My arms cling to Niku like octopus tentacles until the net around us goes slack and sinks to the ground. I lift my head, surprised, and find myself in a place with no color or sound of life. It’s gray like the forest, but uniformly gray, and a constant, low hum settles in my scales.
The net gathers below us in a line, the ends creeping up to the surface. “What’s happening?” I whisper.
“I don’t know,” Niku says. He injured one of the landfolk already—I tasted the blood. “Just stay calm. Don’t give them a reason to hurt you.”
I nod, then peer at the surface where a loop enters the water. Niku pulls me away from it, and the net shifts beneath us.
“Neek—”
A loud buzz fills my ears and my muscles contract, spreading me out like a starfish. Every inch of my body burns like I’ve touched a fire coral. I can’t move, can’t scream, can’t breathe. The buzzing stops, my muscles release, and I float belly-up at the surface. Niku floats an arm’s length away.
My muscles twitch and shake, as limp as a jellyfish, and my gills sting. Before I can recover, the net lifts between us.
“No!” I gasp. Niku flips over and sprays water, then paces the length of the net. I reach through and grab him. “Neek! Neek, don’t leave me. Don’t let them take you away.”
My fingers dig into his skin, and he doesn’t tell me to stay calm now. His muscles are tight—ready to attack. I’m worried he’ll jump right out of the water, trying to reach the landfolk, and beach himself.
The net jerks, then circles me from the bottom. The panic I held back presses into my core. “No! No, no, no. No, please.” I hug Niku as the net closes around me once again. It lifts me, and I hold on to him as tight as I can. I refuse to let go.
“Princess, I don’t know what to do. I can’t stop them.”
Never has Niku sounded so lost. “No!” I scream. “Stop!” I take a deep breath before surfacing, and whimper as Niku slips from my fingers. He swims circles below me, huffing water every few seconds. Each time the blast hits me, the despair builds.
The net swings away, turning me so I can no longer see him. I grab the rope to hoist myself around, but the net lowers again into a different body of water. As soon as I’m under, I scream. “Niku!”
When the net releases, I swim toward him, hands out, but they hit something clear and solid. “Niku? Neek?” I can see him, so I pound on the obstruction. “Niku!”
He watches me, but I can’t hear him if he speaks. His voice doesn’t travel far in the water, and now, we aren’t in the same water. At least I can see him.
Until one of the landfolk steps between us. I back up quickly and glance at the surface, fearing the loop that caused so much pain. When I turn back to the landfolk, he smiles, a possessive look in his eyes, hands pressed against the invisible barrier. I wrap my tail around my body.
He’s a creature straight out of my nightmares. His skin is pale and fleshy, like a snail, and his fingers are web-less. He’s different colors—like a fish—but has no scales or gills. His two tails are the color of sand, which switches abruptly at his waist to a blue that reminds me of Huron’s hair. The blue covers his chest and part of his arms, but then stops to become snail-like again. His hair is black, his eyes tiny, and a large bump juts out of his face where his nostrils are. Just like the protrusion on my father’s advisor.
The landfolk man says something in a language I don’t understand, and I cringe away. I want him to move so I can see Niku again.
A splash at the surface makes my heart race all over again, but instead of the painful loop, a dead fish floats through the water. Why are they throwing dead fish into the water? What kind of torture is this?
The landfolk man says something else, pats the enclosure, and walks away. I wait until I can’t see him anymore, then press my palms along the invisible barrier, searching it. It’s smooth and uniform, all the way to the surface, though I can just make out where it ends above the water. There are only two anomalies to the obstruction: one under the platform the landfolk stood on, and another facing Niku. A large circle breaks the flat surface. It’s as deep as my longest finger, but stops again at another invisible barrier. Something that resembles a clear tubeworm case connects my enclosure to the one Niku’s trapped in, but I can’t figure out how to get through.
I stare helplessly at Neek until the adrenaline fades and my muscles become weak again. Spent, exhausted with fear and worry, I sink to the bottom of the enclosure and curl up in a ball.