Try as he might, there wasn't much that Gilbard Noam could remember of his early childhood. A lower class family living in the slums on Fishman Island. He could remember the voices of the street kids that he adventured with from time to time, but he couldn't picture their faces. Swimming where they weren't supposed to go and getting into all sorts of mischief. It was par for the course for his style of living.

He could remember glimpses of memories of his mother. A burnt orange hued fishwoman which towered over him as a young child. There were very few good times left in his head all these years later.

Ebb and flow, ebb and flow
Leave your troubles all behind
rejoice in your kinship
and your place in fishmankind

Ebb and flow, ebb and flow
within the rolling tide
shines a light that never wavers
the heart of fishman pride

Ebb and flow, ebb and flow
No matter what we face
we persevere and overcome
such is the fishman race

A sweet tune attached to a patriotic anthem from a forgotten time. He did remember his mother singing this to him in his bed while he dropped off to sleep. The meaning in the words were lost on the innocent spawn. Her little wiggling hair tentacles to the way she patted his head.

The rest of his memories were filled with her shrieking. Protectiveness blazing and crackling like fire. Like the time he came back with a gash on his leg and dirt on his face and he had been imprisoned in his home for weeks. Again, any semblance of normalcy was lost on him. This was what life was to him and all he had ever known.

One day, some strange creatures had come to visit their neigbourhood. They were fleshy pink and brown things. They lacked gills and webbing between their hands. They didn't have tentacles, or fins, or scales. They had masks to hide their faces. To Gilbard they were some sort of monsters. The monsters had come to his house. His mother rushed to him. Her usually angry eyes had changed to ones of fear. She told him to hide and not to come out. Her expression alone was enough to strike fear into him. So he did just that. Peeking out from behind door, his black eye spied the masked monsters. An emblem, clear as day was plastered on their clothing.
There were only two sentences that he could remember. "There is reported to be a pureblood zebrafish hiding at this address." His mother took a step back, her hands coming to her mouth. She sobbed and shook. "Yes. That's me." Soon after, she left. There was no struggle, she simply walked away with them. There was no explanation for the young child that was left behind. Gilbard had been abandoned. And with that, he was now alone in the world.

He stayed in his room for a few days out of terror, hoping his mother would come back and free him. When she didn't come, Gil was forced to go out and find food. He went to the street kids, but they were of no use to him. So he wandered Fishman Island in sheer desperation.

There was this old tradition on Fishman Island. On the outskirts of the island but out on the open sea, there was this deep water abyss. A trench as black as night. Life was precious and yet, there was this strange tradition for fishwoman with unwanted birth to let the child go into the abyss. They say it is like giving the child back to the sea. Letting them drift down into black nothingness. Still, the tradition was looked down upon as a barbaric thing of the distant past. Seen as leaving a newborn to certain death by subjecting them to the foodless, high pressure environment at the bottom of the sea. But every now and then, someone would fulfill that tradition once more. Whether out of self interest or just some kook, a small number of fishman spawn had been cast down into that abyss.


Gilbard was now a street kid and lacked the ability to provide for himself. Wherever he went to seek aid, he was cast out of. In desperation, he ventured past the island and into the sea. Out there on his own. Among the sea monsters and strong currents. It was terrifying. He was at his wits' end. Maybe he would never know a home again...

A ship appeared from the murky blue. Sporting that very same emblem that had taken away his mother on the sails and covered in a bubble. Stress flooded his body. All he could feel was his head screaming at him to get away. But there was nowhere to run to.

He looked around and found a crevice in the sea floor. Oh what luck! It was like the sea was providing a place of solace by opening up for him only. He darted inside and hid there, peeking out at the ship as it sailed closer. What he didn't know was that this was the abyss of legend. The one that many suspected had hundreds of small skeletons at the bottom. The ship came closer and closer. Gil felt like it was coming for him. Like it knew him. Like it wanted to end him. Gilbard scrunched his eyes shut and whispered a prayer.


Out of nowhere, the sea seemed to shift. A current suddenly formed, creating a whirlpool which sucked the little fishman down into the bottom of the abyss.

The end?

exit