5/3/2025, 4:13 AM
and there is seal hunter, isulix, perched in hungry wait.
close enough to taste salt rising from below, where foam churns against rock and shore. there is a stink of oil and fish, that triggers salivation in the hunter. he is not yet fully conscious; only in the rhythm of what he has always known.
the hunt.
he is yet to realize he is not where he once was.
he descends slow, where nails click upon stone and wind comes to brush hastily through his sea-matted pelt. shimmering with a healthy sheen deriving from his diet of sea creatures and seal blubber. each ledge slick with spray, but of no consequence to paws that have charted worse.
there, ahead, isulix's sea glass gaze finds a narrow shelf angled over a spit of flat rock slicked black with algae. the tide low, the seals come up here to bask, fat and heavy, sluggish with cold. down the shelf, onto the rock; seal hunter goes, and there seal hunter strikes. his jaws clamp around the neck and the seal shrieks once before the crack.
the others slide frantically for the water, but it’s already red.