Page 5 of Sink or Swim

Her nose scrunches up with what looks like disgust as she starts to scold me.

I grew up poor. My dad died when I was three, and my mom worked three jobs just to make ends meet. I barely ever saw her. Once I turned fifteen and could start applying for jobs, I grabbed one at the local Radio Shack and worked my ass off between school and sports. All so I could save up enough money to have what other kids in my class were just given by their parents: a laptop that could run games. First game I grabbed wasn’t a shooter, but a little life simulator called The Sims.

And in The Sims, they spoke a language called Simlish. Which doesn’t sound all that different from English, really, but it is. And that’s what this monster woman sounds like right now. She sounds like she’s speaking Simlish. The sounds are similar, but I have no idea what she’s saying.

She flails her arms around, and I get the general idea that she’s pissed off that I ran from her. After enduring thirty seconds of her verbal beat down, I lift my hands in surrender and smile softly. I should probably try appealing to her better nature, if she has one. I still can’t look her in the eye, but at least my knees aren’t giving out yet.

“Okay, okay, I got it. Sorry. Yes. Running away into the forest was a stupid idea. Thank you for dealing with the snake,” I say.

She tilts her head at me and scoffs. This woman-creature just scoffed at me. Why do I find that so endearing?

“What’s your name?” I ask. She continues to stare at me with a vacant look. So, I pat myself and say, “Nick. I’m Nick Chastain. Niiiiiiiiick.”

She rolls her eyes, then places a hand on her chest and mutters something under her breath.

Blinking, I say, “I’m sorry. I can’t … I can’t hear you. What did you say?”

The creature shakes her head and rumbles a low growl in warning, then takes a few steps toward me. I back away instinctively. She takes another step toward me, and I back away again. Then she sighs, stamps her foot, and points to her side.

I’ve owned dogs before. And in this situation, I’m the dog, and she’s telling me to heel. I move to her side, not wanting her to have to chase me through the woods again, and gulp. I’m so fucked, aren’t I?

“Nick,” she murmurs. “Oona,” she says, patting her chest.

“O-oon—” I start, but her accent was so thick, I’m not really sure how to pronounce it. I clamp my mouth shut, not wanting to offend her by getting it wrong.

She lets out a soft snarl as she shakes her head.

Heat ignites my cheeks and neck as shame overwhelms me. First try, and she managed to pronounce my name correctly. And … I didn’t even really try to pronounce hers. Okay, I’d be annoyed with me, too.

So, I lick my bottom lip and say, very slowly, “Oon—” I pause, sigh, and shake my head. She grabs my cheeks in her palms and forces me to look into her eyes, which have suddenly changed from inky black to bright purple. It’s alarming, but beautiful. “—Na?”

She nods along, encouraging me. My heart thumps in my chest as joy lights up within her eyes. “Oona? Your name is Oona?”

Oona claps her webbed hands together in applause, like I’m a pet who just learned how to sit on command for the very first time. Hooray for me. And hooray I’m not dead yet, I guess?

Oona pats me on the top of my head and clicks her tongue, then taps her side as she starts to head deeper into the woods. I follow along, doing my best to keep up with her wide gait. Why do I get the feeling I just became someone’s pet?

OONA

My new pet is adorable, and I cannot wait to spoil him, if it is indeed a him. Still can’t tell, and I’m not about to rummage around in their pants to sex them.

Maybe it’s because I’ve always been alone and only had my own thoughts for company, but I’m thrilled to finally have someone intelligent around to spoil a little, so long as he doesn’t run off and die on me.

When he asked me what my name was, I panicked. Being alone for my entire existence means no one ever gave me a name, and I never had need of one until now. So, I created one on the spot. Oona. I thought it would be easy enough for the human to say, but then they disappointed me once again and flubbed that, too. Maybe humans aren’t as smart as I thought, after all. And considering he already ran from me once, I can only assume he’ll do it again, so I hold on to his hand for the duration of our walk back to my tree house.

Occasionally, he speaks, and I try to listen. Mainly to the tone in his words, to gauge his mood. He looks up at me, and when I look back down at him, his cheeks turn red and he looks away. Perhaps he is amazed by my beauty. Or maybe he’s still overheated from his earlier exertions. That snake was seconds away from killing him, and not even my healing saliva would have been fast enough to stop the toxin from turning his brain into goo.

“Are you hungry, little pet?” I ask as we come to the perimeter of my territory. My tree house took years to perfect, and I’m proud of it. There are three main buildings, all constructed from the finest wood I could gather and accessible via the ropes I put in after that mishap when I tried to climb one of the trunks too quickly. I was out of commission for three days with a sprained ankle. Not my finest moment.

My pet, Nick, stares up at the miniature houses, his jaw slack and eyes bright with what I think is awe. I beam with pride. “Come on, I’ll get you something. I have a kitchen inside and some food.”

He doesn’t understand a word out of my mouth, of course, but he must sense the enthusiasm in my tone, because he nods and follows me until we get to the rope. Then he balks and takes a few steps back, shaking his head.

“Do you need me to carry you?” I ask, and move to pick him up, but he quickly darts away from my grasp. Sigh. This nonsense again. “I can’t feed you if you keep running like that, Nick. Stop it.”

He’s slender, with a slight frame that suggests a sedentary life like most humans. I only know this thanks to the boats that zoom out here to dump the bodies of other unfortunate souls clad in suits and ties just like him. They were all skinny. Even if they were palatable, which they definitely are not, there wouldn’t be enough meat on their bones for a meal. I’ve sucked some of the marrow out of their bones, and believe me, that shit was so revolting I was laid up in my bed for days with a stomachache. There’s no way he’d be able to climb the rope on his own, I suppose. Not with those stick arms.

Nick lets out a resigned sigh and steps forward, then lifts his arms like a hatchling asking their mother to carry them. On the rare excursion up north, during the height of the fish spawning season, I’d watch the human females with their young at the beach and study them. Sometimes, I wonder if my own species was similar to humankind. If they took their young to the beaches and watched them frolic in the waves and taught them how to swim. How to fish and build sandcastles.

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