Otodus

Most have one pair of eyes.

I have two pairs of eyes.

With the eyes staring out across the ocean horizon. I can see his fin slicing through the water, 100 feet out, gliding back and forth and back and forth, daring me to take that step. I looked down and shut my eyes. I sat there for quite some time, reminiscing the same cyclic scene over and over. Finally, I took several deep breaths, lifted my foot, and stepped in.

With the other pair, I can see the same scene - an ocean horizon, with that same fin slicing back and forth and back and forth. The difference? A few things. For starters, instead of a look of anxiety and nervousness on my face, there's a slight smile. At the same time, instead of an endless ocean beyond the line that the slicing fin patrols, there's an endless trail of red, stretching indefinitely until it continues over the horizon.

“Ahh!” I wince in pain as I reach my hand down over my front. I lift up my shirt and analyze the jagged line, stretching from just below my left shoulder and ending right above my belly button. I then look back out to the fin, still slicing back and forth through the water. It looks different from when it did when I first spotted it. This time the fin itself had a missing section; receding from the top right corner, down about a foot, and ending in the middle its visible portion.

I smile again, take several deep breaths before lifting my foot, and stepping right back into the water.

There wasn’t an exact date for the birth of Otodus, more of a range of time. You see, Otodus didn’t have parents, he was grown and raised from experience. He grew from a place of absolute isolation. The only thing he had was himself and his mind. From that bitter sweet isolation he was raised into what he is today - fear. Not fearful, no, rather, he became fear itself. With that comes control, power, and impenetrable skin and mind.

The only way this is accomplishable is from pure isolated concentration; One thought goes through the mind over and over and over again until it ingrains itself into the mind and no longer requires conscious thought. It becomes second nature. It becomes instinct. What used to be rogue thoughts running through your mind is now merely the blood running through your body.

Your eyes which people used to be able to tell so much from become merely blank and empty dots, utterly void of emotion. Your body no longer shakes or permits movements that you don’t initiate. Even when the world is shaking, trembling, and howling on every side of you, you are still. Inside of that mind of yours is not peaceful, it’s quite the contrary actually, it’s pretty chaotic, but yet, it is serene. It is still. It is in complete control. You can feel the blood in your system heating up evermore until abruptly, it becomes cold. This is the demeanor of a predator.

When Otodus was young, he used to watch the drops of storm fall from the sky above him, and stop right at the door of his home. He was used to this. It was a given for him that the calming waters around him shielded him from the storming waters above. He could see them, yes, but it was faint. He could hear them, yes, but it was faint. He could even smell them, yes, but it was faint.

Most of the time the storms from above would go completely unnoticed by Otodus. They would just stop at the doorstep of his home, and sit there.

Otodus thought that all the storming waters were doing was sitting there, but he was wrong. There was another thing they were doing - waiting. You see, the storming waters were humble in one sense, they didn’t take things for granted like Otodus did.

The calming waters that were always around him as he was young, he took for granted as if it was just a given that he had this luxury.

But the storming waters saw how vulnerable he was and were waiting for the day that the calming waters would fade away, and when they did, the storming waters still falling from the sky and all of the storming waters laying on top of the calming waters that surrounded Otodus throughout all his life, finally, came down.

I look down and shut my eyes. I take deep breaths until I feel it. I don’t know what it is, but when it arrives, I know.

A rush; cold, then not.

I move forward, look up, and open my eyes.

Things look different now. Things feel different now. What was once a blue flood of light is now a vast sea of black - cold, still black.

My home.

My favorite place to be.

Here, I am a predator, and every predator needs prey. What were once mere figures in the milieu before reopening my eyes, were now prey in the vast black, oblivious to what is lurking around them. They aren’t afraid, but they should be.

Then, a blur.

My trigger.

There’s blood in the water.

The prey will never understand the cold, how warm it is. To them, the cold will ever remain cold. I am furtive, reticent, and will strike when you least expect it. I wait for when you turn your head and think you are safe. I then dip down, gliding through the enveloping black. You sense something, and look down.

Nothing.

You then peer closer and see the faint outline of a figure begin to emerge from the darkness below.

Your eyes lock onto a pair of blank, cold, murderous dots of which are absent of emotion, just a pure, chilling inevitability growing closer and closer.

I wait for my moment, and spring up through the darkness growing ever-closer. Your eyes find mine, dilating as an overwhelming fear rushes to fill the new spaces.

My target freezes; I have you right where I want you. I brandish my jagged rows as your core is enveloped.

They sink.

A muffled, yet stabbing peal cuts through the dark for just a moment before ending abruptly. I fight the urge to tear you to shreds and settle for a single jagged wound across the front. I finish my job as quickly as I started it and leave you there, bleeding, letting the pain sit with you for as long as I please. The rest of the prey that were around you just a moment ago are now nowhere to be seen.

I close my eyes, breathe, and open them again. I move away, taking one last glimpse of the scene before returning to the darkness.

You’re in the same spot I left you, still bleeding.

When you encounter me, I stay with you - That wound that I created will ever bleed until it runs out of liquid to bleed, and when it does, a massive, indelible scar will forever remain just only to remind you of me.