I thought drowning would be quick.

It wasn’t.

The first thing that left me was sound. The roar of the storm faded to a long hum, and then even that disappeared. There was no up or down anymore—only pressure. It pressed behind my eyes and in my chest, the weight of the world made into water.

Something inside me refused to die. I tried to swim, but my arms didn’t answer. The effort scattered what little breath I had left. My thoughts came slow and far apart, like bells heard through fog. Each one rang smaller than the last.

This is it, I told myself. This is what he felt.

A strange calm followed, not peace exactly—more like surrender. The cold no longer hurt. I drifted through it, waiting for everything to stop.

Then I saw light.

It flickered far below, faint and green, like lanterns swinging in deep water. At first, I thought it was my mind inventing something to hold onto. But the lights moved. They pulsed in rhythm, dim to bright to dim again, as if calling to each other.

The glow touched my face. My body twitched in answer. The warmth that should have come with light wasn’t there, only a gentle pull, a current that wanted me closer.

I didn’t fight it.

The lights grew sharper, not one or two, but dozens, scattered through the dark. They weren’t lanterns. They were alive—tiny living sparks with long threads trailing behind them. Each spark drifted on the same current that carried me.

My chest convulsed. The instinct to breathe came back hard and cruel. I opened my mouth, and water rushed in. I coughed and waited for the pain, but it didn’t come. Instead, the water moved through me as if it belonged there.

My throat opened on its own. My ribs shuddered. Something new fluttered along my sides—thin, soft flaps pulling water in and pushing it out. The motion was fast and smooth, like bellows.

I was breathing. Underwater.

Panic hit harder than any wave. I tried to reach for my face, but my hands wouldn’t move. I tried to kick, but there were no legs to obey me. My body didn’t feel right. I couldn’t feel the weight of my clothes, couldn’t tell where my arms ended or if I still had any.

I twisted in the dark, heart hammering. My body was small—light, narrow. Every movement sent me spinning. I tried to scream, and bubbles spilled from where my mouth should have been.

Where am I? What am I?

The glowing sparks spun away from me. For the first time, I realised I could feel their movement—not through sight, but through the water itself. Each flicker sent a tiny vibration across my skin. My mind turned those vibrations into shapes.

It was like hearing with my whole body.

A pulse came from far ahead, deep and strong. The sound wasn’t sound at all—it was pressure. It rolled through me and painted the world in invisible outlines. Rocks. Caverns. Open water.

I can hear without ears.

The thought scared me more than drowning had. I tried to move again, this time slower. My body bent, tail following head. A tail. I felt it curve behind me, light and alive. The motion didn’t come from effort; it came from instinct.

I turned once, twice, learning by feel. Each shift sent a soft ripple through the water. The pressure changed against my skin. The strange new flaps at my sides—gills, I knew now—beat faster when I moved.

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A smaller pulse answered my movement, faint and quick. Something alive was out there, just beyond what I could see. Its body sent a clicking echo that brushed the edge of my senses, curious, cautious. I stilled.

The dark around me was vast but not empty. Everything vibrated with quiet motion. Distant rocks hummed faintly, and the current itself had a heartbeat.

I stayed still, listening. The longer I listened, the more I understood.

The ocean was full of voices.

Some were sharp and short, tiny creatures bouncing sounds between each other like whispers. Some were slow, long hums that rolled through the deep like the toll of a church bell. I could feel those long ones even in my bones.

One low tone came closer, stronger than the rest. It wasn’t hostile, just heavy. It passed through me like a tide, steadying my pulse, calming the wild beat of my new heart.

I stopped fighting the water and let the current carry me.

The panic faded to confusion. I didn’t know if I was alive or dead. My mind flickered between memory and dream: the ship’s deck under my boots, the lightning on the mast, my grandfather’s voice saying the sea gives, the sea takes.

The sea had taken everything I was.

I drifted. The glowing creatures returned, circling at a distance. They weren’t afraid anymore. Each one pulsed faintly, leaving trails of light in the water. The motion was hypnotic. Their rhythm slowed until my breathing matched it.

When I moved this time, it felt natural. I flexed the length of my body and let the current slide past. I could feel the water’s weight against me, smooth and endless. My tail—if that’s what it was—cut through it easily.

I didn’t understand how, but part of me accepted it. A quiet instinct whispered that this form was built for the deep, that every part of it belonged here.

Still, I wasn’t ready to believe it.

I tried to look at myself, to see what I’d become. The dark gave me no reflection, only the faint outline of my movement. I caught glimpses of fins where arms should have been, of scales that glimmered faintly when the nearby lights passed.

The sight should have broken me. Instead, I felt an awful calm. Maybe I was too far gone for fear. Maybe dying had emptied me enough to make room for this.

Another pulse struck me from below. It was sharper than before, a quick series of clicks. My body reacted before I thought. The slits at my sides flared open, my tail flicked, and I darted upward.

The water itself felt alive around me. Every movement carved invisible shapes. My senses filled with returning echoes—stone ledges, drifting silt, something large turning far beneath.

I froze. The larger shape moved again, so slow it almost wasn’t motion. My new body trembled. Every part of me knew that shape was bigger than me, stronger than me. My gills fluttered so fast they ached.

I waited. The thing didn’t come closer. Its hum faded until it was part of the background noise again.

Only then did I move, slow and careful.

I let the current take me somewhere deeper, where the water grew colder but steadier. The panic ebbed. My body learned its rhythm on its own.

Every flick of my tail made a soft ripple that came back as sound. I learned to tell distance by how quickly that sound returned. I learned that I could click, a small pulse of pressure that left me and came back with answers.

The first time I did it, I was startled. The sound came from inside me, not through a throat, but through the bones in my skull. The echo returned a map I could feel, not see.

A rocky slope to the left. Open water to the right. Tiny creatures scattered above like dust in sunlight.

I made another pulse and another. The world unfolded in layers of invisible sound.

This was sight now. This was life.

The current carried me farther until the glow of the small creatures faded. The dark became pure again. I felt it fill every corner of me. The hum that had been deep and steady began to fade, leaving only my own heartbeat.

I didn’t know how long I drifted. Time had no shape here. The pressure never eased, only changed weight, as if the sea was deciding what to do with me.

My thoughts turned inward. What was left of me now? Not a man. Not a sailor. Just something small and breathing where nothing human should.

The ache of hunger arrived without warning. It wasn’t the kind I’d known before. It came from the gills, the bones, the soft skin of my new body. I could feel it as vibration, not emptiness. It told me I needed to feed, though I didn’t know on what.

That low, steady hum returned once more, closer now. It wrapped around me, and my body stopped trembling. It was almost kind.

Rest, it seemed to say. You are not finished yet.

I let myself rest. My eyes—if I still had eyes—closed. The pressure against my skin softened. The water cradled me.

That was when the lights came back. Not the drifting ones this time, but something sharp and inside my skull.

It wasn’t sight. It wasn’t sound. It was a signal, flashing in short bursts, like the storm’s lightning burned into thought.

The message formed itself in my mind, every letter bright and cold.

It repeated, glitching like a broken lantern.

[Unit Registered: Biomass Anomaly]

[Insufficient Biomass to Evolve]

The words sank into me like stones.

Then the lights went out.

And the sea was silent again.