Anika’s pulse kicked up a notch when the tentacles slipped under the side-strings of her bikini with what seemed like more than idle curiosity.

A few other tendrils slid up along the side of her body, coiling finger-like around her throat. Anika’s adrenaline spiked. As his tentacles began to pry at her snorkeling gear, she fought to keep her paranoia in check.

There was nothing ambiguous about that. He wanted the apparatus off, clearly. He wanted her face to be bared.

Anika hesitated. With his tentacles still clinging to her from below, she popped up to the surface. She spit out the mouthpiece of the snorkel mask and pulled off her goggles.

She told herself she could do with a break anyway. The elastic band had been digging into her scalp, the rims of the goggles into her cheeks. It felt refreshing to take a full, deep breath again. The salt air breezed clean and cool across her face.

Taking another deep breath, she dipped back down. Her naked eyes stung briefly as she studied him beneath the dappled surface of the waves. His silvery gaze studied her in turn, with alien fixity. There was awareness there, in those glimmering eyes of his.

Something else, too. It darkened them slightly as he dragged a tentacle along the seam of her lips, making them part in bubbling surprise.

Seawater scorched like fire down Anika’s throat. Panic-stricken, she lurched for the surface—only to be yanked back down by the waist with ease. The swiftness and strength of the creature’s tug left her reeling.

Despairing.

I’m so fucking stupid—I’m going to die. Anika clenched her eyes shut, preparing to have her last scream drowned out by the crush of waves or tentacles or both.

But to her immense shock, she surfaced again. Her scream tore out of her ragged and muffled, as if she were buried under a pile of downy blankets. Around her the world was faintly iridescent, a bleary, muted blue.

It took her bewildered mind a moment to realize—she was inside of the creature. Buried up to the neck in some strange body cavity of his.

And she could breathe.

Outside in the sea beyond, the rest of her was eerily suspended, surrounded by a curtain of pressing tentacles. Her relief that she could breathe was short-lived, as she considered the very real possibility that this was just the first step in the creature’s digestive process. More likely than not, his intent was to swallow her whole.

Her flippered feet thrashed futilely against the tentacles wrapped around them. Her hands scrabbled against the smooth, supple seal collaring the base of her throat. When she dug in her nails to try to wrench herself loose, his tentacles snaked around her arms, restraining them behind her.

Inside of his pillowy, shimmering body, Anika whimpered, dreading the worst. With her arms and legs pinioned, she felt streamlined for slaughter. Trussed up like a dinner goose.

Her whole body shuddered, within and without. All she could hope for at this point was that her death wouldn’t be too slow and painful. Half bracing herself for the acid burn that would herald her sure demise, she didn’t even notice, at first, the way his tentacles were squeezing over her as they slid.

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Original Publication Date: 1/31/24

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The Cove © CS Dark Fantasy