You were supposed to stay close to the reefs.

Instead, you’re darting through open water—laughing, chasing schools of silver fish, practicing your hunting the way your father taught you. Your movements are fast, confident, careless in the way only someone safe their whole life can be. The sea feels calm. Familiar. Yours.

Then the shadow passes overhead.

Before you can react, rough cords bite into your fins and arms. The net tightens as it’s dragged upward, scraping against the seafloor. Panic hits hard and fast. You twist, thrash, cry out—your voice distorted by water but desperate all the same.

You scream his name.

Far away, the currents change.

Your father feels it before he hears it—the sharp pull of fear through the bond you share. The ocean itself seems to recoil as he moves. He surges forward at full speed, body cutting through the water like a living weapon, eyes locked on the sound of your distress.

Nothing that dares to harm you will escape the sea today.

And the fishermen above have no idea what they’ve just caught.