I wake.
Not in the depths. Not in the silence of the abyss, where the currents whisper secrets only the sea can hold.
No, I wake to air. Dry, still, lifeless.
The machines over my gills hum, feeding me what the land cannot. It is functional again. The last I remember, it had failed me—cracked, broken, its pulse dwindling to nothing. I should have suffocated in the ruin of this wretched world.
Yet I did not.
Someone touched the machine. Repaired it.
A human.
I see her now, red-haired, small, her hands moving with careful purpose. A creature of warmth and breath, yet not like the ones who burn. Not like those who set the woods ablaze.
She was mercy where I had known only ruin.
I had believed them all the same. That the humans who scorched the land, who swallowed fire as easily as breath, were the only truth of their kind. But this one—she did not watch me fade. She did not let the abyss take me.
Does this change what I know?
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No.
Yet still—she will be good. She will teach me.
And if she proves false, if she is only an illusion of kindness before the tide turns—then she, too, will drown.
There is but one abode in this green ocean—wooden and small, caught between the swaying trees. The night folds over its roof like a closing maw, shadows stretching long against the dirt.
And I perch above, watching, unmoving. The cold air does not touch me. The silence does not disturb me.
Then, I descend.
The ground does not groan beneath my weight. I move as the ocean moves, soundless, shifting only when I must. The day creeps forward, sluggish and weak, its light casting long fingers against the grass.
The door opens.
A boy steps out.
His form is small, fragile, his scent lost to me, his heartbeat steady yet growing erratic. He sees me.
He falls.
I do not pause. I step over him, my form casting a shadow through the open threshold. The weak do not concern me.
Inside, warmth clings to the air, a dim contrast to the lifeless cold beyond. The space is crude, built of old materials, but it stands. It shelters.
Then, a voice.
A call.
"Hey, Klev? What was that?"
A presence moves, unseen beyond a doorway. I hear the shifting of fabric, the scrape of metal against wood. Then, she steps into view.
The red-haired one.
She stirs something in a pot, her form half-turned. But then she sees me.
She stops.
The color drains from her face. Her hands freeze, trembling against the wooden spoon she holds.
Her heart—beating. Rapid.
Good. She understands what stands before her.
I step closer. She does not move. She does not breathe. She is prey, locked in the moment before the hunt.
I speak.
The words ripple through the air, warping, shifting, before the machine translates them into sound.
"You have ten days."
Her lips part, but no words come.
"Ten days to prove your kind is not worthy of obliteration."
She gulps. The sound is small, swallowed by the tension in the room.
Then, finally, a whisper:
"Me?"
If forced to pick a human hobby, which would Vaurun tolerate the most?
