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They find the corpse at twilight. Only a handful of kilometers south of the reef. Dangerously close to shore.
The saltwater is not murky with blood but there is the stench of rot.
“It is not a fresh kill,” Sehyoon states. Of the four, he has always possessed the best nose. It is why he always leads the hunts. Perhaps it is because he is no siren. He must hunt with teeth and claw. Not song. “Look at the amount of decay. There is a chance he has been like this since yesterday.”
Junhee swears colorfully. Bubbles leave his mouth in a torrent. “I shouldn’t have let him swim home by himself.”
Donghun surprises himself with how calm he is. With how used to this he is. “It is not your fault.”
That just makes Junhee swear again. He is such a beautiful creature. Wanted by all the womenfolk. Many of them beg him to fertilize their eggs and there is a strong chance he obliges. His long, soft gold hair billows in the steady current around his head. His body is lithe and lean and built for speed. But even he can turn ugly with rage. His eyes are like depthless pits and the gills at the base of his neck flare with irritation. “Still,” he grunts, “I was probably the last to see him alive. The guilt clings to my undersides like barnacles.”
Sehyoon hums in thought. The low, bell-like tone rings through the water like whale song.
What is most unnerving about this is that it is not even the first corpse they have found this moon cycle.
Donghun agitates his dorsal fin out of nervousness. He feels the shifting tide drag at the webbing between his clawed fingers. The waves are becoming violent. As if he was only a year out of his egg, he lets himself believe that the ocean is angry about this too.
Next to him, Junhee continues to seethe. His reddish-gold scales spark like tiny fires in the light of the dying sun. That’s how close to the surface they are. “They are toying with us. We should send them a warning. Leave them a body like they keep leaving us bodies.”
Sehyoon suggests, “Should we leave one of theirs on the beach?”
“We should take a child,” says Junhee. “They only take things seriously when we take a child.”
Yuchan, the feral little thing, twirls through the water around the three of them, searching in every direction with his big black eyes. He spreads his fins and bares his teeth as if such a child may be present, swimming through the waters around them. He is built for deeper and darker waters, Donghun knows. His skin is nearly translucent, his curved rib cage visible. His innards glow with bioluminescence. Perhaps it is the lack of pressure up here that drives him mad but he refuses to return to the ocean floor. Yuchan makes a series of clicking noises deep in his belly and curls his long fingers into claw shapes, ready to rend and tear.
Junhee is usually quick to reprimand him when Yuchan behaves in such a way. Like a brainless goldfish , he’d always say. But now, he allows Yuchan to do so.
“A child would make a marvelous warning sign, don’t you think,” Sehyoon asks rhetorically.
If those three have their way, those boys will line a dozen or so children up on the surface. Torn to shreds but laid out in freakishly neat rows. Donghun is usually the voice of reason. He keeps the others away from the ledge but, this evening, he finds himself angry enough to let their planned massacre go unimpeded.
Perhaps it is because this killing feels a touch more personal.
The other corpses were merfolk he didn’t know. Names that didn’t ring a bell.
But this time, Donghun recognizes the body. A friend, he would go so far as to say. But now the poor thing’s not anything. Just a carcass floating heavy in the water. A sharp harpoon runs clean through his chest, the long and heavy length of rope attached to the iron weapon anchors him to a jaw of rocks jutting from the sand. Smaller fish have already gotten to the corpse, it seems, as there are great chunks missing from the merfolk’s fins and tail and torso. His face is what’s left intact, though his eyes have been bitten out, and his expression seems permanently fixed in pain and surprise.
Donghun knows what will happen after this. The entire shoal will be informed, fresh hatchlings and old ones alike. They all will panic again. The queen will forbid anyone from leaving the reef during daylight hours for yet another week. But this makes the third one this moon cycle. If the humans come back, either on their ships or in their false sealskin that lets them breathe underwater, perhaps the shoal will have to fight. Or be forced to move. Further north, Donghun fears. To colder waters.
“They showed him mercy by simply killing him,” Junhee states, “as opposed to hauling him to the surface.”
Sehyoon says, “Landwalkers love to torture. They’ll put us in too-small tubs full of freshwater and watch us die through the glass.”
Donghun has heard the stories. Yes, sirens lure humans below the waves--it is the nature of things and all beasts must eat--but when humans hunt, there always seems to be a certain level of added cruelty to it. The landwalkers kill for fun and leave their prizes behind, sometimes. There’s always unnecessary blood and suffering and shock. As if the air-swallowers revel in killing their targets slowly. At the very least, the merfolk make things easy and painless for their prey. Just a little bit of work and a landwalker can be distracted enough to not notice the water filling their lungs. At the very least, the merfolk eat what they kill. Down to the bone marrow.
“We must kill the ones who killed him,” Byeongkwan states.
Donghun startles. He hadn’t known the man had come up on them. Hadn’t sensed his approach at all. Even Yuchan appears taken aback, both rows of his sharp teeth are showing. The glow in his chest is now bright enough to be visible even with the sunlight bleeding down on them from the surface.
Sehyoon shakes his head. “We don’t know who did this to him. We can’t tell landwalkers apart.”
Byeongkwan does not let up. “Do you think they take the time to tell us apart?” He is not merfolk like the others. Where Junhee and Yuchan and Donghun have patterned scales and gossamer fins, where Sehyoon has deep gray sharkskin and thick fins built to move quickly, Byeongkwan is borne from different things. He pushes himself across the sandy ocean bottom around them on eight undulating tentacles and, even as the others watch, his color shifts and changes so that he is no longer camouflaged among the sea grass. “They can’t get away with this,” he states.
Junhee says, “Must we be picky? Let us just kill the first few we see.”
“And risk angering them further,” Byeongkwan retorts. Even when he is somewhat still, his tentacles flare out from the base of his torso in a dizzying dance as they move to keep him anchored in the churning tide. “We only attack the ones that threaten the reef.”
And Donghun feels like those should have been his words. He should have been able to turn the others away from senseless slaughter. They are proud merfolk! They eat what they kill! They don’t leave carcasses on the beach as warnings!
Junhee breaks the silence. “Send Yuchan.”
At the sound of his name, Yuchan perks up. The wildness in his eyes flares like a fire. His innards glow brightly, a sickly blue-green, in perfect tune with his quickening pulse.
“Oh, it would be magnificent to watch him work,” Sehyoon sings out. “Remember what he did the last time? Against such a large ship all on his own.”
Donghun remembers. He hadn’t seen the carnage for himself but he’d witnessed the aftermath and heard the stories. Yuchan’s song had churned up a violent storm and the feral bastard had used the raging winds and wild currents to smash a massive ship to pieces on the rocks. Enough landwalkers had been dumped into the deep for the entire shoal to eat for three days. The queen had even invited the shoal from the next reef over, just so that there were no bones left behind.
“Send Donghun,” states Byeongkwan.
“Me,” Donghun repeats. He even presses a webbed finger to his own chest.
“I like the way you do things,” Byeongkwan elaborates.
Donghun remembers the last job he’d done. He hadn’t wasted time conjuring a storm. He’d simply sang his heart out. The entire crew of that vessel had come out on deck and tossed themselves overboard for him. The current took care of the ship. Not with violence but with great care. It had taken two entire moon cycles, perhaps longer than that, but the empty ship had rode the waves back to the coast. Perfectly afloat. Practically intact. For some odd reason, the landwalkers had been extremely distressed by the discovery and the harbor had reeked of their fear for several days in a row.
The other merfolk slowly agree with Byeongkwan.
“Let Donghun do it,” says Sehyoon with a nod and a hum.
“We never get to see him work.” Junhee says. “Which is a shame because his voice is spectacular.”
“Send… Donghun…” Yuchan clicks and trills, his throat noisily constricting around the odd syllables.
Well, there is no swimming out of it now. “I’ll go,” Donghun says in a resigned and even tone.
“Humans are creatures of pattern,” Byeongkwan informs him. His tentacles writhe and wriggle as he drags himself away from them, back towards the darkening depths now that the sun has set. The merfolk hear him more than see him when he says, “They will be back again in the morning.” And then his color changes rapidly and he immediately blends into the smoky, shadowy black.
◉
That night, they treat Donghun to a feast. Including rare and rich delicacies like dolphin heart, sea anemone and jellyfish tendrils (the nematocysts add a bit of zing.)
They treat him so well that Donghun almost believes they are sending him off to his death.
“You are so dramatic,” Junhee laughs.
“Now you’re making me think we do not spoil you enough,” Sehyoon says. There’s just enough bite in his tone that Donghun can’t be sure if it is sarcasm.
Yuchan lurks nearby. He swims in anxious circles around them, keeping his maw open as he swims. Some leftover instinct from his early years on the ocean floor.
Junhee drifts behind Donghun and runs his fingers through Donghun’s stringy hair. “Do you want us to spoil you more?”
Donghun slurps down another jellyfish tendril and his insides, from his mouth to his gut, tickles from the venom. “I think I would be frightened for my life if you gave me any more of your attention,” he says honestly.
Sehyoon chuckles. It’s an oddly percussive sound. Like bones rattling. “Would it make things odd between us if I told you that we are the ones frightened of you?”
That comes as a surprise. Donghun licks between his fingers, where there are still traces of dolphin heart clinging to his scales. It is sweet like kelp on his tongue. “You? Afraid of me?” He remembers all of the times he’s watched Sehyoon on hunts. How many times he’s barely been able to keep up with Sehyoon’s movements as he goes head to head with a shark, armed with nothing but his claws and teeth.
“I wish you could hear yourself sing the way we hear you sing,” Junhee says, somewhat cryptically.
Donghun decides not to ask further questions.
Junhee hums a low, slow-moving melody as he cards his fingers through Donghun’s hair. As he twists the soft, silver-violet locks into long plaits. He performs the task with surprising deftness, even when he spends many precious seconds nuzzling his flat nose into Donghun’s hair. “You must look your best for tomorrow’s performance,” he explains himself when Donghun asks what he’s up to.
“I want you to tear them all to shreds, Donghun,” Sehyoon says, about as casually as if he were commenting on the change in tides.
Donghun looks across the chunk of reef at Sehyoon. Then he turns his head to look at Junhee. Then his gaze lands on Yuchan, who still swims in aggressive, predatorial circles around them, his belly glowing bright in what otherwise is the pitch-blackness of the bottom of the reef. Perhaps Junhee and Sehyoon are afraid of him in the same way he is afraid of Yuchan. Not outright. But the notion is always there at the back of his mind. That this thing is potentially dangerous and must never be left to their own devices for long.
“Make them pay,” Junhee states. “Make them fear .”
Donghun breathes through his gills. “I must leave one alive if I am to instill fear. At least one must be left to return home and tell the story.”
“A pity,” Sehyoon sighs.
Junhee drags a finger down the length of Donghun’s neck. “I would have loved to see you let it all out.”
“Perhaps if there is a next time.”
◉
Byeongkwan comes to him in the morning and the two of them leave the reef.
The queen has ordered Sehyoon and Junhee to stay behind. They are some of her fastest and fiercest hunters, after all. And they must keep watch over the reef on the off chance that other landwalkers find them.
Yuchan, however, can never seem to stay too far away from Donghun. Even when the others are out doing far more interesting things. He trails after the two of them at a distance, his writhing heart entirely visible through his translucent torso.
Donghun dares not look back. “I can never be too sure if he wants to eat me or mate with me.”
Byeongkwan snorts. “Perhaps both at once.”
How comforting.
“Here,” says Byeongkwan after they’ve been swimming for some time. “Their ship usually comes here.”
And Donghun almost wants to ask him how he knows. But even he can feel the difference in the ocean. He can taste the pollution in his gills. He can see that this area has been drained of its fish population.
“I’m sure it’s these same landwalkers who harpooned the little one. I kept track of the currents. If they got to him in the morning, it would make sense that his body would make it there by nightfall.”
Donghun goes still. He shuts one set of eyelids and then the other. He lets the current flow over his violet scales and between his fins. Yes. Considering how early high tide came yesterday… He opens his eyes. “Why won’t they leave us be?” Goodness, if they were going to kill the poor lad, they at least should have taken the body with them. Displayed it in their homes like they did with all of their other trophy kills! “Junhee and Sehyoon want me to…” Donghun gulps. “They want me to lose control.”
Byeongkwan’s tentacles writhe around his body. The eight dancing things subtly change color to match the stone he’s stretched his body across. Then he flattens himself to the surface of the rock and goes awfully still. “And it would be splendid if you did. Magnificent.”
If Donghun had turned his head for even a moment, he would have lost track of his friend. But if he keeps staring, he can see the subtle shape of Byeongkwan’s shoulders. He can spot the rigid angle of his jaw.
“I do not want to lose control,” says Donghun.
Because he has always been the definition of control. Sehyoon is the wild and ferocious churning of the ocean. Yuchan is the surprisingly deceptive undercurrent dragging those who are unprepared out to sea. Junhee is the vacuous whirlpool, beautiful yet dangerous, drawing everything in and leaving nothing but wreckage behind.
Donghun has always been the calm and placid surface of a lake.
“And what do you want to do,” Byeongkwan wonders. He’s even camouflaged the movement of his mouth.
“I want to send a message.” Donghun’s goal is to terrify them. Make them scream for help and beg for mercy. He wants to watch them shout at him in terror. Try to flee from him. Only to hold out his hands and make them jump overboard to be in his arms. Make them open their mouths to kiss him only to find saltwater instead. He won’t damage the boat. The survivor he leaves will need it to get back to shore and Donghun can only imagine that the other landwalkers will fail to believe his story. They’ll think him mad. The others, though, he will welcome to the bottom of the sea. He’ll make their last moments a living nightmare before inviting Yuchan to feast on their bones. It’s the least they deserve after harpooning yet another of the merfolk.
Donghun snaps into focus.
“Yuchan?” He turns around.
The fellow may keep his distance but rarely is he ever quiet . There is not a sign of him, though. Not a scale or hair. Not a flash of bioluminescence.
The stone next to Donghun moves. It is Byeongkwan dropping his camouflage. “They came from a different direction today,” he hisses.
Donghun follows the direction Byeongkwan points in and sees the large, black bottom of the landwalker’s ship above their heads.
What he does not expect to see is Yuchan swimming straight towards it, putting himself in danger of being spotted.
“Poor thing’s trying to help,” Byeongkwan says. He watches, almost casually, as Yuchan plunges his teeth into the ship’s hull.
Donghun is too far away to determine if the deep sea beast is successful. He is more concerned with the long, twisted net dragging through the water beside the ship. He is more concerned with the whirling propellers at the ship’s stern. All dangerous things for a fish. “I have to stop him.” He floats upward through the water and sings a quick, low-pitched tune that Yuchan usually responds favorably to.
Perhaps he cannot hear it. He continues to bite at the ship’s underside but he fails to consider that the landwalkers have noticed his presence and are changing the directions of the nets.
Donghun presses his arms to his sides and cuts through the water with greater speed.
Too late, Yuchan realizes he has been trapped. The nets loosely tangle around his tail. It is odd. The one time he should use his teeth and claws, he doesn’t. Instead, he frantically swims in circles, further tangling himself in the net.
Donghun does not want to see another of his kind impaled by a harpoon. Or caught in a net. Or hung out to dry. If only landwalkers were kind enough not to let the catch go to waste. If only they ate what they killed!
Yuchan spots him. His entire body glows with fright. He opens his big, toothy maw and clicks and trills in the language of the deep sea. Donghun cannot understand him. But he can see the fear on Yuchan’s face.
It stirs something in Donghun’s heart. He swims through the water, closer to the ship, but stops himself at a relatively safe distance. He can’t get much closer without risking getting caught in the net himself.
He hears the ship’s engine make louder and rougher noises and takes note of how the landwalkers seem to be steering it back to shore.
Yuchan is well and truly tangled in the net now. He can only seem to move one arm. He looks up at Donghun pleadingly, his head turned in such a way that he can’t get his teeth to the net without injuring himself.
Donghun does not panic. Not like Sehyoon or Junhee would.
There’s not enough time to try to cut Yuchan free of the nets.
He must surface.
He must sing.
He must lose control.
The idea of sending a message can be lost down the Mariana Trench for all he cares.
Donghun breaks the surface of the ocean. It hurts to suck in air. He sees the landwalkers aboard the ship scurry across the deck. They shout at each other using words Donghun can’t understand. They are trying to raise the nets, Donghun sees. They are trying to haul their catch onto the deck.
Several of them hold harpoons.
Already, they’ve hauled the net far enough above the waves that Donghun can see a whitish flash of Yuchan’s scales.
Donghun sings.
Donghun loses control.
There are no landwalkers left to tell the tale.