Reincarnated as a Land Shark???

Chapter 22: White Water

With my water levels back in the safe zone and my stomach full, I decide it's time to resume my journey.

But where do I even go?

I could stick around here, but something tells me I should actually look for a good place to stay while I gain strength rather than just picking a random spot and calling it good. Before, home base was the reef. Now that I don't have one that means I have to find a new relatively safe area to settle down in for a bit while I prepare for my attempt to climb the mountains.

Let's see... if I'm going to be looking for a safe place, water is a must. Downriver is a waterfall and a strong current that leads straight into the ocean. Perhaps there's an area upriver such as a pond or a lake that I could shelter in?

Option one is to get out of the river and walk. Quite frankly that's a bit too risky and slow-paced. I'm definitely faster in the water than I am on land, especially since on land I have to watch my speed so I don't dry out too fast.

Option two, of course, is to just stay in the river and swim upstream. If the current strengthens this may be a bad idea, but at the same time I can travel at my own pace and in relative safety. The benefits of this course of action definitely outweigh the possible risks. What I'm doing is basically a far shortened version of what salmon do to get to the spawn lakes. Since I'm a monster and have much better physical capabilities than a salmon, this should be a cakewalk.

With those thoughts in mind, I turn my nose into the current and start swimming.

While I swim, I compare the sights of the river to the sights of the sandy seafloor. There are some pretty huge differences. For one, even though this is a deep river it's still much shallower than the sea. At its shallowest points my dorsal fin sticks completely out of the water, and even at its deepest I don't have that much maneuverability.

The bottom of the river is covered in pebbles and algae. The bottom of the ocean had been all sand interrupted only by the reef and the occasional stone.

The sea was far more lively and colorful too. There were fish of all colors, shapes, and sizes there; and that's not even taking into consideration all of the different types of monsters lurking about. Here the few fish I can see are mostly shades of brown with tinges of green, grey, and white sneaking in here and there.

The next thing that brings me to is the lack of hiding places. Small fish can hide in the pebbles, but the big ones are left to try and find big rocks to hide in the shadows of. While this may be an effective way to hide from the sight of those above the surface, it's laughably easy for me to pick them out here. It's probably because the big fish - and I use that term relative to the size of the other river fish I've seen so far - have few if any natural or monstrous predators that will target them in the water. Most of the things looking to eat them are going to be animals like bears and birds of prey, so they're camouflaging with the bottom of the river to hide from them, not to hide from things like me.

I almost feel bad when I swim past a trout. It's clearly never seen anything like me before but it's just that teensy bit intelligent enough to know I'm bad news and it practically flings itself out of the water to try and get away from me. It's probably the teeth.

As I swim, the current begins to grow stronger... more intense, somehow. Am I approaching a section of rapids?

That's not good. I should probably prepare to get out of the water soon.

I swim as close to the bottom as I can in case I need to grab the rocks for traction as the current grows increasingly strong. I don't think I'm in the rapids yet, but I can already hear water starting to roar ahead of me.