Chapter 2 (1/2)

The ray of light from his cell phone was set in that area and half a minute went by. The creature's pupil that reflected the light was still just as motionless as before.

Rand couldn't help but get closer.

He saw a fish.

”Phew...”

He breathed a sigh of relief.

It was indeed a fish— approximately ten centimeters long, right in a difficult situation, staying in a semi-dried up groove in the reef.

Rand has never come across this kind of fish before. It has a slender body and is colored a dull gray. It has a pointed head and has round eyes. Behind the eyes is a circular fluorescent pattern of the same size. The reflection Rand had seen just a moment ago came precisely from this pattern.

It looks like it's just an ordinary fish.

Some fish had probably been brought here when the tide rose, and when the tide ebbed, it became stranded in there.

”Poor little thing.”

Rand took out the fountain pen and tried to prod the fish out of the groove and throw it back into the sea. The fish struggled weakly, and Rand just then saw the scar on the other side of its body.

It resembled the mark of something biting down and tearing at its flesh, its blue blood rushes out of the bright red gash. Well, Rand must admit that this ordinary fish seems to be not too ordinary. After all, he has never seen a fish with scarlet red muscle tissue like humans and fluorescent blue blood.

But there is no denying that things in the deep sea are always a bit strange after all. After his first initial astonishment, Rand did not care about its bizarre blood and flesh. He was just somewhat hesitant about whether he should return the fish to the sea or not. It has very clearly sustained a serious injury on its body, and even if it returned to the sea, it was highly probable for it to be hunted by predators. Then staying here? After the high tide, it could still be flooded out by seawater.

It was as if his mind was being occupied by some strange emotional state.

His inexplicably decided to bring the fish back with him until the fish's wound healed over and then put it back into the sea again.

After his initial hesitation, Rand sacrificed his own sports water bottle and forced the fish to go in.

Of course, the process is not going well. The pen is not a good tool for dealing with a fish. After observing with difficulty that the fish had no teeth in its mouth, Rand had no choice but to grab the fish with his bare hands— and uncomfortably, after coming into contact with Rand's hand, something inside its lips ejected out like a sucker and attached to the wound on Rand's palm. Even more frightening is that Rand almost did not notice this thing until he was about ready to put the fish in the bottle only to find that the fish was unable to come off of his hand, it was only then that he found that d.a.m.ned sucker.

After separating himself from the sucker, the place where the cut on the palm of his hand was only a dim raised white line, all traces of blood were gone.

Rand felt somewhat disgusted, but the darkness of the sky and the clamor of the waves make him too distracted to worry too much about it.

He endured the urge to throw the fish back into the sea, Rand eventually returned to dry land with the strange fish.

As a dazzling red sports car starts up and begins driving to the city at the same moment, let us turn the camera back to the reef where Rand has been staying.

Beneath the reef, the high tides of the sea cras.h.i.+ng into the reef caused an intense current.

In the depths under the water, a rock is loosened, and it seems as if something in the black aquatic gra.s.ses slowly comes off.

A deathly pale corpse gently sways under the impact of the current, its figure appeared exceptionally strong and its facial features were handsome, but from its abdomen down, it wasn't connected to a human pair of legs... In that place, there was only one thick and solid fishtail.

”Beep—”

Inside the car, Rand heard his cell phone go off as he was driving his car.

He glanced at the caller ID and Vincent's name was flas.h.i.+ng about.

A faint shadow rose on Rand's cheek, but after a moment of pause, he ultimately still picked up the phone.

”Rand, where are you?”

Ice-cold, just like the mechanical voice that comes out from the other end of the receiver.

”I... just gathered some news and started to get ready to go home.”

Rand tried not to let his voice have any undulations.

”The place you went to today was the Blue Moon Coast.”