The Huntress

Before her black eye even catches sight of the fat, grey body of the porpoise, she smells the potential meal. Its heartbeat sends electric signals through the water. She is hungry; she braces her perfectly designed hunter’s body for the attack. The finless porpoise still has not seen her creeping closer. Suddenly, she accelerates. Her fins slice gracefully through the blue waters. She opens her jaw, and with one snap and a bit of thrashing, the porpoise’s heart no longer beats.

She is grateful for this warm meal; her clan had broken apart days ago to hunt, and pickings had been scarce. She moves on before the water cleans itself of the blood. To her, this savagery is not anything particularly cruel or violent; it is a way of life. All she knows is that she is alive, and to stay alive she must keep swimming, keep eating, and, one day, mate. She swims. She cannot stop, and she will never stop until her life is over.

The cool waters roll over her blue back and under her white belly. She is thankful, in her simple animalistic way, for this natural camouflage. She senses the waters above her ripple with a disturbance, like a sea bird lighting on the surface to rest, and, perhaps, to eat. She knows her time to act is short, as the birds are quick and can fly far away from the water she is confined to. She flicks her tailfin through the water, propelling herself up toward the surface. She can see the sunlight brighter now, silhouetting the bird. She opens her jaws again for the kill. She rises slightly from the surface of the water as she snaps her jaws shut, entirely encapsulating the bird. The sea breeze is pleasant against her snout. She falls back into the water, her heavy, muscled body causing a splash.

Again in her watery home, she swims. Waves near her shift the water. Smaller fish dart this way and that in a chaotic dance. She doesn’t waste energy trying to eat them and instead swims through their school; they part for her as if she was a queen. Having razor sharp teeth has its advantages, she thinks to herself. She likes being a shark, she decides.

 She hears human sound. The sound of a boat motor, churning up the waves she’s been feeling. The unintelligible sound of their chatter. She turns to swim as far away as her terrified tail could take her. Her turn has her swimming right into their thick net. She thrashes her body, trying to gnaw through the rope, but it yields no results. She is hoisted through the water, up and up and up, until she can feel air under her belly instead of water. She feels exposed. Although she knows the safety of water is gone, she still tries to swim. Her gills begin to ache for water. She is dumped carelessly onto the hard floor of a boat. She hears the humans louder now. They are all around her. She makes a moot attempt to bite at their legs. She thrashes, trying to escape still.

She finds herself struggling to move any longer, as she has been out of the water far too long. One of the humans step closer, his foot inches from her snout. All she could smell was blood; the human reeked of the blood of tens, maybe hundreds, of others like her. He knelt down and gripped her big dorsal fin tight. He pressed something cold to it, something sharp. Suddenly, her back erupts into hot pain. She feels her blood trickle onto the floor of the boat. She feels sick. She hears him throw her fin onto a pile of others, and with that meaty slap, the job is done. They hoist her back in the water, tossing her carelessly into the blue before zooming away.

Underwater, the suffocation ends, but another problem arises. Despite how hard she tries, she cannot swim. She is sinking, the pressure around her increasing as time passes. When the scavengers come to pick her to the bone, she changes her mind. She doesn’t like being a shark.