Credit to my friend, Moth, for spell checking
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"You either pay with money or else you'll pay with your blood."
Those were the words that had plagued my mind for days. Ever since I got into my huge debt with a wealthy man named Riker Lexington, I couldn't stop thinking about how I was supposed to pay off 35,000 gold coins. My older brother had offered to help, but I didn't want to burden him. He already had concerns with his own money. So, I decided to do the only thing I could do, which was try to catch and sell fish for money.
I stared into the water, waiting for my fishing net to start moving, a signal to me that I had finally caught something. I had been out here for hours and only managed to catch a few fish. As of recently, fewer fish are being caught and people are starting to worry. Rumors have been made that there are creatures in the sea that are leading the fish away from our fishing sites to a safer place. It isn't uncommon for stories like this one to surface around our town. In fact, this story is actually an old one from many years ago. Old sailors used to say that creatures, called Mermaids and Mermen, had lived in the sea and constantly stopped them from being able to fish. They did whatever was needed to, even killing sailors in the process. As embarrassing as it seems, I believe these rumors are true. The ocean is vast, so it's not impossible for such creatures to exist. But then again, those are just old sailors tales.
"Maybe I should just give up and try again tomorrow," I mumbled to myself. In all honesty, I was getting tired of waiting out here. It won't be long until sunset, and I would rather not be here after dark.
I turned around to start packing up my equipment when all of a sudden my fishing net started to violently jerk against my grip. I quickly tried to pull up whatever I caught, but was unable to. Whatever it was, it was incredibly heavy and strong. After a few minutes, however, the net got lighter. I had flown backwards and landed on the floor of my boat. Once I recovered from the shock of what had just happened moments prior, I pulled the net closer to me, only to be met with a sizable hole cut into it.
"What?"
