Mikano.Kai thought of the ocean, that place where he and Fian had spent a dream.
Mikano.He tried to remember that underwater world where no breathing was required, where he had met that other diver whom he had thought a figment of his imagination.
Mikano!Where are you?
Darkness came slow, but it came, and along with it, the sound of the waves dulled.
Wherever Kai was, it was dark.He felt weightless, that sense of disembodied dreaming that he only now connected to swimming in the ocean.As slow as a sunrise in winter, the darkness changed, shifted.Bubbles rising from the deep sparkled.I made it!I’m back again in that same dream!
“Mikano!”
He had a voice, even in the ocean, even underwater.That only made sense in a dream, and now that he was here, Kai felt the urgency again.Fian is alone with…with Nick.And Nick is vile.
“Hey!Mikano!Where are you!”
The water stirred, and Kai felt the current of it rushing past him, almost like wind on his skin, but not quite.
“Why are you shouting so much, and how do you know my name, little dreamer?”
A shadow swam past Kai, large and looming.It was a nightmare, a shark.The creature was teeth and fins sharp as a flensing knife.The shimmer of its gray body struck a primordial chord of fear deep in Kai’s very being.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
Kai tried swimming away, but in this dream he moved slowly, stuck in place.
“Relax.I ate,” said the shark.“And you called me.I’m Mikano, and I never gave you my name.”
“Y-you’re Fian’s brother?I thought you’d have tentacles too.Anyway, I need your help.Fian sent me.He’s been…taken.There’s this guy, Nick, and he’s”—Kai shivered.He didn’t want to tell a perfect stranger what exactly Nick had done to him.He didn’t even know himself, not all of it, not the details of it.But Fian needed help.“He used magic on me.Love magic, Fian said, and now he has Fian.He said they were going to eat his liver.”
The massive shark was circling Kai, and dark eyes watched him.The eyes were intelligent, mystical, though the teeth really stole the show.Kai couldn’t be sure, but a single tooth looked larger than his index finger, and it was difficult not to imagine what would happen if the shark decided to chomp down on him.
“You’re trembling like a pile of fall leaves, dreamer.I told you, I ate.Cake tasting actually, and we had to try the raspberry and the raspberry and lime twice.What’s your name?”
“Kai?”
The shark made a chortling sound, and it occurred to Kai that as far as he knew, sharks didn’t have the right voice box and muscles to allow them speech.Plus, they lived underwater.
“Are you asking me?You’re one ofthosepeople, the kind that have nightmares about sharks coming to get them.I swear, we have been stereotyped ever since that movie.”
“Sorry.Right.I’m Kai.Nice to meet you.Now, I need your fucking help, because Fian is in trouble!”Kai recalled those teeth.“Please.”
“You said he sent you.Hmm.Fian is tough, you know.If you bite off a tentacle, it will regrow.Ask me how I know.”
“No, thank you.”
The shark rounded Kai twice, dark eyes focused on him.“How did you two meet?Fian doesn’t normally meet people.”
“He walked into my store—not really mine, I think.Again, Nick did magic to me.But Fian walked in there, and I was upset.He was kind, I gave him a jar of jam, and he told me to get some rest, to take care of myself.”
“He met you in a dream as well, didn’t he?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“And that’s my answer right there.That human wants to eat my baby brother’s liver, you say?”The shark seemed a lot more menacing all of a sudden, and there was a chill in the water.
“That’s what he said.”
“And he forced himself on you by means of a love spell?Manipulated you into being his slave and working in a store for him?”
