In a small fishing village, every morning fish would drop from the sky and attach to the children looking for food along the edge of the wharf. Some bestowed powers, others granted treasures, while occasionally poisonous starfish granted death and turned children they landed on into streams of bile.

Alas, Marty had grown accustomed to the dragon octopus that lived on his head. When he had a minor wish, it granted it, and when he got into fights with the bullies in his class it always granted him minor water magic to help him win the battles. Today was another day, another morning, and while children rushed to the beach to look for a fay to fall on them, he sat by the water and started fishing. Large aquatic beasts, sometimes as large as landmasses, appeared in the distance. Mountains the size of entire worlds behind them. Nonetheless, he was stuck on his island. He looked up at the sky, and held the cold steel fishing rod beneath his legs. The line tugged, and Dragorna, his octopus, reeled in a pincer tail fish. It’s slimy tendrils didn’t bother him. He felt calm. As usual, Dragorna was the chef of the pair. It jumped off his head and walked over towards the fire, and began to cook their meal.

Marty looked at the wounds on his arm. He’d gotten cut when he tried to leave town earlier, and he had no choice but to try and get further today, passed the swamp, or else his family would soon be destroyed by the rising tides. One caveat to living on his island, was that the shoreline was fickle and restless. Somedays, the tide would drop low, and you could explore for miles. Other days, if you didn’t work hard to expand the village, the tides would swallow up the bungalow’s near the shore. His family, which consisted of him, Sarah, and his Mother, all with the same pale skin and blonde hair, were right near the rising tide. And the only way for him to move their house even a couple feet away from the shore was to fight. But it was dangerous to fight away from the sea. In the swamps, and passed the coasts, sun beasts wandered and lurked. They killed indiscriminately. They ate anything that smelled like flesh and bone. The water god and the sun god were at war, and Marty, a human with a low level aquatic beast by his side, had no choice but to dive headfirst into the war.

“There is something weird happening, Dragorna. We have to wrok harder today. I’m afraid the sun god has cast another spell.”

Dragorna never answered him, nonetheless, he caught the attention of his mother.

She had three jellyfish that floated above her head, and when she walked towards him, she still occasionally looked up at the sky, hoping for a new aquatic beast to land on her.

Plop!

A child in the middle of the beach, in a bevy of hundreds of children, smiled while a golden aquatic beast landed on his head. Bang! The children screamed and rushed towards him to see what beast he’d caught. Nonetheless, Marty didn’t care. He had to worry about his family. His mother,a jellyfish farmer, wasn’t going to be allowed to stay here for very long. The great family, the Octet family, didn’t see a reason to keep their house a float f they weren’t doing enough to keep the island afloat. And Marty had to work hard so that the Octet family would let them stay. He also couldn’t help but think about the youngest daughter of the Octet family. She was so beautiful. If only he didn’t grow up so close to the beach, perhaps they could have been together.

“You have to go to school. You can’t skip.” His mother helped him up. She felt warm. Her skin was wet from working in the water with her jellyfish. She corralled seaweed with them. She looked for great turtle eggs with them. But she couldn’t always put food on the table with her floating stars as she liked to call them. “Come on, little one. Get going.”

“I’m going ot the swamp today! I’m skipping.” Marty said. “I have Dragorna. It’s the best aquatic beast a family like ours has found in a long time. He’ll keep me safe! I can go far enough today to save us!”

Rewards were given for clearing certain checkpoints by the people called the Sailors by the twonsfolk. The Sailors for the Octet family. Some called them the sea masters. Whatever you called them, they gave rewards. He needed to get passed one sun beast today to get up to a sailor. He was ready for battle!

“You can fight all you want after school. I heard you almost made it up to a sailor. That buy us a few months. Wow, my son, you know… we can always be homeless. Or we can always try and find a man to stay with. I’m quite attractive. And I have such a wonderful son. I’m sure a rich girl might like you. What do you say we try and get you hooked sometime soon?”

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“Mom, this is serious! We can’t have you doing that stuff again! I’m not staying at a man’s house just to watch you get abused again!”

Marty and his mother had done so much to survive. He didn’t want to remember all the times his mother stayed with some man only to run back to the beach, towards the seaside shacks, where all the poor folks stayed, She was beautiful, but her beauty was taken advantage of by men with power. He also worried about Sarah. In his mother’s eyes, when she turned fourteen, her beauty would become an asset. That gave him three years. As a thirteen yaar old, himself, he had a lot of responsibilities. And… then he heard it, the sound of a ringing starfish. His body immediately tensed. Was it time to go to school?

“I’ll do anything for my children’s survival. Will you stop looking at me like that?” His mother had beautiful hips, and a gorgeous body. She was practically a model. He received a huge hug. He felt himself smashed into her voluptuous chest. It made him so angry that his mother did this once again. She really encouraged him to go to school when they might not have a house tonight!

“Mom, you need to stop hugging me like that. I’m embarrassed.”

Marty looked up at his mother and stared into her blue eyes. She looked so sure of herself. He walked away from her and held out his hand, dragorna jumped on top of his body and slithered its way up to his forehead.

“I’ll go to school, but afterwards I’m going to the swamps. To make it up to the sailors! I won’t let us stay like this anymore!”

“You will? That’s my boy.” His mother pulled out a card from her pocket. “Well, how about this son? If you do, tell me when you get home tonight. Because tomorrow, I got a date with a rich knight that owns quite a big mansion down on Main Tide Street. If you get up to that sailor, I promise I won’t go on a date tomorrow, with him… But no pressure. Your mother has done a lot worse.”

“Hmph, for you and Sarah, I will kill one hundred sun beasts! Of the strongest type!”

“It’s good you’re so young and vibrant. Sometimes, I feel this great feeling of hope. Now go to school. Don’t forget your conch shell. Your lunch is inside.”

Bang!

A young child smiled and ran passed him with a golden fish floating above its head.

“Mommy, I got a magical golden hook fish! Mommy! Come look!”

“Hey, do you guys see that! That one apparently grants laser beam eyes!” A lot of children ran after the young child that had just received the boon of his life time. Marty sighed, and looked up at the tentacle dangling down from his forehead.

“Well, we all can’t be that lucky, can we Dragorna.” He gently massaged his dragon octopus’ head. “You still are pretty special, arent you?” He grabbed his lunch and abruptly turned to look back at his mother. He stepped forward, and through his broken shoes felt the sharp stones of the tide. “Maybe today we can find you something to make you stronger, in the swamp, after we go to school?”

He looked at the bus stop, no more than a hundred feet away, and watched all the children his age flock towards the impasse on the edge of town. Very few looked as raggady as him. And when he got on the bus, and heard its engine begin to roar as the beasts underneath it pushed it to school with their magic, he sat down in a spot by the window, and looked out at the tide. The hundreds of shanty, and the poverty he was leaving behind to go to school.

“This seat taken?”

Marty looked up at Hannah and shook his head. She was poor too. Black soot covered her entire body and she even had sea weed on her arms. Her pink dress was torn, and probably recycled and found in the sea. She had blue eyes and was covered with sweat. Just like him, she also had an octopus. Though hers was a unicorn type. A unicorn octopus with a horn. And when you really knew her, you also knew the stories about her family. She’d lost her father in a shipwreck years ago, and her mother was currently also a seaweed farmer. Together, the two of them were perhaps the most likely to be cast to sea on the bus. And as the bus swerved through the town, the looks of disdain were not unnoticed by them. All the townsfolk, going to work, leaving from their massive shelled houses, recognized the poor kids bus. And when it arrived at the small school on the outskirts of town, the school across the street had already sent its bullies to see who got off the bus.

“Marty you in there, dick head? You going to pay the toll. I broguht my brother today to thank you for that black eye you gave me yesterday! AYe Marty!”

“Don’t fight them again,” Hannah grabbed his hand. She looked out the broken window on the bus and pointed at the back exit. “The bus driver told me we can sneak out the back if we want.”

“I’m not a coward, Hannah. I’ll win today, promise.”

And then the other children started to exit the bus one by one, out towards the bullies. He could hear their agony as they tried to push passed the pristinely dressed children waiting for them. But all of them were let go.

And then Marty exited the bus and he got encircled. Dragorna jumped off his body and stood in front of him.

“Buddy, you going to try and protect me?”

He looked down at its little tentacles touching his body. The fay had started to grant him some of his aquatic magic. He was ready for a fight.

“Hmph, you think that little thing can stop my older brother?”

“Let’s find out.”

And at that moment, a beam of light blinded Marty. He summoned a shield of water in front of him using his magic. Bang! He shot back, Dragorna rolling on top of his body. A large man stood a few feet in front of him with a knight eel slithering around him.

“Ah, so you are the little guy that gave my brother a black eye? Nothing special.”

Marty tried to defend himself, but nonetheless there was little he could do against someone so much larger than him. He woke up an hour later, after blacking out, in the nurse's office. His body was covered in bruises.

“The principal requests to see you.” The nurse gently roused Marty. “And… I promise, it’s not about what you think it's about.”