Collin sank through the water flailing like an inflatable-tube-man. Nothing he tried helped him slow his downward momentum. Regardless of how he struggled, Collin was simply not made for swimming. He tried to right himself in the water, but his legs were too thin to move his plumpy frame at all down here. He chirped in panic as he flailed around helplessly.


    Collin was drowning and there was nothing he could do.


    He didn’t realize it at the time, but all the flailing made Collin stand out like a wriggling worm to the fish below. He squirmed enough to turn himself around just in time to come face to face with a giant mouth aimed straight for him.


    The mouth opened lightning fast, creating a vacuum in the water that sucked Collin in without mercy.


    The suction luckily caused a momentary pocket of air that surrounded Collin and he greedily sucked in as much air as possible. Sweet life-giving oxygen momentarily filled him and chased some panic away. The air pocket disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. The fish''s mouth filled with a swirling vortex of water and twirled him around in an unforgiving, whirling torrent.


    As he was slowly being coaxed down the fish’s throat, Collin lashed out in desperation to find something to grab onto. He needed to think quickly before he ran out of air and the panic set in again. Collin managed to find purchase on one of the sides of the fish and held on for dear life.


    HUNGRY


    On top of everything else, Collin’s hunger was growing to an irresistible level of demand. He tried to stay in control, but between panic and hunger, there was little room for any thought. He tried to settle himself, but accidentally took in a breath of water.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Desperate and running out of time, Collin looked inward for something, anything. The pulse of his hunger was in the way of anything else, so he finally gave in to it.


    As soon as he stopped resisting, his hunger began to pulse in resonance with the life pulses around him. The pulse tuned itself with the fish and he could sense a solution pulsing inside of the fish on either side of him almost as if it were calling out.


    The gills!


    Collin locked his sights onto the wall of flesh between himself and the set of gills closest to him and took a massive bite. His hunger cheered him on as he chewed his way through the fish’s insides to the gills.


    The fish started to writhe in response but had no way to fight something that was inside of it.


    Collin choked out for air and forced himself to chew faster, but he was already at his drowning limit. He honed his focus entirely on the pulsing in front of him and let go. He put all his hope into chewing his way through to the gills. He didn’t care about anything else at that moment, the only thing that mattered was the key to survival just millimeters in front of him.


    It was all Collin could do to force himself to keep chewing. He was out of oxygen and could feel his consciousness fading.


    Collin was about to die.


    Suddenly, he bit into pure relief. As soon as he swallowed the first bite of that gill, he felt oxygen filling him again, it made him whole once more. Panic faded, consciousness returned and the world was right again, but his hunger was nowhere near satisfied. He let his hunger take over entirely and feasted on the gills with reckless abandon. Blood filled the water around him and dulled his vision, the pulses guided Collin to be able to easily find every scrap without the use of sight.


    Collin was so lost in gorging himself that he forgot he was trapped underwater until the moment he took that last bite of the gill.