The Net

     It’s easy enough to do. The net is far away—yards and yards away. And it’s dull-coloured, blending in amongst the rocks on the shoal where it became entangled. Yes—it’s far away, and Mara is tired. It will be a nightmare to untangle, and Mara hasn’t the time.

     So she tells herself that she’s seeing things and swims away.

     *

     Mara feels bad about leaving the net—if it’s a net (she still isn’t sure; she told herself it wasn’t, but she doesn’t know for certain). So the next day, she swims out to the shoal to see what she can see.

     And it is a net. The sunlight dapples through calm waters to project golden spots onto the dull brown weave-work. Now that she’s close, Mara can see that it’s an industrial-type fishing net. She’s seen them before, scooping through the water beneath massive steel ships, gathering up all the fish in their wake into one big, dark, writhing cloud. Sometimes, they come loose, and the fish escape, and then the nets sink to the depths to bother the bottom feeders. But other times, like this time, they snag on rocks or reefs, and then they become dangerous for everyone who lives beneath the waves.

     So Mara, feeling guilty, goes to untangle it. It’s her civic duty—the duty of all who call the sea their home.

     But when she draws close, she sees colour. When she draws close, she sees movement.

     Someone has already gotten snagged. Someone is well and truly tangled, crisscrossed in the brown lines of the net and tethered to the rocks. Teal scales flash under the refracting sunbeams. Red scrapes and welts blaze across their skin.

     Mara feels her stomach drop. How long has this person been ensnared? Were they here yesterday, and had she inadvertently abandoned them in her laziness? She swims as fast as she can toward the figure in the net. If she’s too late—

     But she’s not too late. The figure in the net moves slowly, gingerly, too constrained to do much else. Or perhaps they’re too injured. As Mara approaches, she sees that they are a Maraquan Aisha. And they are well and truly stuck.

     “Don’t panic,” Mara says once she’s close enough to be heard. “I’m here to help you.”

     The Aisha starts. “Help?” His voice was soft and timorous as the echo of an echo. “Help with what?”

     Mara stops some feet from him and examines the net. It’s caught between three points, the highest rock tips on the shoal. They’re almost tall enough to breach the water’s surface but lie just low enough to deceive ships into navigating over them. The Aisha is tangled in a woven cave formed in the crossfire.

     “You’re stuck,” Mara says, somewhat incredulously. “And you’re wounded. Don’t you need help?”

     The cuts run deep between the Aisha’s scales and run deeper still when he pulls against the ropes without much effort. He can only barely manage to turn his head in her direction. His eyes are sombre but not plaintive. There’s a curiosity behind them that’s dampened by pain.

     “They will be back,” he says. “Don’t worry. I don’t need help.”

     “Who are ‘they’?” Mara asks, hovering near the net’s anchor point on one of the rocks. Her fingers slide over its sides greased by algae, looking for somewhere to gain purchase on the ropes.

     “They,” the Aisha repeats, seemingly heedless of her efforts. “I was with them, but the net got caught on the rocks. And so they sailed on without me. But they will be back.”

     Mara furrows her brow as she finally manages to work her hand beneath a line of rope. “How could they do that?” she asks. “How could they leave you trapped like this? And why were you travelling in a net rather than aboard the ship?”

     She tugs with all her might, but the rope does not budge.

     “I always travel in the net,” the Aisha says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

     Mara doesn’t know what to make of this, so she changes the subject. “I’m Mara. What’s your name?”

     The Aisha cocks his head as best he can under the net. “I don’t know.”

     Mara pauses in her pulling to stare, nonplussed. “You don’t know your name?”

     “Maybe I don’t have one.”

     “You don’t have a name? Then what did they call you?”

     “They didn’t call me.”

     This Aisha is as impenetrable as the ocean depths. Mara finally releases the ropes, her skin sore with chafing. “I don’t understand you,” she declares.

     The Aisha says nothing to that. She might think him haughty in his unresponsiveness if not for the confusion that clouds his eyes.

     “This is going to need more than just untangling,” Mara says of the net. “I will go get my knife.” She hesitates. “When is the last time you have eaten?”

     He hesitates, too, before he answers. “I don’t know…”

     *

     Before she leaves, Mara dives to the seabed to pick some kelp. She doesn’t know if the Aisha eats kelp, but she does know that it’s full of nutrients. It will help keep his strength up until she can get him some proper food.

     When she presents it to him, he appears uncertain as to what to do with it. When she asks him what he normally eats, his only response is, “Pellets.”

     Mara doesn’t know what pellets are. She makes sure he eats every last bit of kelp before she leaves.

     The next day, she returns to the shoal with her maractite knife. The Aisha is right where she left him.

     “Hello,” he says when she enters his field of view.

     “Hello,” she says back. “Let’s get you out of there today.”

     She works through the morning and into the afternoon, sawing away at the lines of the net. The material is thick—as expected of an industrial-strength net. But the fibres gradually pull apart and separate as she wears through them with her blade.

     While she works, she talks. “‘They’ still haven’t come back for you. Shouldn’t they be worried?”

     “I don’t know.” It seems to be his go-to answer for everything.

     “What do you know, then?” she asks.

      But her question only seems to puzzle him further.

     With a snap muted by undersea pressure, the line of rope she’s cutting comes apart from the rock entirely. Unsupported, the net collapses inward, dragging the Aisha with it until it pins him between the two remaining rocks.

     “Sorry!” she gasps, hastening toward him.

     “It’s okay.” He doesn’t sound upset. Does anything rattle him, she wonders?

     This time, she gets close to him and begins working on the net directly entwining him, careful to avoid cutting his skin. “Where did you live before now?”

     “In my tank,” he answers.

     “Tank?” Mara cries. “Like a fish tank?”

     “Yes.” The Aisha sounds quizzical.

     Mara almost slices her hand on accident, working too quickly in her agitation. “Why did you live in a fish tank?”

     “So that people could pay Neopoints to see me.”

     Mara doesn’t quite understand. She knows she doesn’t like that one bit, though. “You should forget about them,” she informs him. “Living in a fish tank isn’t right.”

     “Where else would I live?” the Aisha asks. “I have always lived in a tank.”

     *

     It takes her well into the evening until it’s almost too dark to see, but Mara finally does it. The net comes apart around the Aisha, sagging against the rocks and dropping to the ocean depths. She helps him pick up a severed cord from around his limbs and between his scales, casting it off into the darkness below. She’ll clean it up another day when it isn’t so dark and she isn’t so tired.

     But though he’s freed from the net, the Aisha doesn’t move from his spot. Mara suspected he might not. So she swims up to him and takes his hand in hers.

     “Let me show you my home.”

     He resists her pulling. “I should wait here,” he murmurs, eyes darting to the ocean surface. “In case they come back.”

     Mara shakes her head. “They won’t come. And if they do, I won’t let you go back.”

     Living in a tank is no way to live at all for one born of the sea.

     “Come on. It’s a bit of a swim, but I don’t live too far from here.”

     She tugs on his hand again, but again, he falters.

     “I…” His eyes flit from her to the darkness of the sea behind her. “It’s bigger than my tank,” he says at last. “I’m… afraid.”

     Mara tightens her hold on him. “We’ll go together. It won’t be so scary if we’re together.”

     She feels some of the tension go out of his hand. Seizing the opportunity, she pulls him out of the shoal and into a new world.

     The End.