The vents faded behind me, their warmth shrinking to a distant pulse. The current turned cold again, thick and slow. Every movement felt heavier. I was leaving the safety of the shelf, drifting into water that held no rhythm but its own.

Down here, pressure was constant, but hunger came in waves. It crept up slowly, filling every hollow space inside me, until thought and need became the same thing.

I had lingered near the vents too long. The ache was back, low, patient, and growing sharper.

Feed, but choose.

That promise had kept me human. It was all I had left of discipline, of ritual, of the man who once thanked the sea before taking from it.

I followed the current outward, clicking softly to map the dark. The echoes came back broad and hollow. Empty water. Nothing close. Then, a flicker, a small pulse of motion ahead, quick and uneven.

I clicked again. The sound returned faster this time. The shape was clear now: thin limbs, fragile shell, twitching erratically against the current.

Larval shrimp.

Tiny, drifting, unguarded. A fair test.

The ache behind my ribs sharpened to a point. My gills flared. My tail flexed in anticipation.

Slow. No frenzy this time.

I approached at a crawl, letting the current do most of the work. The shrimp floated aimlessly, pulsing its translucent legs. Its life beat faintly in the water, a tiny echo waiting to end.

When I struck, the movement was almost elegant. A single flick of my tail, one clean surge through the current. The jaws opened, closed, and the prey was gone.

Warmth flooded through me, spreading like fire through oil. The ache vanished. For a moment, I felt only calm, pure and light.

Then the System woke.

[Biomass Acquired: +9 Units]

[Source Category: Small Prey]

[Efficiency Bonus: +12%]

Another line flickered in its cold, neutral tone.

[Speed +0.03]

[Total Biomass: 2.3% to Next Stage]

This time, the numbers made sense. I understood enough now to know that the path upward was slow and hungry. I had taken more than forty units before, and that had barely moved the gauge to two percent.

If each percent was this costly, then evolution, whatever that meant, would demand more than simple survival. It would demand everything.

Still, the difference in my body was immediate. My tail cut through the water with less drag. My turns came smoother. The sea no longer resisted me—it yielded.

I tested the new speed. A flick, a roll, a sudden glide. Each movement flowed like instinct guided by purpose.

The thrill of control almost felt human.

The ache faded entirely, replaced by something else, focus. For the first time, I hunted not out of desperation, but out of curiosity.

Another pulse of movement rippled through the water ahead, faint but steady. I clicked once, sending a narrow echo. The return came crisp: a cluster of small prey drifting near a broken pillar of stone.

I crept closer, keeping my body low and tight. The trick wasn’t speed. It was silence.

The current brushed past me, whispering across the scales. The small creatures shimmered faintly, feeding on whatever life clung to the rock.

I chose the one closest to me and moved. The strike was cleaner than before, no struggle, no wasted motion. The jaws closed around it, and the body stilled instantly.

[Biomass Acquired: +6 Units]

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[Total Biomass: 2.6% to Next Stage]

A small gain, but enough to feel it in the blood. The gills pulsed strong. The body thrummed with new rhythm. Every sound in the water became clearer, sharper, as if my senses were expanding with each breath.

The System didn’t praise or condemn. It simply marked and moved on, a perfect accountant of hunger.

The ache returned quietly, though not from emptiness this time. It was something else, anticipation. The thrill of action, the pull of the hunt itself.

I swam through the dark, learning how the water spoke. Every ripple, every shift in pressure carried meaning. Distant movement sounded like the drumbeat of the world. The sea was a choir, and for the first time, I was learning to listen.

A faint current brushed my side, warm again, then cold. I recognized it instantly. A predator’s trail. The water remembered where teeth had passed.

I froze.

The ache vanished beneath instinct. I sank lower, flattening myself against the seafloor. The sand was coarse, broken with bits of shell. I waited.

A deep vibration rolled through the dark above. Slow. Heavy. Certain. The kind of movement that didn’t fear anything smaller than itself.

The water thickened with its passing. Every living thing nearby vanished into silence. Even the plankton dimmed their glow.

Predator.

I stayed motionless, holding to the rock as the shadow drifted over me. It blocked the faint glimmer of the vents far behind, turning the sea into complete darkness.

I did not breathe. I let the water move for me.

The mass of it was staggering, a slow-moving continent of muscle and hunger. It didn’t need speed. It owned patience.

When it finally passed, I felt the pressure ease, the current relaxing as if the sea itself exhaled. My body trembled from the strain of holding still.

I waited longer. The predator’s wake was thick with the scent of blood.

Not its own.

The taste reached me in slow waves, metallic, sharp, unmistakable. Blood was language down here. It spoke of victory, death, and promise all at once.

The hunger stirred again.

My gills opened involuntarily, tasting the water. My body began to move before my thoughts caught up. I followed the trail, slow and careful, fighting the rising pull of instinct.

The current grew heavier with the scent. My senses sharpened until every vibration felt like a heartbeat against my skin. The ache was back in full force now, clawing at the edges of reason.

Do not lose yourself.

But blood called to every part of me that remembered being hungry.

The System pulsed softly, marking my movement.

[Predator Trace Detected]

[Instinct Priority: Hunt Response Active]

The light faded, leaving me in perfect black.

I swam faster, no longer gliding but slicing through the water in short bursts. The scent grew stronger. I caught the shape of a body ahead, a drifting carcass, small but still warm, torn open at the side.

It must have been another shrimp, or something like it. Fresh kill. The predator had eaten its fill and left the rest to drift.

The ache surged.

I darted forward and bit, tearing what remained. The taste was heavier than plankton or small prey. It burned through me, alive even in death.

[Biomass Acquired: +12 Units]

[Source Category: Carrion]

[Growth Potential: Low]

[Total Biomass: 3.1% to Next Stage]

The energy came fast, bright, almost dizzying. My body shuddered with it. The gills flared open. The blood cloud drifted outward, spreading through the current like ink.

I fed until the ache dulled, then stopped. Not out of restraint, but out of instinct. The water had changed again.

The current grew colder. The vibrations that followed were wrong, too slow, too smooth.

Something was coming back along the blood trail.

The predator hadn’t gone far after all.

The ache turned to terror in an instant. I spun and bolted for the darker water near the seafloor, tail cutting hard through the current. The world blurred. The cold tore at my sides, but I didn’t care.

I clicked once to find direction. The echo returned twisted, something vast was behind me, too close.

Pressure built in the water, a rolling surge that felt like thunder. I darted sideways, hugging the rock face. The shadow followed, silent but certain.

The gills burned with the effort. My body screamed for rest. The ache of hunger was gone, replaced by the deeper ache of survival.

Another pulse passed overhead. The predator was searching, following its own scent, drawn by the same blood that had drawn me.

I am not prey, I told myself, though I didn’t believe it. I am not prey.

The water disagreed. Everything in it was prey to something else.

I found a narrow trench between two ridges and slid into it, tucking my body against the stone. The current slowed there, swirling quietly. My gills flared once, twice, then steadied.

The shadow drifted past above, unhurried. Its pulse rolled through the trench walls, strong enough to make the rock vibrate.

It lingered a long time, turning once, maybe twice, before finally gliding away.

Only when the vibration faded did I move. My muscles shook from exhaustion. The ache in my chest returned, not hunger this time, not fear, but understanding.

The sea had no pity. Only balance.

I rested there in the trench, every nerve still trembling. The current carried the last traces of blood away, erasing the evidence of the kill.

The System’s light appeared again, faint but steady.

[Predator Avoidance Successful]

[Integrity +1%]

[Speed Retained: +0.03]

[Total Biomass: 3.1% → 3.3% to Next Stage]

It was a small gain, a handful of numbers, but they meant survival.

I exhaled slowly, letting the water move through me. The ache eased into a dull throb. The dark above felt endless again, but I understood it a little better now.

Hunting was no longer just about feeding, it was about existing between teeth.

I turned toward the current once more, letting it carry me forward.

The warmth was gone. The vents were far behind. But the sea still breathed, and for now, it let me breathe with it.

[Total Biomass Acquired: 66 Units | Progress: 3.3% to Next Stage]

The System fell silent, and the dark swallowed me whole again.