Food was far more abundant in open waters, but the animals there were way more skittish compared to the foolish and naïve humans that swam and played near the short. They were so clueless that most of them actually found the feeling of scale rubbing on their legs delightful, thinking it was a friendly fish that wanted to greet them. None of them ever suspected any sort of trouble until the felt the teeth sinking into their sides.
Unfortunately, today was a day were most of the humans actually avoided the beach in favor of staying in their cozy couches at home, curled up with loved ones as they watched bad movies from decades past. The sky was gray, and the sun seemed to be nothing more than a distant memory hidden away behind the clouds, offering only a few shy glimmers of light from the few open spaces in the sky.
This trip to the shore seemed to have been an unfortunate waste. Just as expected, seeing as how this didn't seem to be adequate beach weather. He scowled. Shark should have known better than to trust his sister. He had already been skeptical about the abundance of food, but she had described it so passionately when she came home from a hunt that he couldn't have helped his curiosity. The idea that he had fallen for his sister's scheme angered Shark so badly that he was surprised the water he drifted in hadn't started boiling.
Rising to the surface again, he looked along the horizon, searching for some portion of meat he could attack. Alas, although the sky was full, the sea was clear. He growled, showing off a row of sharp white teeth. Oh how he hated them. Glistening so pure and clean when they ought to have been dull, stained with the rich redness of blood. So starved Shark was, he had to summon every ounce of self control to resist attacking his sister when she came back. The fact that she had bragged so much about the huge meal she had should have made the revenge all the more sweeter as sweet as the tender meat she bore.
Shark shook his head violently, violet hair thrashing in the water to shake thoughts away. There was no use thinking about attacking Rio now, she was back home, probably sleeping the day away with a full belly and a smug grin. Even if Shark did try to head back home and attack her while she was sleeping, he would probably be too weak from the long journey to even manage to snap his jaws properly.
Suddenly, Shark stopped. There were vibrations in the water unlike that of the common fishes that drifted in this area. Just to make sure that this strange and powerful voice was not simply the cause of a large school of fish, he dove underwater, prompting dozens of tiny sea creatures to scatter in a panic. Oh how he hated the tender morsels, too much work for too little pay. He desired not a pathetic minnow, but juicy, heavy meat.
Rio had made human flesh sound like the most delicious thing that could been possibly provided in the world. The range of textures, from the smooth supple skin of a child to the tough and bumpy surface of a hardworking adolescent played a symphony on the tongue. The taste once you got to the muscle, a beautiful red, stringy and delectable. Even the bones could be adored once the rest was gone, for unlike the bones of fish, which were sharp and light, the human skeleton had big, round bones heavy with marrow that Rio sucked on as easily as a young girl would suck on a piece of licorice.
Shark shuddered in a mix of anger and desperation as he swam towards what he deemed to be the source of vibrations in the water. As he swam closer to whatever was thrashing about, Shark discovered a delicious aroma pierce through his being and he was stricken. He opened his mouth and would have salivated if he hadn't been underwater, and stayed stagnant in the water for a moment letting the scent wash over him.
It was the smell of blood, which meant that something was wounded nearby. Shark grinned. He could take advantage of that injury, turn a scrape into a cut and a cut into a deep stab. He could dive his rows of huge jagged teeth and tear it apart, cutting off it's life force and watching its soul fade away as he gobbled it all up savoring it bit by precious bit.
He swam closer, and soon enough Shark began to overhear voices.
"Maan, who put this coral here!?"
"Perhaps you should have exercised more caution."
Shark smirked at the advice. Too little, too late. He had already tracked it. He poked his head out of the water just enough to see. At first glance, it appeared to be two humans one leaning against a boulder in the water and the other… Shark felt a chill travel through his bones. The one leaning on the boulder was human, but this other one was certainly not, at least it wasn't anymore.
Like most creatures, Shark had the ability to recognize spirits and other beings that didn't exist on the material plane. Because of the possible danger that spirits could impose, those that could see spirits steered clear of them, only watching cautiously or moving away from the area to avoid conflict.
This however, was an emergency. To hell with the spirit, Shark needed a meal.
"What is that red fluid escaping your body, Yuma?" asked the Spirit, leaning forward and tilting its head curiously. It levitated above the surface of the water, giving off an eerie blue glow.
"Astral…" whined the human named Yuma, narrowing his eyes and looking annoyed. "Why do I always gotta explain everything to you? It's bad enough I have to deal with this!" he exclaimed, holding onto the boulder and lifting his leg above the water and pulling up wet swim trunks. Shark could see with controlled excitement the long cut on his thigh, a slice that made a ribbon of blood dribble down to his knee and into the water, turning it into a delicious stew. Shark licked his lips, his tongue tasting the faint redness. "It's blood!" said Yuma at last, saying the word that made Shark tremble with absolute desire.
"Blood." repeated Astral, examining the cut. "And you are hurt?" he asked.
"Well I'm not crying about it or anything!" clarified Yuma, looking to the side and scratching the back of his head with a frown. "But, yeah I guess so."
Astral straightened himself up and crossed his arms, looking pensive. "Observation Number Five." He said smoothly. "When hurt, humans leak a red fluid known as 'Blood' " He nodded, as though affirming that note into his memory. "Do you think you should get out of the water until you are no longer hurt?" he asked.
"Nah, it's no big deal!" said Yuma, putting his leg back down into the water.
"But what about that?" asked Astral, and Shark realized with horror that Astral was pointing straight at him. He couldn't just fantasize anymore, the time to act was now! He dove underwater and darted towards Yuma's legs like a missle.
"What about what? I don't see any- GYAH!"
Shark had taken the plunge. Or Yuma had, to be precise, who had been tugged underwater from the force with which Shark pulled. Shark had attached himself directly onto the cut on Yuma's thigh and dragged him down, down, down. The force with which he squeezed Yuma's cut made it squirt obscenely, and Shark wrapped his arms around Yuma's leg to hold on to the source of this delicious meal which filled his cheeks rushed around inside his mouth.
Yuma continued to struggle and thrash and after some arduous effort, he managed to make it back up to the surface again, clambering onto the boulder and gasping hard for air, bringing Shark up with him who was latched onto Yuma like a leech.
Astral gave a gasp of horror that made Shark look up at Yuma. The boy seemed to be frozen in amazement and fear, his mouth agape and his face pale as he stared at the monster with hunger in its eyes, lips stained with red blood. Shark licked them with a slurp still staring into Yuma's eyes intensely. Astral drifted closer, arms crossed and shivering slightly in alarm. "What is it, Yuma?" he asked gently.
Shark turned to look at Astral intently, still staring at him as he opened his mouth, biting back into Yuma's wound again. As soon as his teeth sank into the flesh, Shark felt a powerful force strike him directly in the face and found himself careening down into the water, spinning deep into the depths as his body trembled with pain. His nose ached and it soon processed in Shark's mind that the human, the one named Yuma, had kicked him in the nose with his other leg while Shark had been distracted by the spirit.
Shark brought his hand up to his nose, whimpering a little and trying to soothe it. For a brief moment, he wanted to turn around and flee, swim back home and tease Rio so that he could be saved from the shame of dying of starvation and instead be used as fuel for his sister, when he noticed another taste in his mouth that was different from the blood.
Shark had torn a piece of flesh from Yuma's thigh and in his pain he had not realized it until now. Chewing it over and running his tongue over the skin, Shark was overcome with desire. No, it was too late to stop now. He would endeavor as hard as he could to partake of Yuma, devour this succulent human or die trying. He shook his head to clear it and scowled, making furious bubbles as he swam toward his target, steeling himself for another attack.
Yuma was making a futile attempt at escape, looking so desperate and helpless that Shark wanted to laugh in triumph. He was too far from the shore to make it without a fatal wound, and Shark wouldn't be afraid to flop onto the sand and drag him back into the ocean to finish him off. The boy's leg was a mess. His muscle was completely exposed, composed of delicious looking strings that Shark wanted to latch onto and suck on like Twizzlers. The best thing of all was the blood, the sheer abundance of it trailing out like a thick red flag for Shark to follow.
To Shark's delight, the human was slowing down from fatigue which was no doubt to the fact that his thigh was nearly torn to ribbons. He started sinking into the water and Shark took this as the perfect opportunity to attack again. He dove downward his eyes trained on the body and then shot up, speeding towards Yuma with murderous intent.
"Yuma, look out!" cried Astral from above the water. Silly spirit.
Just as Shark has expected, the sight of something coming to kill him had kicked up Yuma's adrenaline and the boy had broken the surface in renewed attempt to escape his bloody fate. Shark leapt up out of the water with teeth bared and hands outstretched as though he were a literal lion of the sea and came crashing down upon Yuma, clamping his jaws around the boy's side and squeezing until he heard the delightful sound of ribs cracking.
"AAH! ASTRAL!" Yuma yelled, screaming hard now as Shark literally tore a hole in his chest, ripping away the useless attribute of the nipple of male anatomy away and gnawing and the raw meat with despicable delight. Maybe Rio was wrong about a few things, Humans were still a little too bony, it was hard to get a good grip on the meat. Yuma's cries were starting to get weaker now, as an overwhelming urge of sleepiness started to overtake him, the pain reaching catastrophic levels. He held up a weak, shaky hand, as though he wanted the spirit to pull him out of this dilemma, perhaps begging for an angel to take him up to heaven quickly.
Shark looked up at the hand and scowled, letting go of Yuma's chest to swim around and grab hold of his leg again, starting to tug his meal away. He could see Astral coming closer, looking so utterly distraught as he brought his hand closer to Yuma's. His finger's outstretched and Shark looked up as he saw their palms meet.
"Astral…" said Yuma softly, closing his eyes as his hand fell through air, having made the weakest high five in the world. Astral stared at his hand, feeling a sense of helplessness overcome him as Shark dragged Yuma lower and lower.
Yuma's body had been veritable smorgasbord deliciousness. As Shark had brought the body down, he experimented with it, touching the boy's parts and wondering which piece to take first. He still felt warm, the last piece of life clinging to him by a single thread. After nosing around his body, Shark had noticed how soft Yuma's belly was and had resolutely torn the skin away there, encountering what was basically a precious lunch box within his abdomen.
There were minimal bones and Oh the organs had been so delicious, filled with interesting flavors. Shark dove his head inside the Yuma's fresh corpse, cleaning out his insides while they were still warm, cracking the ribs open to the side to finish off by eating his heart for desert. That was the most delicious of all. Even if Shark had gone through all that trouble and had only managed to retrieve this one small treasure, which was about the size of a fist, it would have been all worth it in the end.
Shark no longer feared starving now and his mind was completely at ease as he slept in his underwater cove , belly full of human. His arms and legs had been stored in a ceramic pot after Shark had snapped them in two to make sure they would all fit. He would save those pieces for a sunny day and remind himself to go to the beach and start a healthy practice of hunting human in bulk. He rolled over pulled the bloody swim trunks, which he had started using as a blanket, tighter around his body. Warmth was such a wonderful thing.
Just then he felt gentle vibrations in the water and recognizing them, Shark threw off the trunks and swam out to the entrance, greeting his sister Rio who was beaming with delight. Shark crossed his arms as he looked at her and smirked. "I see you like the present I found for you. Heh." Shark shook his head, his hair flipping in the water from his proud gesture. "That's for the tip on prime human meat. "
Rio smirked back at her brother and gave him a nod of the head and swam past him into the cove, the key shaped pendant around her neck swinging from her movement.
AN: Thanks for the read, I've wanted to do this ever since I heard about Sharkbaitshipping.
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