- 100 meters above the ocean onboard the airship of a small-time outw -

  “Ey boss, I see an isnd in da distance there, why don we py dat game again?” A thin bald man spoke to his captain.

  “Ah perfect! GHA-HA-HA! But don start bitchin’ when I take all your CHUB again Filly! GHA-HA-HA!” Laughed the burly captain of the ship.

  The remainder of the crew joined their captain in the ship's gondo and erupted into malicious ughter.

  The only person not ughing was a young man dangling from a rope dder just outside the zeppelin. His feet and hands were bound so he had to bite into the dder to prevent himself from being blown off.

  Despite the predicament this 20-year-old found himself in, his face still held onto a defying gaze as he stared into the eyes of the muscur outw captain before him.

  Even with the bck eye and multiple bruises on his body, the young man still carried himself with an air of dignity. This pissed the captain off to no end, he had hoped to see the ugly face of despair painted across the young man’s face when he threw him down the rope dder, but the son of a bitch dared hold on using his teeth!

  Not only that, but the young man’s sharp jaw-line, slightly muscur build, and golden curls made sure he would still be considered handsome despite the bck eye.

  “Okay, alright, nough’ joking around, I can’t stand this bastard, his face is starting to piss me off… Pce yer bets now before I cut off the dder. I wager 10 CHUB that one of them sea monsters’ll eat him!”

  After the captain pced his bet, the crew started yelling over each other: “I bet he’ll drown!” – “5 CHUB says he’ll swim to the isnd!” – “Are you crazy? The captain’s right, he’s clearly going to become fish food, 8 CHUB!” – “Pft, 15 CHUB says he’ll die on impact when he hits the water!”

  Seeing where this conversation was going, and knowing that he couldn’t possibly get out of this situation without taking any risks, the young man pced a small bet of his own before letting go of the rope between his teeth.

  The captain, who was about to take out a knife from his boot to cut the dder, was shocked to suddenly hear their captive speak.

  “I hope you’re a good gambler because if I survive this, I will hunt you down with the entire might of the Savate family! This I promise as the soon-to-be patriarch, Ginn A. Savate!” The boy cried out before falling off the dder.

  “GHA-HA-HA! The entire might of his family he says!” The captain and crew broke into a grand ughter again. But this time, the young man, Ginn, joined them all the way down until he reached the water.

  *SPLASH*

  …

  *GASP* Blond curls breached the water and gasped for air. The young man survived the fall, but he knew he had to quickly reach nd, otherwise that bastard outw captain would earn a lot of CHUB today.

  Luckily, the jute rope that bound his hands snapped on impact with the water, and the rope around his legs miraculously became loose enough for him to escape.

  He started kicking out with his legs and windmilling his arms in an attempt to swim toward the small isnd they dropped him off near. But he soon noticed a problem, his left leg wouldn’t move the way he wanted to.

  ‘Broken’, Ginn thought to himself.

  He felt a searing pain through his shin as soon as the realization hit him. Diving his head into the blue below him and painfully opening his eyes inside the salty seawater, he could spot a sharp, white bone jutting out from his leg.

  ‘Shit, my blood will only attract more of those sea beasts.’ Ginn panicked as he started swimming even faster.

  After several minutes of struggling against the current, Ginn took a short break. He was exhausted since he didn’t really know how to swim, and the adrenaline of the fall had somewhat worn off.

  However, he maintained a smile as he only needed to exert effort for a few more meters before finally reaching the shore. Unfortunately, disaster often strikes when the thought of it disappears and one rexes.

  *SNAP*

  Ginn suddenly felt a sharp pain in his side as the water started turning red around him. He could scarcely discern a silhouette withdrawing into the deep blue beneath him.

  ‘Sea scorpion… Just my luck.’

  Ginn began moving his arms in an effort to swim to the shore. He felt the wound on his side, noticing it wasn’t that deep of a cut.

  ‘A preliminary pinch, the scorpion is assessing whether I pose a threat... It will likely strike again before I reach the shore,’ Ginn reasoned.

  And he was right, the beast nicked Ginn with its cws to determine if he was going to put up a fight or not. The scorpion was a juvenile and only around 4 meters, meaning the just under 2 meters Ginn could pose a serious danger.

  But the scorpion quickly determined Ginn was easy, injured prey that couldn’t follow him down into the depths of the ocean. It opened its cw and charged Ginn from underneath.

  By that point, Ginn had already stopped trying to swim away, he knew he couldn’t outswim a water scorpion and thus decided to fight back. He took off his shirt and dove down into the water where he forced open his eyes.

  When he saw the bck carapace of the scorpion charging at him, he used his t-shirt as a net to catch the open cw that was aimed at him.

  The pn was successful, and its cw became entangled in the fabric. This temporarily immobilized the scorpion, but it soon tried to use its other pincer to grab Ginn's waist.

  However, a moment was all Ginn needed to get close to the scorpion. Before the beast could squeeze its cw shut, Ginn grabbed onto the antenna poking out from its head, and kicked the sharp bone sticking out of his shin into the face of the scorpion.

  A blue liquid muddled the red water around the beast, which quickly led go of its prey and swam back toward deeper parts of the ocean. That filing piece of meat on the surface was clearly more dangerous than it initially judged and since the scorpion wasn’t starving, it simply decided to back off.

  Ginn did not wait to confirm if the scorpion had left. Instead, he used his remaining energy to swim to shore, aware that the scorpion blood could attract even rger creatures.

  *DRAG* *DRAG* “HUFF… HUFF… finaly… nd…”

  A young man could be seen lying down on an exquisitely white beach, looking up at the sky. You might even think he was on vacation if you saw the bright smile on his face, but that thought would quickly disappear after seeing the red patch of sand that was spreading from where he was lying or the piece of blue meat that was skewered on the bone that was poking out from under his skin.

  He closed his eyes but only fell unconscious after hearing a disgusting: “gha-ha-ha…” somewhere far above him in the clouds.