I spent the next few days learning the system that had been downloaded to me. Given that it was the only thing to do, I analyzed every page or menu option to the fullest. I first noticed that a prompt came up when I touched the fish.

Sensor Shifu Level 3(Corpse)

Meatx3 [Harvest]

Sensor Whiskerx1 [harvest]

I clicked to harvest the meat first; before my eyes, large chunks of the fish disappeared until, finally, there was only the spine, head, tailfin, and whisker left. I harvested the whisker, and that disappeared from the body as well. With nothing left to take from the body, it started to crumble, dissolving into the water until nothing was left.

Sensor Shifu Meatx3 added to inventory

Sensor Whiskerx1 added to inventory

I played around with the menu until I could find my inventory. It was a bunch of empty boxes besides two, one of which had a picture of meat and another with a picture of the Shifu whisker. I thought about the meat, and two came out into the palm of my hands. I then took a piece back into my inventory, leaving only one in my hands. It was another unspoken prompt; if I wanted something to go into my inventory, it would immediately go there.

I put my knife in my inventory. Instead of going into the inventory page something different happened, a small square box with a knife icon appeared in the bottom right corner of my vision. It looked like an inventory box but since it was in my field of vision I could draw my knife out immediately instead of going to the inventory page and searching for it. It saved me some time which could be crucial in a fight.

My inventory page had a different section for weapons, where I could also find my knife. It also had a section that showed all the items I was wearing. Going through that page, I could automatically take on or off a piece of clothing. I tested it out by taking off both my socks and shoes, all while not lifting a finger, just thinking about it.

I scarfed down the piece of meat, it was a giant fish steak that would have barely fit on a plate. It was uncooked and still slightly warm, but it wasn't a several-day-old arm, so I tore into it like an animal, eating half before putting the other half in my inventory. Then I stood by the ledge of the crevice with a bunch of little pebbles and rocks and started dropping them outside. Each one sank slowly to the sandy floor below.

Wherever the Leviathan was, he was always within striking distance; one day, I had peered out the crevice a fraction too much and nearly lost my head. I could stick out my hand, maybe my arm, but any more of my body and the Leviathan would snap down on me. So I carefully kept my hands away from the outside as I tossed down the pebbles until finally, I saw them.

The creature looked like a meerkat but with the big eyes of an owl. They wore a suit that looked from the victorian ara, and there was something shiny in its ear. The only other survivor. I had found out that they were hiding in a crevice below mine. The walls slanted so that if we both stood in a specific spot we could see each other. I waved the meat in the air and then dropped it; from that distance, I couldn't see much of her facial features, but I could tell her hands were moving in a way that reminded me of sign language. The meat fell softly, and then I watched as her hand darted out to grab it.

Boom! The crevice shook as the Leviathan's tail slammed into the cliff wall where the meerkat's hand had been. I winced; of course, he had been watching. I felt bile in the back of my throat, but I had learned the hard way that puking wasn't a great idea underwater. Instead, I did the only thing I could do: flashed him the bird and then went to play with my menu some more.

The other menu options weren't too helpful, at least at first. After Character Sheet and Inventory was a menu for skills and spells. Something you needed skill points to purchase. There were many things I could buy, most of them water-based. For skills, there were options like swimming, underwater combat, and underwater stealth. There were spells like Create Water, Turn to Ice, water ball, and ice spike for magic. I had yet to learn how you got a skill point, but I hoped to get some soon. In comparison to the skills, which all cost one skill point, the magic spells cost anywhere from 2 to 5 skill points.

Then on the right side, after notifications, was something that said Raybook; when I tried to open it I got a blank page that said no connection. After that was a store page that looked similar to a mobile game store. It explained I could buy skill points and healing items for credits; which helped me none as i don't have any credits.

The last menu page was where I found gold. It was a page that held different settings for my system. I could change how transparent my menu screen was or how much space it took up. I could even have more than the dots displayed in my vision. After fiddling around with it, I got my health, stamina, mana, and XP to all sit nicely in the top corner of my vision.

Of course, the best part of the Settings page was the bright red logout button. If this was like a game, would logging out get me away from here?

I went to hit it but paused. Did I want to leave? Jeremy was-. I looked out at the sea in front of me. Since I was brought here, I've tried not to think about Jeremy; it was a sore wound I've tried to ignore, but I couldn't do that now. I had to face the facts. If he was brought to this area he was dead. I was barely alive; I only lived because of luck and this crevice. I hoped he hadn't been killed, but the Leviathan hadn't lied when he said only two people were left. I could feel through the mental connection that he was being honest, so if it was just me and the meerkat person, then where was Jeremy?

I had a hope I was clinging too. Everything here wasn’t adding up. Why teleport us to the capsules instead of strait to the water? Why give us gills? Why scan me? We didn't need those middle steps if our end goal was to be some sort of food. I keep thinking there has to be some other purpose and if that's the case then maybe he was back in the capsules, or someplace other than here.

Even if he had been eaten, I couldn't kill the Leviathan. I’d speculated and schemed of possible ways I might be able to kill him but with only my knife any thought of killing the leviathan was more a daydream than an actual plan. With a resigned sigh, I mentally clicked the logout button.

Nothing happened. Then a notification came into my field of view.

Log out sequence blocked by Admin.

Reason: you can't escape Sinbad

"Dammit," I bubbled. The Leviathan came into view of the cave, its soulless black eyes staring straight at me, and then the bastard chuckled and left. Of course, it wouldn't be that easy. I glared at the Leviathan as he drifted away. I was annoyed that it hadn't worked, but I had a feeling it wouldn't be that easy. That was okay though I wasn't dead, and as long as I lived I wouldn't go down easily.

It wasn't until the next day that I saw the meerkat. I was sitting in the cave mindlessly staring at the shop screen in the menu when some oval blue sac drifted outside the crevice opening.

I jumped to it, getting my knife from my inventory. Last night while eating a ration of meat I spotted another sensor shifu. It swam up to the coral and then pointed its whiskers at me. It didn't move or attack, it just sat there whiskers pointed in my direction before swimming away. I'd been on edge ever since besides I also needed to kill fish to make my level rise. I didn't know what would happen once I reached level one, but I imagined it might help me get out of here. I've managed to get a few of the small fish, Yellow Jois they were called, but every three or four Jois netted me only a single xp point. I needed more.

I stabbed the sac and then brought it inside. I waited a few moments but got no notification; it didn't look alive, more like a misshapen blueberry. I took out my knife and could see some purple liquid coming from it. Was it a jellyfish?

"What the heck," I bubbled. I went to the ledge and looked down to see if that would explain things. For a few moments, everything was normal. Then I saw another sac come hurtling out of the meerkats crevice floating up to me.

"Are they trying to communicate?" I grabbed both sacs when they floated up to me, bringing them into my crevice. They were the same, with no marking or anything on it. Where were they getting these from anyways? Is it a plant that grows down there? Another sac came out, then another. I didn't catch them this time, as both were out of my reach. As the meerkat creature threw the last one out, they saw me and froze. We stared at each other for a moment before they darted back inside. A few moments later, they came back, and I held up the purple sac so they could see I had grabbed it. The person shook their heads and mimed a tossing gesture. What? Why toss it?

I stared at the sac again; the one I had stabbed was almost empty, so I tossed it out, and then, using my knife gently, I cut the other sac's skin so its contents could all come out at once. A large glob of purple liquid came out with an orange center, and oh shit, this was an egg. Where had they gotten an egg from! Why would they toss it instead of eating it?

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I stared at the egg and then the other survivor, they were miming the tossing gesture still. Then it hit me: could this egg be theirs? The liquid could become one of those meerkat people, a sentient being. It was just floating there, whatever made it buoyant must have not been in the egg yolk itself because once out of the shell it stayed where it was not sinking or rising. Well this one obviously wasn't going to turn into a meerkat egg. With a resigned sigh I leaned forward and slurped up the egg. Hopefully, it wouldn't kill me, but if it did, at least the Leviathan wouldn't be the one to kill me. I chuckled internally at that, imagining the outrage of the Leviathan at having one of his prey taken away from him due to food poisoning.

The lemur tossed a few more eggs. I managed to grab two more, and then before they disappeared into their crevice, I dropped a few pebbles to get their attention. They looked up at me and gave me jazz hands; it was a strange gesture, but I ignored it. I held my hand out in a fist and then pointed to them to do the same. They, after a few moments, put their hands into a fist. I then grabbed a rock in my other hand and placed my fist and the stone together. They picked up a rock and followed my actions, I could tell they were confused, but they still followed my movements. I dropped the rock, and then instead of a fist, I pointed my finger out; taking my knife out of my inventory, I held it in the air, and then my finger the creature held out there finger instead of a fist. Then they picked up a rock and made the fist gesture again; I smiled; they were getting it. I removed my shirt; they stared at me momentarily and then swam back into their crevice. They didn't come out.

"No," I bubbled. I grabbed a few handfuls of pebbles and threw them down to them; after a few moments, they walked to the edge of their crevice again and stared at me; I held up my shirt in the air and then my flattened hand, and they then flattened there hand and pointed to their shirt. Okay, perfect, that was the fundamentals down. For the next few hours, I tried to teach my alien friend the game of rock paper scissors or, well, the knockoff version of it. This version was rock, knife, and shirt, as those were the only things I had on me. It took a while for them to get it, but after they did, we both had something to do. I won a lot in the beginning, which made sense. They were learning, but towards the end, they were winning most games to the point where I suspected they might be a mind reader like the Leviathan.

After a while, they tried to teach me a game; both people put their hands behind their backs and then would simultaneously show their hands with a certain amount of fingers held up. The person with the most fingers won, but everyone would lose if both people had the same amount. There was another rule I couldn't quite understand, as sometimes I would just lose for no reason. As the sun started to go down, the alien patted their chest like a gorilla would and then disappeared. I waited for around ten minutes, but they never came back out.

"They must be asleep," I bubbled to myself. It was getting late, after all. I also retired to the deeper parts of the cave and sat down; there was no making myself comfortable, just weighing myself down with a rock so the tide doesn't take me out and then sleeping. It didn't come easy that night things, despite their bleak looks, were starting to look up.

In the coming days, we played both games to death; if there was a rock, knife, or shirt skill, I would have maxed it out. It wasn't what we always did; sometimes, we wouldn't see each other for hours. I had my system menu to mess with. I would mindlessly scroll through the pages like it was a phone. That was okay though the lemur person seemed to sleep a lot or at least ignore me.

We managed to ration the meat out to make it last a few days. Even though it appeared to distress them, the person started sending their eggs closer to the cliff wall so I could grab them more easily. I tied my shirt into a knot on one end, using it as a basket so I could catch them easier. Since I had the eggs, I gave them the meat. After a few days, the lemur stopped giving me eggs which I thought meant they had stopped laying them. Food was running out again, and not only that, but the Leviathan was very quiet. I hadn't seen him since I got that failed log out message; not only that but the lemur and I had been a bit careless about sticking our hands and heads outside. Either the Leviathan had given up or, what I thought was more likely, the Leviathan had gone quiet so one of us might slip up. That was okay, though; every now and then, a fish would come by, and I would manage to kill it, and since I now had a friend to help pass the time with, I would be okay for now.

I woke up in pain. Instinctively I yelled out water poured down my throat before I shut it again. It had been so long since I felt intense pain. It was like my leg was on fire, a feeling that instantly snapped me out of my nap. A sensor shifu was tearing into my calf; it was smaller than the last one and had its whiskers clenched around my leg, cutting off circulation. The water was painted red, so I could barely see the fish in front of me. In that moment of panic and pain, I forgot strategy. I forgot I had a knife. I had something ancient and primal in me that said smash the beast; I picked up the rock sitting on my lap and brought it down. A second sensor Shifu came hurtling towards my face, the bloody water masking its presence until it was inches from me. The rock glanced against its side stopping me from hitting the shifu on my leg and changing the smaller one's course so that it sunk its teeth into my side, right where my gills were.

Once it bit me I could feel the gills on that side cease to work. I was sucking in oxygen from only one pair of gills, a sensation like I was somewhere with high altitude. I ignored it and hit the other shifu. I didn't have time to dodge and went limp, letting go of my calf. Its whiskers stayed on though it wasn't dead yet, just unconscious.

I repeatedly assaulted the bigger Shifu. The rock cracked and crumbled splitting into two smaller rocks that I used to drum against its flesh. All the while the smaller one wiggled and tore out a chunk from my side, biting down on another area. Still, I ignored it until a notification came through.

I dropped the stone and grabbed the smaller shifu’s whiskers. They were both small enough and weak enough that they couldn't wrap around my body so they had been beating against my side as the shifu bit into me. I held both in my hand, and took my knife from my inventory. I slashed down and it immediately let go of my side. It tried to bite at my hand but with how i grabbed its whiskers it couldn't easily do that. The second slice split it in two.

I sat there breathing heavily; the fight had lasted seconds, and now that I had a second to relax, my mind could finally start to digest what had just happened. This was the same shifu from before. the one that had attacked my calf had been there when i fought that first shifu and had also been the one from yesterday. Was it back for revenge? Could a fish even feel the need for revenge?

I went towards the opening of the crevice; the water towards the edge was just clear enough that I could see outside; two more shifus were approaching. Oh, so it ran away for reinforcements. I stared at them. There was no fear or rage, just a thought that froze both my heart and mind. I'm not going to survive this fight. There was another chihuahua sized one, while the other was the biggest Shifu that I'd seen yet, as big as a cow. The good thing was that the giant Shifu looked slow, and the smaller one was staying near it; I still had a moment to prepare myself. I couldn't take on the big one let alone both. As they got closer though the smaller one started to break away not swimming towards me but down.

Where were they going? The bigger Shifu, now feet away from me, sped up suddenly; it opened its mouth wider than should be wider than possible, big enough to eat me whole. There was no dodging to the side as the thing was so large that it scraped against the side of the crevice; the only way to live was to go back. I pressed up against the crevice's back wall. The crevice got narrower the more you went in which was a good thing as the shifu was stopped a few feet in front of me.

A whisker wrapped around my thigh and yanked me forward like a rag doll; I barely had time to react before it brought me to its mouth. There would be no surviving a bite from that thing, and for a moment, I thought my leg was a goner, but if it shut its mouth now, it would also bite down on its whisker. It pulled the whisker out like it's swimming. Its movements were slow besides random bursts of speed. It retracted its whisker slow enough that I managed to jerk my leg back just barely losing my foot to its wall of teeth. Another whisker tried to grip my chest. I stabbed it with the knife as it got closer; the skin on the whisker was weirdly thick. It stopped me from piercing the whisker, but I managed to cut it, making the whisker bleed purple blood.

It bit down again, missing me, my foot which was facing its mouth could feel the power behind the bite even though it was inches away. Its left whisker joined the right both trying to grab me, and I slashed at them. The left tried to grip my ankle, with me narrowly avoiding it. The right whisker then smacked me, knocking me into the rock wall, disorientating me. The left one tried to slam me again, but this time, I expected it and charged forward with my knife stabbing it.

As i stabbed the left whisker the right whisker gripped my kneck tightening around it and choking me; it was so sudden I nearly dropped the knife. I gripped it tightly and slashed at the whisker holding me as it brought me toward the open mouth. I brought my legs out, one on either side of its mouth like before with my arms, I used my legs to keep the mouth from closing and pushing myself outside its mouth. This shifu had more power than the other one though I could feel the whisker pushing me with more strength, and its mouth was too wide. I was slipping being inched forward. My vision was getting fuzzy. There wasn't enough air, and I could start to see black spots in my vision.

The left whisker remained still; stabbing it must have been really effective, a fact that kept me alive as I wouldn't have been able to fight against two whiskers pulling me in. I tried to stab the one holding onto me, but I couldn't get enough force behind the knife in my current position.

The Shifu yanked me from its mouth, suddenly slamming me into the crevice wall; the sudden reposition brought the rest of the whisker underneath me, and I clutched my leg around it like I was riding a giant worm. I was on the precipice of unconsciousness; with what energy I had left, I stabbed down.

If I had been more aware, more awake, I might have noticed that the shifu was pulling me into its mouth yet again, this time headfirst. It let go of my neck, and I immediately felt better as blood rushed to my head. My knife slipped out of the whisker, and I watched the whisker slip away through the inside of the creature's mouth. It swallowed me or tried to. I was in the mouth on my knees, and I was too big for it; it couldn't swallow. It had accidentally put me too far into the mouth, past the line of teeth, and in the back of the mouth. Its tongue tried to move and push me out, but it met my knife. it was slimy and gelatinous, reminding me of an oyster.

Still, some of its teeth managed to shred into my back. I stabbed its mouth; compared to the hardness of the whisker, cutting the mouth was like cutting through paper.

The fish wiggled, shimmying back and forth. For a moment I thought it was trying to spit me out but then I noticed the crevice move outside the mouth. It was trying to run away, which would be a death sentence for us both. It swam forward. I put my foot down and used the knife against its upper teeth to pry the mouth open. The mouth tried to close again, knocking the knife out of my hand. Reflexively I grabbed the mouth ,fear overwhelming what pain shot through my palm, and pried it open. My body slid out as the shifu swam away.

I was halfway outside the crevice, my legs dangling just inviting them to be chomped off. I gripped the stone and pulled myself in all while my heart hammered.

Back in the crevice, I tried to see where the Leviathan was, how close I had been to dying. It wasn't there, though. There was just coral and sand and a fleeing Shifu in the distance. Has the Leviathan left? The outside tempted me. A voice inside said go now before he comes back. I didn't listen. My body was destroyed. I had cuts everywhere. Something was blinking in my vision, and my health bar only had a tiny red sliver left. There was a chance that I wouldn't survive; I was losing a lot of blood. That was okay; everyone died eventually. If I did die here, at least the Leviathan wouldn't eat me. It was a thought that gave me some petty joy. I sat there, not moving, and then a thought hit me like a brick.

There had been that smaller Shifu; what had happened to it? It had broken away and started swimming down, but why would it leave?

I hadn't noticed it before, but the water beneath me was red. No, no, no. That wasn't fair. They'd survived too long to die to some little shifu. I stared in horror at their crevice. After a few moments, the smaller Shifu swam out, it was bleeding, but it was alive. It swam out into the distance like the bigger one had. Did that mean my friend had died?

I got two notifications but dismissed them, continuing to stare down. Around sunup, my friend came to the edge of their crevice and looked up at me. They were battered and bloody but alive. I smiled and waved, they waved back, and then they pounded their chest, only with one hand the other laid limp. It was their sign for goodbye. Then they left, going back into the safety of their crevice.

I continued sitting at the edge of the crevice as the blood flowed from my wounds and my health bar slowly dipped. What a way to end an epilogue.