Forever Lost At Sea

A whale fall.

How many days of Devouring have passed since the last time they tasted something so sweet and fatty? Picked-over flesh turns white, among ghastly shades of a pale blue-green light bobbing around in the murk, as they heavily drift along the sandy floor. They pick at the smaller pieces hanging off bone where the crustaceans scuttle and part around the much larger fish drifting through. They have no such claws to tear off from the bulk of the oily meat, their teeth long, pointed, overfilling a mouth that no longer closes, and unable to ravage a corpse beyond the easy bites of scraps left by others.

A whale fall is a treasure for the ocean. For Nightcurrent, however, their hoofprints left along the sand meant they held no desire to plunder this chest. For them, a whale fall is a welcomed hunting ground.

Somewhere more lively than the yawning eternity of the dark waters, the cold fog and murk of swimming, swimming, and swimming endlessly until one meets either prey or predator. There once was life more than this for them. Hazy memories that bleed into the blue-green light shining their way forward. Sunlight. Warm sand. Warm rocks. Warmth. Now their mouth is only ever warm when their maw closes around the next meal, slippery and shaken from the lure hanging off the monster’s head. Their meals struggle, caught in backwards-facing teeth, given no choice but in, but to be devoured, that one day it may be enough to fill the cavity inside Nightcurrent.

An empty stomach, an empty maw. An empty ocean.

The whale is not the satiation they seek. All meat went down the same way. However, under a rare moon where the light barely penetrates and Nightcurrent drifts aimlessly into water that almost warms them, they find the true buffet for their hunger.

A soft, bobbing lure. A green glow emanating in the dim murk, catching light off particles and plankton floating through the seawater. It flicks. A steady, seemingly playful back-and-forth. Inviting. A merfaun who does not know better. Whom lives the seas and knows its currents, fearful of little in their bounty; shy of four-legs along the coasts, eager to swim and play with their own kind. Attina chases for the light in a burst of speed, exhilaration bursting through her lungs as it lingers just ahead of her. Always ahead of her. Why? When she is the fastest mer amongst the tidal pools and reefs. This curiosity outpaces her, as though slicing the water in a channel meant only for it, and yet the bioluminescent light dances just out of reach, displaying no sign of running away from her.

Darkness cuts through the oceanic murk. Attina realizes she can no longer feel the sun’s rays all the way out in open water like this. Surrounded by nothing but the gloom.

At last, she catches up to the light; it grows brighter, larger, illuminating a shadowy silhouette that her eyes, poor in the dark, do not recognize apart from the suddenly still waters around them. The merfaun cocks her head at it. Swims up to it, close enough that she could stretch out a hoof to.. swiftly poke it. The light bobs again, urging her closer. This time, Attina lunges her neck out in a full stretch to tap it with her nose, finding it has a greasy surface, like one of her own feathers. From behind the lightsource are a pair of bulbous, white.. jellyfish? And then a nose, with a white blaze like hers, though it splits into an empty maw of teeth, teeth, so many teeth— until Attina is staring Nightcurrent (herself) in the face, and they lunge towards her, with all those teeth, empty eyes, empty mouth, and an even emptier stomach, devouring, devouring—

Attina jolts awake, thrashing in waters that felt far more icy than the cozy, sleepy warmth when she’d drifted off for the night. Still here. Still her.Telling up from down was as difficult as in her dream— no, her nightmare, and she scarcely could remember how long she’s been out. It could have been hours, or minutes. Either way, her lungs screamed to take a breath as the merfaun kicks off the cave wall in a sardine line towards the surface. Her long tail whips against rock and coral, snagging in none too pleasant ways. In a powerful convulsion of her body, Attina frees herself to continue upwards in a shower of bubbles and a bitten off shriek.

Towards the light, leaving the gloom of paranoia and distasteful omens of an unbelievable future behind.