Modern Monsters

Kya the Fishwoman

Male Reader x Female Monster

You run a tiny clinic in a seaside town. It's been in your family for years, starting with your great-grandfather. Not much has changed about it in all these years. You live in the apartment upstairs, which has a fantastic view of the ocean. Despite the sleepiness of the town, you wouldn't trade it for the world. AS you stand on your porch, watching as the sunsets into the water, you blow out a puff of smoke from your cigarette. You smile, feeling at ease with the world.

Sure, most of your clients are old people who were brought into the world by your great-grandfather and their grandkids who come to visit with their scrapes and blisters. Sure, most of your payments come in the form of fresh catches, vegetables, and fruits. But, it's calm here. You're an anxious person by nature and medical school nearly killed you. Panic attacks, anxiety attacks, name an attack and you had it.

This small town by the ocean is better than any medication. You're at ease here, and you're happy, and that's more important to you than all the money in the world. Although, sometimes money does help.

One evening there is a massive storm coming, while it's not the hurricane they warned, it's still bad. You've helped some of your neighbors and older patients board up their houses and get things ready for it. Now you're at home, sealed tight inside and a little exhausted.

You sit down and light a cigarette as the first boom of thunder rattles your kitchen. You can hear the waves outside, and you can smell the storm. You can't explain it, but you've always known this smell. The raw scent of the thunder mixed with the damp freshness of rain, mix it together with the salt of the ocean and it was your childhood. You used to stay with your grandparents over the summer, always in the heat of storms and hurricanes, it seemed like. Your grandfather taught you how to prepare for them properly while your grandmother showed you how to live without electricity.

Granted, you lived above a clinic with an ever-present generator, you weren't too worried about losing power. You were concerned about losing all the little things. Like your porch over-looking the ocean, the weathervane your great-grandmother welded herself, the hand carved and painted sign your dad made when you graduated from medical school. It was those things you worried about.

Your grandfather used to tell you, that storms took things to give to the people in the ocean. This always terrified you. People in the sea? Why did they never come out? What were they? Your grandfather would laugh and tell you that they weren't bad, they just liked the things we had on land. Then they paid us back with items found in the ocean. Although lately, we hadn't been so kind to the sea, so all they did was took.

You still think back on that often. You imagine what is under the waves and if anyone is watching you. There were rumors a few months ago about a giant shark creature walking on dry land and stealing from fisherman's boats, but the stories died down after the last storm.

You can't sleep, the storm is too nerve-wracking. You also want to be up in case you get any emergency calls. It isn't safe to be outside, and the thought of it scares you, but you'd do anything for your patients.

Luckily, there are no calls, and the storm passes without much incident. You walk outside come morning, looking around with your extra strength coffee in your hand. You walk down to the beach below your house. There's the usual seabound debris, tons of driftwood, some garbage from parts unknown, lots of dead sea life. You then come across what you assume is a strange rock. It has a shimmer to it, so you consider it for a doorstop. But when you touch it, it's slimy, and it squirms. It peeps loudly and flops over, revealing a bizarre creature.

It's back was the color of wet stone, blue-ish gray with a hint of pinky-pearl shimmer. Its underbelly and face were a paler blue. It's round with tiny arms and fat legs. The hands and feet are webbed, and it has thick, frilled gills on its neck. The face is chubby, big black eyes stare up at you, and the mouth opens as it lets out a shrill cry. You're not sure what to do. You don't know what it is or if something is looking for it.