Alomitsu

Chapter 24: Studio City (10)

I had my own thoughts and opinions about life and death, and these opinions were telling me something. What was it? Let me connect the cold soil and the living body. This soil nourished the creatures on the land, and the water nourished the fish. I grew and lived when I ate food, and what I ate was essential for the soil?

I could only survive by eating other animals. If I didn’t eat food, my body would turn into a handful of dirt. As an eater, I had never considered the fear of other creatures before they died.

Occasionally passing by the slaughterhouse and hearing the animals’ wails, I just felt pity and sympathy for them, and then I was eating them with relish and without mercy.

What if the roles eater and food were switched?

The natural world was extremely cruel, and everything followed the laws of nature, cruel and ruthless.

I slightly disturbed the surface of the water. I wanted to keep myself floating on the surface of the water, and I did not dare to make too much movement.

Under me, the head of th black fish with raised bumps tilted. It didn’t even open its mouth, its body seemed to be fixed under me, and it didn’t rise nor did it sink.

The plump and collapsed lips were facing my body. Are the bloated and protruding eyeballs looking at me?

When I was a child, I always observed the world with religious enthusiasm. My playmate’s, Lideck, father was an excellent fisherman. Every time his family catched a lot of fish, they would send it to the drunk. That was my father. Every time he cheaply sold the fish to others, he bought some damn wine.

On the edge of a shallow lake, water striders stepped on the surface of the water. Their limbs were strong and powerful. Their abdomen was raised, and there was a slender straw on their abdomen. They often preyed on fry and tadpoles. They were the predators and the tadpoles were the prey.

After the prey grows into the big fish, it would become the ultimate predator of the water strider, and their places in the food chain would be reversed.

One time, I was standing on the shore and looking at the clear lake. A water strider stood quietly on the water. A grass carp leaned under it and stared at the water strider.

Every time the grass carp moved forward, the water strider was completely unaware of the movement. Each time the grass carp moved, it stopped for a while. When it moved forward three times, it quickly, agilely and fiercely, swallowed the water strider.

I told Lideck’s father about this. After he heard it, he put me in his boat and took me to the center of the lake. The center of the lake was dark green like amber, and it was not as clear as the shore. Duckweed was floating in the middle of the lake.

“Child, look carefully under the duckweed.”

I squinted and looked under the shadow of the duckweed. I saw grass carps eating duckweed. At that time, I realized that fish were not necessarily carnivores, but omnivores.

“Fish are like people. They will also choose the food they like to eat. Each type of fish is the name of our ancestors who racked their brains, so each type of fish has a name similar to their habits.”

My thoughts lasted only a few seconds, racking my brains to think about how to face the current situation. If I panicked, swinging my arm on water would attract the strange fish under me, and then it would swallow me.

This fish had a huge body, but how did it survive? The only answer I could think of was the vines on the stone wall. This strange fish was most likely a variant of grass carp.

My eyes were fixed on the stalactite. At this time, the water under the lake began to surge, the light on the stalactite began to dim, and I saw the strange fish sinking through the reflection of the stalactite.

The darkness enveloped me again. I lost the light, and my heart was beating quickly.

Boom boom boom~

I tried to keep myself calm. In the face of this situation, the first thing to consider was how to get the vines on the rock wall, and why the strange fish sank. My head kept looking around the lake, even though I couldn’t see anything.

“Ah! Damn! My legs.” In this bad situation, the wound on my calf began to ache sharply, as if something was biting it, but I didn’t have much strength.

I shook my arms a few times, and the surface of the lake began to surge. My body also shook with the waves.

Puff chuff~

My hand seemed to have touched something hard, and the slimy sensation from my right hand stopped my right arm from sliding. I turned my face away in fear.

The light shined again. My vision was restored, but my pupils shrank because of fear. A huge pale eyeball was next to me. Even my head was not as big as its eyeball.

When did it arrive next to me? My arms began to uncontrollably tremble, and my body lost its balance.

I fell under the water, and the water got into my nose and mouth. I was shaking my leg in fear, but my injured leg was heavy and weak.

I lowered my head and saw some black fishes biting the muscles and skin on my calf. They had no teeth and could only eat with thick lips.

The fishes surrounding my calf were quite few. What frightened me was the pair of pale white eyeballs under the lake. That was that huge strange fish– One! Two! Three!

They were swimming underneath. Its black body was huge and terrifying. I shook my arms and legs vigorously. These violent swings made me completely stop all the strange fish under the lake from swimming.

They all noticed me. They swam towards me with their triangular fishtails. I didn’t dare to lower my head to look at them. Now that I was completely discovered, I gave up being careful and used my only remaining power to move upstream.

The strange fish floating on the lake sank, and its head dived into the water like a rugged rock. It sank at the same level as mine and stopped. It was about to attack me!

It opened its thick lips, but not as fast as the little fish. It might be because of its huge body and weight. I could feel the water around me being sucked into its abdomen.

I mustered my strength and swam upwards in an instant. The strange fish rushed towards me, and the water surged towards the surface of the water, which also helped me to go into the surface.

I didn’t hide, but it didn’t eat me either. The sharp bulge on its head rubbed my pants and rushed across, marking a blood stain on the skin of my leg. The blood spilled out in the lake.

Its immense force swept the water and threw me out of the lake. I was sent flying nearly two meters in the air. I waved my arms indiscriminately, trying to catch the vines on the rock wall.

“Almost!” My fingertips barely touched the thick rhizomes of the vine, but why was my luck so bad? I couldn’t get a hold of it.

My body fell toward the surface of the water, and a fish lip that was the same size as my body appeared under the surface of the lake.

I am done!

A thick and long black “stick” slid quickly past me, and it penetrated the center of the fish’s lips. I caught this strange “stick” in a panic. The stick had slender hairs.

Huge waves splashed on the surface of the water, and the heavy body of the strange fish was pulled out of the water by this thick “stick”. Blood flowed out of the gills of the strange fish like a small waterfall.

Its mouth was still closed. It made a “wheezing” sound. The strange fish’s mouth was one meter away from me. Obviously, it was penetrated by the “stick”, but it still wanted to eat me. It twisted its body and drilled above the “stick” as if it didn’t feel any pain.

I grabbed this “stick” with my arms and climbed up quickly. The strange fish twisted its body and drilled upwards. The air coming from its mouth hit me, making me smell its stench.

I didn’t know where this “stick” came from, but now, I had to climb forward. I just grabbed the vine on the stone wall with one hand, but the vine no longer had firm grasp. I just got up several meters and it got torn. The vines underneath were even more delicious food than me in the eyes of monsters.

The torn vine fell on the body of the strange fish.

Guru~Guru~

The strange fish’s eyeballs began to keep turning, and its mucus-filled eyeballs suddenly burst. A black fish burrowed out of its eyeballs, and white mucus sprayed everywhere.

“What is going on?!”

After the vine appeared, the eyeballs of the strange fish quickly burst. Multiple black fishes came out of it. These black fishes were at least one meter long. I couldn’t understand the current situation. How can there be a large number of black fish hidden in the eyeballs of the strange fish?

They jumped out of the monster’s eye sockets and furiously rushed towards the vine. The vine was violently hit and bitten. This phenomenon only existed for a few seconds.

After the black fish rushed out, the strange fish finally stopped moving. Its loose lips opened wide to face me, as if waiting for me to fall in. I took a few glances and no longer dared to look.

Here, the stone walls perfectly block the way in the middle and on both sides. There were natural caves under the water and above the stone walls, like layers of spider webs.

I wanted to grab a strong vine and leave this place quickly along the wall. Now that I found the way out, I only needed to grasp the vine and follow it to leave this damn place. Soon, I found a strong vine.

Gluck~

I heard the friction between the strange fish’s throat teeth. In my horrified gaze, a loach burrowed out of the strange fish’s mouth. When it appeared, it made a “chipping” sound. Its body was a few meters long that I couldn’t detect. Its thickness was a quarter of that of a strange fish’s mouth, which was about the length of my entire calf.

“Oh, my goodness.”

This was no longer a type of loach! It twisted its slippery black body, like a pair of dark eyeballs on the triangular head, and the densely arranged teeth made a harsh rubbing sound as it opened and closed.

It quickly twisted its body in front of me, and my hand holding the vine kept shaking. I didn’t know whether I should run along the stone wall with the vine or grab this black “stick” and continue climbing.