[POV – Storm]
Salt burned in my chest, each heartbeat forcing it deeper, hotter, sharper. My lungs refused to pull air, my throat clamped shut, and panic thundered in my head. Arms flailed in the water, striking stone and jagged coral until skin tore. Pain flared, but it gave me something to cling to. I shoved my body into a crack in the reef, ribs scraping raw against stone, heart racing like a drum. The shadow passed overhead, long and smooth, every movement heavy with purpose.
Predator.
A golden eye glowed in the dark, molten and watchful. Its jaws opened, teeth flashing in rows sharper than knives. The snout pressed into the crack where I hid, stone groaning under the impact. Dust floated down in clouds. My chest convulsed, the burning unbearable. Muscles screamed for oxygen. Vision blurred. The world narrowed to teeth and shadow.
Then, with a lazy flick of its tail, the predator coiled away. Bubbles trailed in its wake as it slipped into the dark.
My body gave out. A violent spasm forced water from my throat. Gills along my neck split open, pulling current through. Oxygen trickled into blood that was already screaming. It wasn't enough. But it kept me alive.
Hands clung to stone. Not human hands. Fingers webbed with translucent skin. Nails curved sharp, almost like claws. Scales flecked pale across forearms, shimmering faintly in the algae glow. Thin arms. Weak ribs. A body that felt wrong.
"What the hell…" My voice was hoarse, like gravel grinding in saltwater.
The water lit up.
[Welcome, Littoral Spawn.]
[Classification: Sea Gnome (juvenile).]
[Base stats established.]
[Survival chance: 4%.]
I froze. Words burned in my vision, clear and undeniable. No AR headset. No screen. Just letters etched into the world.
"System," I whispered. The words didn't vanish. More appeared.
[Warning: starvation imminent.]
[Warning: predator threat radius: 12m.]
[Recommendation: hide or perish.]
A sick laugh bubbled in my chest. Starvation. Perish. Four percent chance. Thanks for the pep talk.
Memory stabbed through my skull. A desk. Fingers on keys. A screen glowing blue in the dark. A cheap chair biting into my spine. Then nothing. Just static. The harder I reached, the worse it hurt.
I died.
The thought wasn't a guess. It was certainty. I died. And now… now I was here.
Not human. Not even close.
Reincarnated.
The crack in the reef wouldn't hide me forever. Hunger gnawed harder than fear. My stomach twisted like something was eating it from the inside. The current tugged at me, urging movement. I pushed off stone, my limbs clumsy but driven.
The chute opened into a basin.
Dim light from algae washed the walls in sickly green. Figures huddled in the sand below. Small. Thin. Hollow-eyed. Their ribs jutted sharp as knives. They looked like me.
Sea Gnomes.
And just like me, they were starving.
A woman crouched over a boy, tearing kelp into thin strips. She pressed one into his mouth. He chewed slow, too weak to do more. Her hair floated like stiff grass, dark and short. Gold flecks shimmered faintly on her collarbones. Her eyes locked on me, steady and tired.
"Who are you," she asked.
The question cut deeper than hunger. Who was I? No name came. Not my old one. Not a new one. Just emptiness.
"I don't know," I said.
She studied me a moment longer, then nodded once. "You breathe today. That's enough."
The boy peeked around her arm, grin too wide for his thin face. "If he breathes, he can carry nets. Or be bait. I like bait better."
A few chuckles stirred from the others. Weak, but real.
An old woman floated forward. Her hair was pale as foam, beads clinking at her throat. She pressed a hand to a cracked stone half-buried in sand. Dull green light seeped from it, humming through the basin. Her voice rose in song. Low and slow, the notes vibrated the water. The words weren't English, but meaning crawled into me anyway. Endure. Be counted. Don't vanish.
The dark-haired woman leaned closer. "Don't talk during song. You think loud. It leaks."
"I wasn't talking."
"You were thinking very loud." A twitch pulled at her mouth, almost a smile. "I'm Luma."
I touched my chest. Empty. Shook my head. "Later."
"Later then."
The boy puffed up. "Kelvin. Brave. Fast. Handsome. Mostly hungry."
"Mostly loud," Luma said.
The song ended. The cracked slab dimmed. The old woman's voice rolled out like tidewater. "Salt Father hears. He weighs. He watches. We share. We work. We live."
Salt Father. A god. Or a system dressed as one. Didn't matter. Hunger was real, and gods didn't fill stomachs.
A tangle of torn nets caught my eye. Instinct dragged me to them. Fingers picked through, separating frayed strands from strong. Twist. Pull. Knot. Patterns came without thought.
"You can weave," Luma said.
"Yes."
"Then do it."
I worked, hands moving faster than my brain. Cross. Pull. Knot. A rough triangle grew, solid enough to catch. I tied a pocket at the bottom, slipped in a stone.
Kelvin swam upside down to watch. "Looks like crab vomit."
"It'll catch fish anyway."
"If it doesn't, we'll eat the crab."
"You'll eat your tongue first," Luma muttered, but her eyes never left my hands. She tested a knot. Firm. She nodded once. "Teach."
So I did. Twist wet against dry. Weight the pocket so current opened the mesh. Clumsy hands steadied. The old woman hummed again, her voice like a metronome.
When the net was finished, I carried it to the chute. Luma grabbed my wrist.
"Not alone."
She hooked Kelvin by the neck when he tried to dart past. Together, the three of us slid into the shallows.
Light fractured from the surface. Schools of fish darted in silver flashes. My gut twisted so hard I nearly doubled over. Hunger was worse than drowning.
We sank the weighted pocket. The net drifted open. We waited.
Minutes dragged. A fish nosed the edge. Another followed. The school tipped too far. I pulled.
The net snapped shut. Two fish struggled. Luma dragged it in, her shell shard flashing quick. Blood curled red into the water.
Kelvin whooped. "Two! That's a feast!"
"No feast," Luma said. "Work." She tied the fish to her belt.
We swam back. Heads lifted in the basin. Hollow eyes sharpened. The old woman smiled faintly. "Praise the tide."
"Praise the hands," Luma answered.
The fish were cut into strips and shared. Each strip barely a bite, but no one complained. When Kelvin's turn came, he looked at me.
"You should keep one."
"I could."
"Why don't you."
"Because you're smaller."
He chewed on that, then nodded. "Fair." He stuffed the strip into his mouth. "You're No-Name."
"I'm not No-Name."
"Then say it."
I couldn't. The hole inside me gaped wider.
The system flickered.
[Caloric deficit reduced.]
[Minor stamina restored.]
[Skill tendency detected: Improvised Netweaving I]
No one else reacted. No one else saw it. Just me.
So not only starving. Bugged too.
The ground trembled faintly. Shadows filled the chute. Wide fins sliced the water. Sharks.
"Cartel," someone whispered.
Luma shoved Kelvin behind a pillar, then pushed me after. "Hide. Don't move."
Three sharks slid into the basin, slow and confident. The leader's eyes were black coins. The water chilled.
The Reef Witch rose, hands empty. She sang. The slab glowed. Pressure pulsed from the leader like meaning without words. Tribute.
"We gave last moon," she said. "We have little."
The weight pressed heavier. More. Flesh. Pearls. Or death.
The leader turned toward a girl who hadn't hidden fast enough. It bumped her with its snout. She trembled, frozen.
Luma slipped between them. She held out the last scraps of fish, wrapped in kelp. The shark took them slow, teeth flashing. Its eyes stayed locked on hers.
Heat crawled under my skin. Rage, sharp as knives. Fingers found a shell shard. Worthless. Still, I clenched it.
Kelvin grabbed my wrist. His eyes wide. Don't.
The Reef Witch's song deepened. The slab flared bright. The leader pressed its snout against it, shuddered, then pulled back. The sharks circled once, then flicked their tails and slid out.
Silence.
"They'll return," the Reef Witch said. "They smelled fat in the water."
"Then we make them bleed," I said, the words spilling before I could stop them.
Heads turned. Fear. Hope. Both.
The Reef Witch's gaze cut into me. "How."
"We build. We trap. We stop singing to them. We cut them."
"You speak like a storm," she murmured.
Luma's eyes stayed on me. "Can you teach us faster."
"Yes."
"Then teach. We need many nets."
Kelvin raised his hand. "I'll be captain of nets. Because I'm brave."
"You're captain of silence," Luma said. "Hold it."
He saluted, held it three heartbeats, then grinned.
Work began. Stripping kelp. Drying strands. Braiding cords until fingers bled. Stones hammered into cracks. The Reef Witch hummed, the slab pulsed, Luma corrected knots, I moved from hand to hand.
The system pulsed.
[Group task detected: Emergency Netline Production]
[Settlement Survival +1]
[Skill tendency raised: Tactics I]
I kept it to myself. The sea spoke only to me.
When exhaustion broke us, the Reef Witch dimmed the slab. "Sleep. We live tomorrow."
Luma shoved Kelvin into his hollow, then looked at me. "You too."
"I'll mend."
"You'll sleep. A tired hand knots a noose."
She was right. I curled under a pillar, back to stone. Eyes closed.
Words lit up.
[Event logged: First Catch]
[Minor title available: Net-Mender]
[Accept? Y/N]
I thought yes.
[Title gained: Net-Mender]
[Effect: +1% catch chance when using improvised nets]
Small. Too small. But tides start small before they drown towns.
The floor trembled faintly. Not sharks. Deeper. Older. Cold air kissed my neck. At the far wall, a black slit gaped. A shaft plunging into dark. The water colder around it, like breath from something waiting below.
I stared until eyes burned. Then turned away.
Four percent is a lie, I thought. We will live anyway.
The slab pulsed once, faint as a heartbeat. Sleep dragged me under.