It's Just The Beggining

One Chance Fish

The steam rose from the river, warming her chilled arms. She took several deep breaths, wading through the muggy fog. The air was almost to stifling steam surrounded her, and she felt as if it had a sole purpose - to constrain her movements and make it as slow as possible for her to pass through the fog.

Finally, she felt herself breaking through, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Moments later, a scream was torn from her mouth as she fell several feet down into scalding water. She struggled through the mud to the shore, yanking herself up and onto it. She examined the burns on her legs. The water was hot, but not boiling.

The place were the water boiled was not far ahead, and the water was getting warmer every day. She rubbed some of her salve in her legs and limped on.

When finally she reached the pool where the water boiled, she pulled the long, straight pole from her back, threading a thin cloth thread along its length. At the end of the cloth, she hooked a piece of dead meat on the hook.

She cast her line into the pool and waited. She fell asleep soon, pulled by the warmth around her. She woke up covered in salty sweat, and something was tugging on her pole. She began to reel it in. She felt the hook begin to wiggle free. Just before the fish wiggled free of the metal hook, she yanked her pole upwards sharply, causing both fish and line to be flung backwards.

The fish landed beside her, but the line snapped. She snarled. The lines were getting hard to come by these days. She gingerly pried the fishes mouth open, ignoring the stinging in her fingers, and pulled out the hook. Just like the others, it had been melted beyond any possible use.

Only one fish could be taken every time. They had made sure of that. The hooks were too expensive to buy two of them at once. Well, at least she had caught her fish this time. Now all she needed to do was make the return trip, back to town.