Adlet left the house quietly, the door closing behind him with a muted sound that lingered longer than it should have.

  The familiar warmth of home faded with each step he took away from it.

  He didn’t look back.

  The path leading out of the village was one he had walked countless times, yet this morning it felt different — as if something had shifted overnight. The air was cool against his skin, sharp enough to keep his thoughts awake. His father’s words still echoed faintly in his mind, not loud enough to distract him, but present all the same, like a weight carried just beneath the surface.

  By the time the trees closed around him, the village already felt distant.

  Not far from the forest’s edge, Adlet slowed.

  The bush was still there — dense, unremarkable, easy to miss if you didn’t know exactly what you were looking for. To anyone else, it was just another tangle of leaves and thorns at the boundary between fields and woods.

  To him, it was something else.

  He knelt and pushed the branches aside with practiced movements, fingers finding the familiar hollow beneath. The earth was cool. Undisturbed.

  Good.

  He retrieved his belongings one by one — the bow first, then the fishing line and rod, each wrapped carefully, hidden the way he hid everything important: quietly, deliberately, as if the village didn’t deserve to know what he was preparing for.

  Only once the bow rested in his hands did something inside him settle.

  Not calm.

  Focus.

  Adlet stepped past the bush and into the forest proper, a strange impatience lodged in his chest.

  This wasn’t like his usual mornings.

  Normally, the woods were a place where he could breathe. Quiet paths. Familiar turns. Roots he knew well enough to avoid without looking. Today, every step felt heavier. Every sound carried the weight of possibility, as if the forest itself were holding its breath.

  He moved slowly — not from doubt, but from restraint. Confidence was useless if wasted on nothing.

  A branch creaked somewhere above.

  Adlet stopped.

  He listened, muscles tensing, senses narrowing.

  The sound faded, swallowed by the ordinary life of the woods.

  After a moment, he forced himself forward again.

  “They just wanted to laugh,” he muttered under his breath — not to convince himself, but to keep anger from turning into something worse.

  Hope was dangerous.

  Hope blurred the line between shadow and threat.

  And yet…

  A stubborn part of him refused to stay quiet.

  What if it’s real?

  What if this is the day the world finally gives him something to fight?

  His fingers were steady, practiced. His eyes were not. They kept lifting, scanning the undergrowth, tracking movement that never quite resolved into anything solid.

  He followed signs that could have meant anything.

  A broken branch.

  Marks in the bark that might have been claws.

  Or might have been nothing more than time, animals, and wind leaving their mark.

  Each time his imagination leaned forward, reality pulled away.

  Minutes stretched.

  Then hours.

  The forest offered him only what it always had — rabbits darting out of sight, birds scattering when he strayed too close, the soft rhythm of leaves shifting overhead.

  No massive silhouette.

  No labored breathing behind the trees.

  No roar waiting just out of sight.

  Eventually, Adlet stopped.

  A long breath left him, slower than it should have been.

  He stared down the quiet path ahead.

  “…So that’s it.”

  Heat crept up the back of his neck — shame more than anger.

  He had walked straight into the role they wanted him to play. The strange boy chasing rumors. The one who trained too much, spoke too little, and took everything too seriously.

  His grip loosened on the bow.

  Enough.

  If the monster wasn’t real, then fine.

  He wouldn’t let a lie decide how he moved through the world.

  He straightened, shoulders settling into place.

  One day, reality would answer them without his help.

  And whether that day came now or years from now, he would still be walking toward it.

  He kept moving as the afternoon thinned, the forest light softening beneath the constant glow of the Stars overhead.

  Adlet didn’t lower his guard.

  Not because of the rumor.

  Because caution had become part of him.

  Eventually, the tension in his shoulders eased enough for him to admit what he actually wanted.

  Peace.

  Fishing wasn’t heroic.

  It wasn’t training.

  It was simply quiet.

  And after the morning he’d had, quiet felt earned.

  He turned toward the western clearing — his clearing.

  The river ran there, steady and familiar, threading between trees and stone as it traced the base of the world’s boundary wall. Pale light from the Stars fractured across the surface, breaking into drifting streaks that slid lazily with the current.

  Just seeing it loosened something in his chest.

  Adlet sat near the bank, took out his line, and let habit take over. His hands moved with the ease of repetition — careful, efficient, requiring no thought.

  He cast.

  The line cut the air and landed with a soft ripple.

  He waited.

  The forest breathed around him: leaves shifting overhead, distant calls echoing through the trunks, the steady murmur of the current slipping past stone and root alike.

  Time passed.

  One hour. Then another.

  Adlet exhaled quietly, adjusting his grip on the rod.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Nothing.

  For once, even the fish seemed determined to ignore him.

  A faint, humorless thought crossed his mind.

  Figures. Even they’ve decided to mock me today.

  Still, he stayed.

  The stillness settled deeper, stretching his focus thin, somewhere between patience and distraction.

  Then—

  The rod bent.

  Not gently.

  Violently.

  Adlet snapped fully awake.

  The line was ripped sideways as something surged beneath the surface, water exploding outward in a spray that soaked his face and chest. He staggered a step forward before instinct drove his boots hard into the ground.

  He pulled back.

  Muscles locked. Shoulders screamed.

  Whatever was on the other end was strong — too strong for a river this calm, this shallow. The current churned violently now, the surface breaking again and again as the unseen force thrashed, dragging the line in sharp, erratic arcs.

  For a heartbeat, he felt it.

  The terrifying give.

  The line stretched too far.

  It’s going to snap.

  Adlet clenched his jaw.

  No.

  He shifted his grip, adjusted his stance, letting the pull take a fraction of ground before dragging it back, refusing to fight blindly. His arms burned as he leaned into the struggle, breath short, teeth bared in stubborn defiance.

  The resistance fought him for several long seconds.

  Then it faltered.

  Not surrendered — hesitated.

  Adlet seized the moment.

  He hauled back with everything he had.

  The river erupted.

  A long, slender body burst free of the water in a violent spray of light and droplets. White scales flashed, streaked with gold, catching the glow above as if reflecting something far older than the river itself.

  Seven ribbon-like tails streamed behind it, unfurling and twisting through the air like living threads of light.

  The creature slammed against the bank.

  Adlet lunged forward without thinking, dropping the rod and grabbing it with both hands.

  It was solid.

  Warm.

  It thrashed weakly in his grip, its body impossibly light for something that had fought him with such force. The scales beneath his fingers felt smooth, almost glasslike, vibrating faintly as if humming with contained energy.

  Adlet froze.

  Not because it was beautiful.

  Because it shouldn’t have existed.

  He stared down at it, breath caught, mind scrambling for reason that refused to come.

  Then the fish began to change.

  Its body lost definition, the scales paling, edges softening as if light itself were unraveling it. The sensation in his hands faded, warmth dissolving into cool emptiness.

  The fish didn’t struggle.

  It didn’t leap back toward the river.

  It simply came apart.

  Pale mist spilled through Adlet’s fingers, drifting upward in thin, luminous wisps before vanishing entirely.

  Adlet staggered back.

  His hands remained raised, empty now, fingers still curved as if expecting weight.

  His throat tightened.

  He stared at the space where the fish had been, then at the river, half-expecting the water to explain itself.

  Nothing moved.

  Nothing answered.

  The river flowed on, calm once more — as if nothing impossible had just happened at all.

  By the time Adlet turned back toward home, the forest had settled into its familiar stillness.

  Nothing looked different.

  The paths were the same.

  The trees stood where they always had.

  The river murmured behind him with the same steady patience.

  Which somehow made it worse.

  Because the world had just done something impossible —

  and now it behaved as if nothing had happened at all.

  The walk back felt longer than usual. The trees slowly thinned, giving way to open ground and cultivated fields. The forest receded behind him, its shadows loosening their grip as he followed the narrow path he knew by heart.

  His house stood apart, just as it always had — modest, quiet, slightly removed from the rest of the village. Smoke curled faintly from the chimney. Nothing about it suggested that anything extraordinary had brushed against his day.

  Inside, the air was warm and familiar.

  He cleaned himself in silence, washing river water and dried mud from his hands, lingering longer than necessary. His fingers paused once, hovering over nothing, as if expecting to feel that strange warmth again.

  They felt empty.

  Dinner unfolded exactly as it always did.

  His parents talked about the day. About small things. About nothing important. They asked him simple questions, smiled when he answered, laughed at a comment he barely registered.

  Adlet ate mechanically.

  If he tried to explain what had happened — really explain it — it would turn into a story. Something exaggerated. Something amusing. Another strange idea from the boy who spent too much time alone in the forest.

  So he didn’t.

  He swallowed the words before they could reach his tongue.

  Chewed bland food.

  Nodded at the right moments.

  All the while, behind his eyes, seven pale ribbons drifted endlessly through empty air.

  When he finally lay down, exhaustion took him quickly, dragging him under before doubt could fully form.

  But even as sleep claimed him, the image remained.

  Light unraveling.

  Mist slipping through his fingers.

  Something impossible, refusing to be forgotten.

  When Adlet opened his eyes again, he wasn’t in his bed.

  He wasn’t anywhere.

  Darkness surrounded him — vast, silent, weightless. He had no limbs. No breath. Only awareness, suspended in something that wasn’t air or water, yet held him all the same.

  A soft white glow appeared ahead.

  It wove itself into shape slowly, as if the darkness resisted being given form.

  Seven ribbons drifted into view first.

  Then the slender silhouette of the fish.

  It hovered effortlessly, tails flowing as if moved by currents Adlet couldn’t feel.

  “Hello,” a voice said.

  It didn’t come from the fish.

  It came from everywhere at once — calm, emotionless, like a simple statement of fact.

  Adlet instinctively tried to turn his head.

  Then realized he didn’t have one.

  Still, his focus settled on the fish.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  The ribbons swayed.

  “Who am I?” the voice replied. “I am here.”

  “…You’re a fish.”

  “If that is the word you use.”

  Adlet attempted to look around, but the darkness offered nothing.

  “Why are we here?”

  “You defeated me,” the voice said simply. “So I am here. And you… are within yourself. It is only natural for someone to have access to their own mind.”

  Adlet blinked, even though blinking made no sense here.

  And yet, nothing about this felt ordinary.

  “If this is my mind,” he said carefully, “why is it so dark?”

  A pause.

  Then: “Your spirit is weak.”

  The words carried no cruelty.

  That made them harder to accept.

  Adlet’s jaw tightened. “My spirit might be weak. But my will isn’t.”

  “And what do you seek with that will?”

  “To become strong enough to be a Protector.”

  “I do not know what a Protector is,” the fish replied. “But our fate is now connected. Whether this makes you stronger depends on you.”

  Adlet’s breath caught.

  “Can you share your strength with me?”

  “Yes.”

  The simplicity of the answer made his heart pound harder than any fight ever had.

  “So… does that mean I’m a Protector now?”

  “I do not know what a Protector is,” the fish repeated. “But you are my master. You defeated me.”

  Adlet flinched.

  “Don’t call me that,” he said quickly. “We’re not like that.”

  The ribbons drifted, unmoved by the concept.

  “And will I be stronger?” Adlet pressed. “Right now?”

  “If you mean physically,” the fish said, “I doubt it. You already overcame me.”

  “Then how will you help me?”

  Another pause.

  “I cannot explain all that I am,” it said. “Could you truly understand, if you were in my place?”

  Adlet swallowed his frustration.

  “…No.”

  “I avoided conflict,” the fish continued, almost neutrally.

  Adlet’s mouth twitched — a brief flicker of humor.

  “Until you attacked my hook.”

  “Precisely,” the fish replied. “That was your achievement.”

  The darkness began to press in, subtle but insistent.

  The fish’s glow dimmed.

  “Our conversation ends,” the voice said. “You are too weak to remain here long.”

  Adlet felt it — the pull, like being drawn backward through water.

  He resisted instinctively.

  “Wait—”

  There were too many questions, but one mattered more than the rest.

  “What’s your name?”

  A pause.

  “You called me Fish. That will do.”

  Adlet’s focus sharpened.

  “No,” he said. The word came out firmer than he expected. “Fish isn’t a name.”

  A strange warmth stirred beneath the disbelief.

  If my first friend is a fish… then so be it.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  “Pami.”

  The ribbons stirred. The glow didn’t brighten, but it softened.

  “As you wish,” the voice replied.

  “And don’t call me master.”

  Another pause.

  “…Adlet.”

  The darkness folded in on itself.

  His consciousness drifted back, settling once more into the quiet weight of his body.

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