SwimsAbove curled her tentacles around her eggs, skin crinkling into rose-colored bumps that mimicked the coral rocks sheltering her nest. The ocean current’s ebb and flow no longer held meaning for SwimsAbove. She was deep into brooding season, huddled on her nest, protecting her unborn younglings. Not eating. Not moving. Slowly dying so that her children might live. Such was the way of a wild octopus, solitary and alone in the vastness of the outer ocean.
But SwimsAbove was Kopri, not some mindless creature. Her mate stood guard, perched on the top of a white coral spire, eyes alert and swiveling for danger. SwimsAbove knew that as long as he lived, her mate would guard her and their nest with his life—despite instincts urging him to leave.
Like SwimsAbove, her mate was Kopri, and his fierce mind ruled his body. Throughout this long brooding season, he had suppressed the instinct to leave, refusing to abandon SwimsAbove and their eggs. Unlike a primitive octopus, her mate returned to their nest time after time, bringing food and driving off predators. Protecting. Guarding. Until their younglings could hatch, allowing SwimsAbove and her mate to return to the gentle waters of the inner sea.
SwimsAbove kept one eye open, swiveled upward toward her mate. Unbidden, a yellow flash smiled across her skin, responding to the rings of black pulsing beneath her mate’s eyestalks. SwimsAbove read her name there, painted on the skin of his mantle, that bullet-shaped sac trailing from his head. The mantle could contract, creating a blast of water jetting him through the sea. Or expand, creating a sack to engulf his prey and draw it to his razor-sharp beak.
“SwimsAbove,” her mate signed, texture and color rippling over his body as he disappeared into the coral. “Grow still. Something comes.”
She remained silent, her mantle motionless as it took on the color and shape of the seabed floor. The currents shifted. Tiny fish came first, swimming unaware past the ocean’s deadliest hunter. A swarm of thousands glittering like diamond specks scattered through the sea.
SwimsAbove’s mate turned one eyestalk. Slowly. Patiently. And when dozens of fat prey fish approached his hiding spot, devouring the tiny specks, he leapt—tentacles thrusting—launching into the center of the unsuspecting school of prey. His mantle flared wide, engulfing two fish, which struggled in his grip. His beak struck once, twice, then triumph flashed in turquoise rings down his tentacles, which gripped two meaty fish.
The school of prey escaped, silver bellies flashing in sunlight streaming from the ocean’s surface, the deadly Kopri hunter already forgotten. They were prey—just fish—without a Kopri’s mind.
“SwimsAbove!” her mate signed, jetting toward her hiding place, the swirls and knobs of her name written on his body.
Her eyes flew open, pink highlights rippling over her skin as her mate returned. She longed to swim to him and entwine her tentacles with his, but she could not leave the nest—even for a moment.
And so she waited, flashing his name over and over on the mantle beneath her eyes.
* * *
With a final jetting pulse, the guardian hunter returned to their nest. He wrapped his tentacles around SwimsAbove, embracing her and pushing both fish toward her beak.
The hunter kept still while she ate, feeling the firmness of her body coiled within his, blocking his view of their eggs. He sensed their hatching time was near. Soon his younglings would jet away, their minds slowly developing in the unique water of the spawning grounds. After that, he and SwimsAbove could return to the inner sea, which their human friends called Nadako.
This was a moment the guardian hunter would cherish during the long and lonely years of his life—this final moment of peace and beauty with SwimsAbove safely in his grasp. And the kopri spawning grounds, glittering in sunlight streaming from the surface of the ocean.
But in all the years that followed, the image seared into his mind was of the shadow looming over his nest.
A darkness blocking the light.
As something moved on the surface, up in the world of wind and air and humans—but not his human friends and allies from the Nadako Sea.
These humans of the outer ocean had no names and could sing no Nadako words. They could read no colored patterns painted on a kopri mantle. They were mute and dwelled apart from the underwater realm of the Kopri.
He turned toward the edge of darkness, where the deep water swallowed the world. A cloud burst from the seabed. Frantic fish swam toward him. Shrimp and lobster and crab scrambling away from approaching doom.
His tentacles slowly uncurled, lingering a moment before releasing his mate from his protective grasp.
“Something comes,” he signed to her. “Stay hidden.”
Camouflage rippled on her flesh as he jetted toward danger. He swiveled one eyestalk backward, seeking SwimsAbove, but she had already pressed herself flat against their nest, vanishing from sight.
Satisfied that his mate was hidden, the hunter jetted forward, ignoring the maddened prey fleeing past him. He swam toward devastation blooming from chains that hung from the surface, dragging across the seabed.
His eyes darted everywhere, until the dragging weight of metal links burned into his vision—a heavy descending line grinding into the white feathery branches of a coral spire, smashing the delicate structure, which crumbled and fell to the ocean floor. The snaking cable continued, ripping through corals that had grown inch by inch over centuries.
He turned an eye toward the surface. Dozens of ruinous chains descended from the shadow covering his world.
The cold metal links passed by, revealing a vast net looming toward him, its weighted end grinding over the seafloor. The oncoming net engulfed terrified fish, scuttling crabs, and predators too dim-witted to escape.
A cloud of white silt engulfed him, and he felt currents sucking him toward the net. For a moment, instinct gripped him, and he almost fled. But then a chain swung past, pushing water against his tentacles. The murderous links moved on, breaking coral and crushing crabs beneath their weight. Heading directly toward his nest.
His eggs. His mate!
The hunter snapped his mantle shut, creating a blast of water that sent him jetting past the chain. When he arrived above the nest, he fought down an animal instinct to flee. He turned and faced the oncoming chain, which drove forward without mercy—sparing nothing.
He held himself still. Both eyes turned, focusing on the approaching destruction. Then he launched forward, all his energy and effort driving him toward the uncaring metal links. Three of his tentacles wrapped around its cold iron, while the others whirled, pushing against the water. His mantle expanded and contracted, a powerful jet slowly moving the chain away from his mate and eggs.
He strained against the rough links, which tore into his flesh, leaving a long bloody gash beneath his eyes. The chain moved sideways, dragging across the seabed floor inches from his nest.
Relief swept over him—until he looked up.
Until he peered through a cloud of his own blood at a massive net filling his vision. Frantic fish were caught in its mesh, fins trapped, gills gasping. The net spared no living creature, not even a flailing shark, caught in the deadly web. The hunter ignored the pain throbbing from his wound and turned his eyes forward, staring at the weighted net grinding over the world.
At that moment, his mind turned to ice. There was no escape for his nest. No escape for the fish caught in the vast rope web, which rose, dragging its catch into the poisonous air.
“SwimsAbove!” he signed, his flesh turning black with fear. “We must leave. There is no escape.”
SwimsAbove signed nothing in reply. She spread herself flatter over the nest, mantle and tentacles stiffening, seeking to protect their eggs.
He pleaded with her, gripping her tentacles and pulling. But she had anchored herself to the reef, covering their eggs, and would not move.
He stayed, watching the net weights grind closer. Watching the net entangle barracuda and prey fish alike.
Clouds of debris filled the sea, blinding him. When the first knots of the tangled lattice brushed his probing, outstretched tentacle, instinct overwhelmed him. He fled, jetting away from SwimsAbove and their nest until his Kopri mind finally regained control of his body.
He stopped, turning back to face the strangling woven lines. And there he saw her, SwimsAbove, trapped in its lethal mesh. Her tentacles crushed, flailing, while his name flashed in red agony on her flesh.
He jetted upward and came level with her. But the net rose between them, dragging her into the world of air. He crested the surface, watching helplessly as SwimsAbove’s flesh turned black, pulsing red in agony. She disappeared over the edge of a floating human-made island as the invaders pulled in their prey.
She fell, vanishing from the hunter's sight, never to be seen by Kopri again.
His mantle deflated, and he sank into the deep.
The floating island and the net disappeared into the distance, while the hunter scoured the seabed, seeking the nest he and SwimsAbove had guarded.
But he only found broken shells, shattered dreams—and death.
* * *
In the lonely years ahead he could never remember how long he lay exposed beside the shattered shells of his younglings, willing himself to die.
But he was Kopri, not some mindless fish!
The black of fear gave way on his flesh to the grey of despair.
Then red streaks of anger formed, flashing like lightning along his tentacles.
And finally: his skin pulsed purple.
He was Kopri!
He would fight. He would find these murderers and put an end to their destruction.
And so began DeepRunner’s quest, season after season, year after year. Seeking answers. Seeking a way to stop them. These invaders—the Koru-Kah!
CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 2
