Your years of experience with predators have kept you alive through countless dangers, taught you how to read the currents of fear and motion, the subtle twitch of gills, the faintest shimmer of intent. Yet nothing in your memory prepared you for the speed of this Leviathan. Its shadow stretches long behind you, a living darkness that devours every flicker of hesitation. There is no room for error, no margin for exhaustion—only one option remains: swim, as fast as your limbs and tail can carry you through the churning, salt-laden water.

A sudden, rough jolt halts your progress. You have stumbled into a net, the coarse fibers biting painfully along your tail. Pain flares, sharp and immediate, but the Leviathan presses closer, its presence a threat more than a shape, a force of nature closing in. Your lungs constrict with tension, your heart pounds, your mind calculates: bite your way out. There is no other path.

You sink your teeth into the fibrous rope, the taste of salt and tension on your tongue, muscles coiling, straining, tearing. The fibers resist at first, stubborn, wiry, threatening to keep you trapped. Then, under your persistence, they begin to fray, snapping slowly, sweetly, releasing their hold. You heave your body free, tail whipping in relief, and freeze for a fraction of a second—only to notice the Leviathan has halted, just before the final strand gives way.

Huh?

A sound drifts from him, muffled, almost imperceptible—a hand pressed over lips. A giggle. A tiny, human-like sound carried across the water.

"Apologies," he says, voice smooth, deliberate, teasing. The chuckle slips through his fingers, lilting, irrepressible. "I was simply caught off guard. Please, do continue."

Heat rises in your chest. Confusion tangles with irritation, fear still lingering in the wake of the chase. Is your pain amusing him? The water, once neutral, now feels colder, sharper, every stroke of your tail echoing against the knowledge that he is watching—not merely hunting, but observing, enjoying the struggle itself.

There is a strange, unnerving rhythm to it—the hunt, the brief pause, the laugh—and it unsettles you in ways your training never could. Every fiber of your being screams caution, yet a flicker of curiosity ignites: why does he find it so entertaining? What is it in your defiance, your struggle, that catches him off guard so completely?

Your muscles tense again, tail slicing through the water, breath burning in your lungs. The Leviathan may have paused, but the game is far from over. And beneath the terror, beneath the sting of rope and salt, a singular thought threads through your mind: this predator does not merely hunt—you must survive him while understanding him, or be claimed entirely.