The storm was biblical.
Kinn didn’t remember the crash, only the bone-shaking thunder and the hiss of water as it swallowed the yacht whole. He’d shouted orders—men screamed, guns were useless against the sky.
Now he was alone.
No crew. No tech. No weapons. Just a soaked silk shirt clinging to his body and a bitter cut on his temple stinging with salt.
The island was small—lush and green with cliffs rising like teeth. The sand was coarse, the sky too blue, and his pride was buried with his ship.
He stumbled through the jungle, found a half-shelter of rocks, and collapsed.
When he woke, the sun was setting—and he wasn’t alone.
There was someone crouched nearby in the shallows, watching him with wide, curious eyes.
Not someone.
Something.
A man—bare-chested, long wet hair cascading down his shoulders. But his skin shimmered, and below the waist—
Scales.
Long, iridescent, a tail swaying lazily in the tide like a predator pretending to be a pet.
Kinn froze.
The man tilted his head. “You’re not dead,” he said with a melodic lilt, soft but not quite human.
“Yet,” Kinn rasped. “What are you?”
A small smile. “Thirsty? Bleeding? Desperate?” He crawled closer, water lapping at his tail. “You’re human. That’s all I need to know.”
Kinn gritted his teeth. “If you’re here to kill me, get on with it.”
The creature blinked, genuinely surprised. “Kill you? No. That’s your world’s thing, right? Murder? Power?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t want your blood.”
“What do you want?”
“To see if your heart still works.”
---
He came every day.
Kinn never asked, but the merman always showed up—when the tide was high, when the sky was quiet, when Kinn sat with a fire burning low and too much pain behind his eyes.
He learned his name by accident.
“You talk a lot for a fish.”
“I’m not a fish,” the merman had said, mildly offended. “I’m Porsche.”
“Like the car?”
Porsche blinked. “What’s a car?”
Kinn snorted for the first time in days.
Porsche brought him fish—real ones. Freshwater fruit from trees Kinn couldn’t climb. Sometimes, he sang. Wordless, strange melodies that made the ocean seem less lonely.
Kinn built a hut. Made tools. Fixed his injuries.
He stopped expecting rescue.
Instead, he started waiting for Porsche.
----_
It was a small thing, really.
Porsche brushed against Kinn’s hand one evening as he passed him a fire-warmed shell of food.
Kinn jerked away. But the warmth lingered.
“You’re scared of me,” Porsche murmured.
“I’m not scared of anything.”
