Things That Move

Water. Flow. Sound.
I move because that’s what I do. Because that’s what things like me do.

Then - her

The world rips open and I’m not in it anymore. My body folds and the sky replaces the sea. Everything that held me disappears. The weight. The noise. The steady pull of the current. Gone.

The air feels wrong. Cold. Holy. My gills flare at nothing. My body thrashes out of instinct, not thought. There’s no up here, no down. Just wind and terror and light too sharp to look at.

Something holds me. Beating. Alive. I twist but the grip doesn’t change. A rush of air slicks along my scales. For a moment it’s unbearable and perfect. The shimmer. The blue. The feeling of falling without falling.

Then awe fractures. Panic slams in. I snap my tail, bend, fight. But the air doesn’t move. The sky doesn’t yield.

So I go still. Hang limp. Pretend death. Maybe she’ll drop me. Maybe I’ll fall home.

Nothing. Just wind. My body cools. The stillness almost feels kind.

I twitch. Kick again. Lose. Go still.
Kick again. Lose again.

No plan. No prayer. Just reflex.

I know what’s coming. I feel the certainty of it sitting quiet inside me. The world has flipped, and there’s no unflipping it. Everything I ever knew is below me now, shrinking fast.

Still, I move. Once more. Because that’s what things like me do. Because I don’t know how not to.

And then -
a jolt.
Like waking from a dream I didn’t realize I was inside.

Because suddenly I’m not the one being carried.
I’m the one in the sky, holding someone else’s whole world in my claws.
And she is the one thrashing, terrified, trying to breathe in a place she never chose.