spreading through my ribs, sharp and unforgiving. The pain blurred my thoughts, but through the haze, one thing settled in clearly.
I was exhausted. I am tired.
One life-threatening mont after another. One impossible scenario bleeding into the next. Every choice I had made had led here battered, wounded and alone.
Yes, I chose to walk into the dark.
Yes, I chose to approach the Leviathan.
Yes, I did this. I did that. I made my own bed.
But damn.
I am so fucking tired.
I wanted to rest. Just for a mont. Just one mont where I wasn't running, wasn't bleeding, wasn't fighting for every inch of my life.
So, I did.
I let my body fall back, arms sprawled out, my face tilted up to the sky. Rain hamred against my skin, cold and unyielding. My clothes clung to , soaked through, heavy, suffocating. But none of it mattered.
I just lay there. Letting the rain drops fall on .
What a shitty week this has been.
From being in a raft to fighting bastard just to eat to the storm I weathered to the whale kid that made see the deep dark blue. Then the whole barnacles and bugger issue. The sentient blood that swallowed everything in its path. eating the said blood and reaching into the fog, seeing the Cathedral being built, seeing the kids smile, seeing them happy. The Seven Sins that ca from the fog. The pinky promise. To the fucking leviathan now.
Things no one else would know. Things no onw else should know.
And ? Just a man. A man trying to survive. A man who stepped too far in a world that was never ant from him.
I exhaled, long and slow.
Let it rain.
Let the storm scream.
Let the world do what it wanted.
Just for a little while.
Let rest.
The rain felt cold. The wind made the cold rain even colder. But sohow, it was refreshing.
I lay there, sprawled out on the wet ground, the pain in my body dulled by exhaustion. The storm raged on, howling its fury, but I didn't care.
Sowhere in the distance, thunder cracked—a sharp reminder of where I was. Of what surrounded .
But why should I care?
Let rest.
Let lie here, let feel the rain, let forget about the Anglerfish Leviathan and the Leviathan of the Leviathan that swallowed it whole. Almost dying with one wave is enough for .
Another one would kill for sure.
Hah.
Shouldn't there be two waves?
One from when that monstrous thing erged, and another from when it went under.
Fuck.
Another wave was coming.
Like so divine punchline to a cruel joke, the sky split apart once more. Lightning carved through the darkness, lighting up my surroundings in an instant. And in that flickering second of clarity, I saw it.
The Apex Leviathan.
Still moving.
Still rising.
Not diving back into the waters- rising into the cloud.
And then, a portion of its massive, unfathomable body ca down, bearing wrath from the gods itself.
Falling right above ground.
Near the place the Anglerfish was eating.
I should have stayed in my pond. I just wanted to rest.
The impact hit like the wrath of a god. A deafening sound of earth and sky colliding. Shockwaves ripped through everything. The ground beneath trembled. The force tore from my spot, from the tiny mont of peace I had stolen for myself. I flew into the air once more.
I barely had ti to curse before the world flipped upside down.
And then, I was falling.
Straight into the cold, pitch-black waters.
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