[Winter Contest Entry 2014] The Curse of My Kind

I opened my eyes. Mounds of adult corpses of my kind shrouded my surroundings. I panicked.

[...What has happened?]

Time ticked. I had escaped the darkness of the reddish shell from whence I came. I slowly resurveyed my surroundings. Then, it came to me.

[I am born.]

[Yet where are my parents?]

I frantically wandered around the vicinity. I knew the truth. The truth that my parents were dead. Nevertheless, I refused to accept reality.

[What do I do now...?]

Adrenaline surged within me. I swam in jerks and spurts. Hideous creatures swooped down from the heavens, their obsidian claws and talons clamping on their prey. Large dippers scooped the riverbed, their fiery eyes gleaming with hunger. They made an otherwise peaceful river into a watery graveyard.

[I-I have to get out of here!]

I swam downstream, riding the current, slithering through debris, hiding from and avoiding the deadly claws. I could only watch in horror as many of my kind made their escape, only to die gruesome deaths to hungry predators.

[Finally.]

After days of endless swimming, surviving menace and peril, I reached the open sea.

[I feel weird.]

The liquids in my body were being squeezed out.

[I feel thirsty.]

A never ending thirst engulfed my entire being. The only thing I could do to ease the pain and exhaustion was to drink. Consume the life force of the water of the ocean that surrounded me.

...I heaved a sigh of contentment.

[I could get used to this.]

I adapted to the freedom of the vast ocean, spending my days devouring microorganisms and filling myself up with saltwater. It kept me alive. It provided me with the strength I needed to face the predators of the sea. They were easier to face since I could see when they would attack, unlike the river monsters who kept their prey paranoid as to when they would strike.

[On this day, I wake up. The sun seems different. As does the water I had grown accustomed to. It seems the time has come.]

After four years of living in the ocean’s waters, I felt the need, one as primitive as time itself. I felt the urge to continue my blood’s lineage.

[I have to go back.]

I knew it was dangerous. However, there must have been a sensible, inexplicable reason as to why my parents returned to that riverbed despite the perils that it brought themselves and their offspring. It was in our nature.

[I must follow their footsteps.]

The next generation must be given life. My children and their children’s children must go on. That has always been the way.

[I must live.]

I made my way back home. Back to where my parents died; back to where I was born. The path was treacherous. Not only did I hide from the unseen threats I had encountered as a child, but I also had to swim against the current. It slowed my progress, and I had to exert great effort so as to not get swept away.

[I’m back.]

A few males of my kind swam around. I needed only to do one thing: to lay eggs from which the future of my kind would hatch.

[I’m weary.]

Did my exhaustion come from the journey from the ocean back to the river? Or was it from the labor of releasing thousands of eggs? Was this how my mother died? What of my father? Was he not able to handle the exhaustion from the expedition?

[This is the end.]

I felt it. I felt Life abandoning me as Death slowly clouded my existence. I accepted it. I accepted that ending.

What should I have done? Should I have followed my instinct and laid eggs away from the dangers of the river? Or was it right to take the path my parents took and give birth where I was born? Should I have satisfied my curiosity? Or was it right for me to take the sure path where my children would have a higher chance for survival?

[I feel my life slipping away. I leave my dream for the future generation. That one day, they will live a childhood free from the threats of predators, that they may actually live their lives and not simply survive it. I dream for this curse to be broken.]

The Curse of the Salmon