Harbour slept.

The vents had gone still for the night cycle, their warmth steady and quiet. The hollow around me breathed with the slow pulse of the earth, soft and rhythmic, like the sea itself was dreaming.

I drifted half-awake in the warmth, gills opening and closing on instinct. The water carried faint flecks of light through the entrance of my small refuge, spark plankton drawn by the gentle vent currents. They rose like embers from some unseen fire, spiralling in slow patterns before vanishing into the dark.

It was peaceful, almost beautiful.

For the first time in many days, I felt something close to calm. My wounds had begun to knit. The shredded edges of my tail no longer burned when the current touched them. I had even stopped counting breaths for danger.

Then, between the scattered sparks, I saw a different light.

Not the quick shimmer of plankton or the dull hum of vent minerals. This one moved on its own.

It hovered at the edge of the hollow, a faint blue pulse that grew brighter with every beat. Slow, deliberate. Almost alive.

I froze.

The glow drifted closer, small and steady, its colour soft as breath. It pulsed once, twice, then stopped, waiting.

My first thought was simple wonder.

The light was beautiful in a way nothing down here was supposed to be. It did not shimmer like bait or shimmer to hide. It glowed like it wanted to be seen.

Curiosity stirred before caution could wake. I eased from the crevice and let the current carry me a little closer.

The light retreated. Not fast. Just far enough to stay a hand’s length away. Then it pulsed again, as if in reply.

A call.

I followed.

The sea around us darkened as we moved farther from the vent. The plankton faded behind me, leaving only the small drifting glow ahead. The light pulsed slower now, turning the water between us into a rhythm. Flash. Dark. Flash. Dark.

I began to time my movement to it without meaning to. Every time it brightened, I advanced. When it dimmed, I stopped.

It was leading me somewhere.

A small part of me, the human that still lived in the back of my mind, knew what this was. A lure. Nothing glows in the abyss without reason.

But that same part of me also remembered campfires and lanterns, the warmth of light in cold places. My body craved that warmth as much as it craved food.

The light turned slightly, tilting in the water. For an instant, I saw a shape behind it, thin, quick, almost invisible.

It was a living thing.

A fry. Small, delicate, barely the length of my fin. Its body was almost transparent, but its heart glowed like a pearl. The light didn’t just come from it. It was it.

I hovered in place, watching. The fry hung motionless, its glow pulsing in soft rhythm. It was waiting for me to decide.

I did not think of hunting. I thought only of what it might be. Something like me, maybe. A survivor. A spark in the endless dark.

Then the pulse quickened.

The fry darted backward, light flaring like a flare in a storm. It stopped, turned, and looked at me again.

A challenge.

Without realizing it, I accepted.

I lunged.

The world turned into flashes.

Light. Motion. Darkness.

The fry darted left, leaving a streak of brightness in its wake. I twisted after it, cutting through the current. The glow vanished, then appeared again below me.

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Flash. Dark. Flash. Dark.

The sea became a strobe of movement and light, each pulse marking a heartbeat. My own glow, faint and dull, flickered in answer. The chase was silent but electric.

The fry circled a ridge, darting between two vents that spat pale heat into the current. I followed, closing the gap. The pressure from the vents brushed against my fins, scattering light through the haze.

The glow ahead faltered. The fry had turned sharply, misjudging the turbulence.

I struck.

The jaws closed around the light.

For a moment, the world went white.

Then silence.

The taste filled my mouth, warm, metallic, sweet. The body of the fry was soft, fragile, barely there. The glow dimmed between my teeth, fading from blue to pale silver.

When I swallowed, the light went out completely.

The warmth slid down my throat like the last breath of a dying flame.

And with it came guilt.

It hit harder than pain.

As the heat faded inside me, I saw it, memory rising through the black like bubbles from a deep wound.

A frying pan hissing in oil. My grandfather’s hands at the table. The smell of char and salt. His voice, rough but kind: Thank the sea, boy. It gave you this meal.

The image burned behind my eyes. I could almost taste the squeeze of lime he used to press over cooked fish, the way the juice hissed when it met the flesh.

Back then, I had always remembered to whisper the words. Thank you.

Now, I realized, I hadn’t said them once since waking in this new form.

The light I had just devoured had not fought. It had simply looked at me, pulsing softly, trusting, or maybe not even knowing what I was.

And I had swallowed it anyway.

The water around me dimmed again. The vents flickered faintly, as if reacting to what I had done. My gills fluttered. The ache of fullness felt wrong now, heavy in my chest.

I sank toward the vent ridge, unable to meet the reflection of my own faint glow in the stone.

I wanted to believe the fry had only been another hunter, another lure. I wanted to believe it was just food. But deep inside, I knew better. There had been awareness in that light. Curiosity, even.

And I had crushed it for warmth.

The System broke the silence before I could think further.

[Luminous Biomass +3 Units]

[Photoreceptor Sensitivity Enhanced]

The words etched themselves across the dark behind my eyes. For a heartbeat, I almost laughed. Even my regret was data to the machine that watched me.

Then another line followed, colder, quieter, as if whispered through the current itself.

[Attractor Pattern Logged]

Attractor pattern. The phrase lingered like a bruise.

Something in the System had recognized what I had eaten. Not prey. Not ordinary biomass. A signal.

The glow had not just been light. It had been message.

My body began to shake. The warmth that had filled me turned fever-hot, spreading along my jaw and behind my eyes. My vision flared, then blurred.

The world brightened too much. Every reflection, every shimmer of vent light burned like a spark in my skull.

Afterimages bloomed across my sight, ghosts of light that wouldn’t fade. I turned sharply, trying to see through them. The edges of the world melted into brightness and shadow.

Click.

I sent a sonar pulse to compensate. The echo came back broken, off-time, like hearing your own heartbeat one beat too late. My body twitched in confusion.

The blindness wasn’t full, but it was enough to disorient. I felt sick.

I shut my eyes and tried to steady my breath.

The ache in my chest deepened into something cold and hollow. My new sensitivity had cost me more than I had gained.

The light that had filled me still burned behind my eyelids, flashing faintly like memory replaying itself.

In those pulses, I saw the fry again, its tiny form hovering at the edge of my vision, unafraid, curious.

Was it part of something larger? A lure built by instinct? Or a fragment of something that had tried to communicate?

The thought lodged like a thorn.

The sea gave and took. But maybe it also spoke. Maybe that light had been a word I hadn’t understood.

I looked into the dark, trying to find its shape again. Nothing. Only drifting plankton, flickering softly like scattered dust.

The ache behind my eyes worsened. Every pulse of vent light made the world tilt. My sonar timing faltered again, the returning echoes coming back too slow or too soon.

The sea’s voice had slipped out of rhythm.

I pressed my body against the rock and waited for the pain to fade. The glow that had once traced my scales now felt like mockery. Each pulse was a reminder of what I had stolen.

The sea gives.

The whisper rose from memory, my grandfather’s voice repeating itself in the language of the current.

I opened my mouth and tried to finish it. The words would not come.

The ache behind my eyes eased slowly, replaced by a dull hum. My sonar still lagged, but not as badly. The afterimages began to fade, leaving faint traces of light behind everything I looked at.

When I closed my eyes again, the world inside was full of small flickers, the fry’s last glow, still trapped somewhere deep in my mind.

I wondered if it was warning me.

Or if it was simply haunting me.

The System stirred one last time, as if responding to the thought.

[Sensory Lag Detected: Echolocation Precision -7%]

[Cognitive Note: Visual Overload]

Even the machine sounded almost regretful.

I stayed in the dark a long while, waiting for my heartbeat to slow. The vent hummed softly beside me. The sea pressed close, silent as stone.

When I finally looked toward the hollow’s mouth again, the plankton had gathered there, drifting in lazy clusters. For a moment, they looked like stars, small lights waiting to be born into something greater.

I thought of the fry again. The way its glow had brightened before I struck. The way it had seemed to hesitate.

I would never know what it had wanted.

But I knew what I should have said.

I opened my mouth, and the whisper came weak but true.

The sea gives…

The current carried the rest of the sentence away.

And for the first time since waking in this body, I hoped the sea didn’t answer.