This Body Built For Breaking (excerpt)
“Cap’n, there’s something in the water!”
Boots thudding on wet wood, eyes strained over the edge of the hull. At first, there was only darkness,the abyss swallowing the light of their lanterns. Then a shape moved below, just beneath the surface. A shimmer, the briefest glint of silver.
Then—teeth.
The body burst from the water in a thrash of fins and flashing scales, salt spray glistening as it rained down over the deck. Someone swore. She had tiny sharp teeth and a tiny sharp mouth. When they pulled her from the shoals, her fins wriggled and writhed, scraping scales to clatter to the rocks and glitter in the sand. Salt brined around her ears, her eyes, the papules of her abdomen. Her voice came in rasps and spits, the ocean itself rooted in her throat; it broke on the shore of her mouth with hisses and clicks.
“Heave her up men! Keep her steady!” came the fishing captain’s call, answered by “aye” and “ho” as the ropes strained and the nets tightened. They bound her in ripping nets of kelp and barnacle-laden ropes.
“What is this creature, cap’n?”
She surfaced to spit and hiss. She opened her mouth, those tiny sharp teeth glistening, pearlescent and cruel. The small fishing boat listed, tipping with the weight of her pull on the nets. Writhing with fury against her capture, she clicked her forked tongue and moved.
Her skin, slick and oil-sheened, slipped free of the net, leaving fragments of scales and flesh floating in the obsidian water. Her eyes, too wide and black as tar pits, held nothing human; no plea, no fear, only the cold tidal pull of the sea. She dove beneath the surface, leaving tendrils of shimmering silver on the surface of the water.
For a breathless moment, the crew only stared. The water swallowed her whole, the surface as black and smooth as polished mirror, the lantern light dancing on its rolling back.
Then the lead line went taut.
“She’s pulling us!”
“Hold fast, hold fast!” the captain barked, gripping the tiller with both hands, his boots braced against the deck. “Don’t let her snap the line!”
“She’s stronger than she looks!”
The net strained, biting into the gunwale, the wooden frame groaning under the force.
“Row, damn you!” the captain bellowed. The oarsmen scrambled to their benches, hands flying to the worn wood of the oars. The boat rocked, tilting sharply, the wind tugging at the sails as the tide surged against them.
“She’s headed east! Towards the deep water!”
“She’ll break loose if she gets out too far!”
“Not if we keep pace - ROW!”
The oars dipped and surged, slicing through the ink-black waves. The boat leapt forward, hull slamming against the water as they fought to keep tension in the net.
A sharp, high-pitched wail erupted from beneath the surface, curling up through the hull like a rusted blade through bone. The sound vibrated through the planks, into the men’s ribs, chattering their teeth.
“God’s mercy…” someone whispered.
Col water surged violently, the net jerking so hard that the lead line-man lost his grip, nearly pitching forward over the railing. The boat pitched, then tipped, then listed. With a final, desperate thrash, the ropes twisted, strained—then snapped. The boat lurched back, nearly capsizing as the force of the break sent the men sprawling.
The sea went eerily still.
The net drifted limply beside the boat, torn and empty.
For a long moment, the only sound was the men’s ragged breathing.
“Did we lose her?”
No answer.
Then—
The water beneath them shifted.
Not a ripple, not a wave—a slow, steady rising.
She was rising from the depths.
“Captain!”
Bursting from the water, her body glistening with the drink, her gills flaring wide, mouth open to reveal those tiny, gleaming teeth. Her arms lashed out, webbed fingers catching hold of the hull. The boat screamed as the wood splintered beneath her grip.
“Fetch the irons!” cried the captain, duty set on capture. “We’ll bring her in proper.”
One of the men staggered toward the mast, hands shaking as he fumbled for the spear. Fingers, slick with seawater and sweat, closed around the cold, iron shaft. Turning back, the creature came full into his view. She clung to the railing, head fin flaring, skin slick and silvered in the lantern glow. Black eyes locked onto his movement, unblinking, unreadable. A sound curled from her throat, clicking and wet, scraping against his spine like a whispered plea, or an unspoken threat.
“Captain!” he tossed the spear with all his might.
And the captain hoisted the iron spear on his shoulder and launched the metal at her heart.
Her gills flared, beating, heaving desperate breaths in the unrelenting air. Mouth gaped in a hissing wail, her body convulsed, shivered, and twitched. A silver pool flowed from the spear in her heart, seeping like ink into the black water. The iron struck true.
The four men strained against the limp weight of her, their boots slipping on the rain-slicked deck as they dragged her onto the planks. The netting bit into their gloved hands, ropes twisting with the effort of hoisting her fully onto the boat. She was heavy; long, sinewy limbs dangling, the slick sheen of her body catching the light, shimmering in shades of pearl and deep, iridescent blue.
Her chest still rose and fell in shallow, ragged motions. The gills along her throat opened and closed in a slow, pulsing rhythm, drinking in the last remnants of seawater still clinging to her skin. Her hands twitched, webbed fingers curling and uncurling against the net, grasping but not catching. Salt water pooled around her where she lay, a thick, glistening mixture of silvery blood that oozed from the deep wound in her chest.
They lashed her down, looping thick ropes over her torso, binding her arms tight against her sides. The net tangled around her limbs, twisting her tail awkwardly where flesh met fin, the spined ridges along the base catching and pulling. One of the men yanked the knot tighter. She jerked in response, her muscles coiling beneath the restraints, a sharp wheeze escaping her throat—a sound caught between a hiss and the low creak of a shifting hull.
“She’s still breathing,” one of them muttered, stepping back, rubbing his hands over his coat. His breath came in thick puffs of mist in the cold air.
“Doesn’t matter,” another replied. “She’s not goin’ anywhere.”
The men stood around her now, looming figures against the night sky, their faces half-lit by the swaying glow of the lanterns.
Her mouth opened again, lips peeling back over those pointed, wicked teeth. They gleamed, knacker-white and needle-thin, rows of them stretching far too deep into the dark cavern of her throat. Her tongue flicked behind them, quick and forked like a serpent’s.
One of the men took an uneasy step back. “God’s mercy… what is it?”
“What do we do with her, cap’n?” another asked, voice tight. His fingers still gripped the net, knuckles rigid beneath the salt-stiff wool of his gloves.
The captain exhaled, stepping forward. His boots clunked hard against the deck, water sloshing in his wake. He crouched low, one hand braced on his knee as he surveyed their catch. His gaze swept over the unnatural curve of her spine, the translucent ridges along her ribs, the shifting shimmer of her scales that rippled like light over deep water. The gash in her chest still oozed, but she didn’t writhe or scream like a dying fish. She only breathed.
Slow. Measured. Waiting.
Then he smiled.
“Don’t you see, boys?” His voice spindled with satisfaction. “People will come to see this. They’ll come from the city with heavy pockets, and leave a little lighter.”
A murmur passed through the crew. Someone chuckled low, nervous, and spat over the side of the boat. Another adjusted his cap, rubbing at his beard with a smirk. The tension ebbed a little. The unknown, the fear, was already turning to something more familiar: profit.
One of the men frowned, peering down at her slitted gills, the eerie wet pulse of them. “You reckon they’ll pay just to look at it?” he muttered.
The captain’s smirk didn’t falter. “Aye,” he said, adjusting his collar.
“Folk’ll pay to look at anything they ain’t seen before. We’ll put her in lime and make coin for weeks off her back.”
He glanced toward the horizon, where the distant cliffs cut the night sky into jagged shadows. Then he rose, straightening his coat with a sharp tug.
“Let’s make to the docks then,” he said, jerking his chin toward the helm.
“Be home for supper.”
A gust of wind caught the sails as they turned the boat toward shore, the ropes creaking under the shift. Below, the creature’s fins fluttered, her breath steady and ragged. Her black eyes did not blink.
Low, beneath the whisper of waves against the hull, a sound curled from her throat.
Deep. Wet. A vibration more felt than heard.
Not a one man noticed.
Night was in full dark as they pulled the small fishing boat to dock on the rocky shore. The creature of scales and skin was barely moving when they wrenched her to the dock, and dragged her to shore. She twitched as they dragged, the stench of rot and salt, webbed fingers clawing at the air as though she might swim through it; yearning for the dark, crushing depths of her birth. The fragile membranes of her head fins ripped on the coarse rope and tore on the rocks as they made for the village path.
Barely three footfalls towards the path, the tide surged, licking the creature’s broken scales, dragging pools of silver into the foam. The next tide surged again, quickened, and drenched the boots of the four men.
They hesitated, shifting uneasily as the water surged higher than the tide should have allowed. A moment ago, the waves had barely kissed the edges of the shore, retreating in their patient rhythm. Now, the sea was hungry, grasping, clawing at their boots, thick with foam.
The wind howled low and guttural between the cliffs, rattling the lanterns they carried, making the flames gutter and shudder. The rope around the creature strained as she twitched, her body weak but writhing.
“Hold steady!” one of them barked, tightening his grip on the netting.
They pressed forward, dragging her over the damp sand, toward the narrow path that wound up to the village. The captain strode ahead, boots thudding against rock, his eyes on the looming outline of the cliffs. He did not look back. He did not pause. The men followed his lead, their hands rough on the ropes, the weight of their prize pulling against them with every step.
Behind them, the tide swelled again.
Then— a noise.
A deep, distant sound, rolling in with the waves. Not the familiar crash of water against rock, nor the wind keening through the cliffs. Unfamiliar, vast. A rumbling, deep and resonant, that trembled in the bones before it was with the ears. A pressure in the ribs, a whisper in the blood.
The men slowed. One cast a glance over his shoulder.
The sea rose.
Not just in tide, not just in current. The whole of it seemed to pull forward, stretching toward the shore with intent. The foam curled black at the edges, thick with algae, churning in slow, deliberate spirals.
The creature twitched again, her gills flaring wide, sucking air in frantic, shuddering gasps. Her mouth opened, those gleaming, cruel teeth flashing as she rasped out a high and keening sound, a wail that was a plea, or a call.
The sea answered.
A wave surged up the shore, sudden and violent, drenching them to the thighs, nearly knocking them off their feet. The lantern flames hissed and sputtered in the spray, and then went out.
“Bloody hell!” a man swore, shaking seawater from his sleeves.
The next wave came fast. Not rolling, not breaking in its usual rhythm, but surging forward with purpose. It struck the shore with a force that sent the men sprawling, boots slipping on wet stone, hands clawing for purchase on the shifting ground. The lanterns shattered as they hit the rocks, the splintered glass swallowed by the tide.
Then came the pull.
Cold, relentless hands of seawater seized their limbs, dragging them from the shore. The ropes that bound the creature to them tangled and twisted, yanking one down onto his back, another forward onto his knees. The cries of the other two were swallowed as the next wave crashed. The water rose, pushing them under, rolling them like broken shells against the jagged rocks.
The captain fought against the pull, gasping as the salt filled his throat, stung his eyes. He reached out blindly, catching the slick, tattered rope that still bound the creature in their grasp. For a fleeting moment, he felt her weight against it, felt the give and resistance of her fight.
He coughed and spat and wretched, but couldn’t clear the water from his throat. The other three men heaved their lungs out on the rocks, and also failed to breathe anything but water.
The creature on the rocks stilled, orb eyes rolling toward the ebbing water. Her body convulsed, spine arching and folding. Forgetting themselves in choking wet panic, the men dropped their netting lines and ran stumbling in the rocks. From her scaled flesh and gossamer fins burst keratin spines that grew in curling spirals around her body. They bent her spine and twisted around her tail fins. She was folded over the bony protrusions from her own skeleton.
The waves darkened, foam curdling black, and a single monstrous surge roared for the shore, cresting high enough to blot out the moon. It shattered the fishing boat, crumpling the wooden planks of the dock as it smashed on the rocks. As they ran, the men started back in scrambling panic as the surge crashed just before them, and did not ebb back to the sea. They stumbled a few sorry steps toward the cliff face as another surge boomed just off shore. The captain tried to lift his foot to climb the rocks, but his feet remained rooted to the rock shore. He tugged and pulled.is boot did not break free.
The men screamed as tendrils of the surge crashed at them over and over, and their feet never moved. Rooted to the rock as barnacle to a sea-borne drift.
The creature turned to them then, in between skin-searing surges. From the shallows, her body rose tall on bone spurs spiraled and curled. Her tiny mouth split her face and opened wide, impossibly wide, her sharp teeth glistening bright as lamps on the horizon. The sound that spilled out was the roar of gales, the wailing of storms, the screech of tectonic plates. The voice of the sea.
The black wave crashed, and everything was cold. Salt filled their mouths, their lungs, their veins. Slipped from their rooted boots, their feet swept into the heavy crash and followed their limp bodies into the deep. And they were spent out to sea.