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In the midst of a freshwater river, nestled just above the gravel bed, a female salmon makes her nest.
Using her tail, she digs in, pushing away and scooping up loose rocks to excavate a small hole, her nest. Then, she lays her eggs and waits for a male salmon to fertilize them.
Among her numerous eggs, was the Salmonling. The Salmonling, encased in his egg, was then covered up with gravel by his mother after his father fertilized the eggs, leaving him and his siblings shrouded in darkness in the cold icy waters. And there they remained, throughout winter, forming their body and brain from nothing more than yolk and membrane in their little enclosure.
First, his spine develops. A long thing that took up majority of the space inside the egg. It curved, bent, and molded itself to fit inside the space, the bone still malleable and soft in its immaturity.
Then, his beady little eyes develop, allowing him to peer through the orange veil and see his siblings squirm in their eggs. Some laid still, peering back at him with their also recently formed eyes. Others thrashed about, spinning about inside their enclosures as if they were caught in a vortex.
He wondered if they were crazy.
His body continued to develop from there. Flesh and organs slowly building themselves up from scratch. And finally, in springtime, he broke out of his egg, emerging from his liquid cradle and into the river waters.
The Salmonling has graduated from an egg and into an alevin.
Still, he was tiny, and his yolk sac was still attached to his belly, nourishing him and providing him with the nutrients needed for his growth. So, he stayed inside the nest, in the gravel bed, slowly consuming the yolk sac and growing in size, until he grew into a fry.
It was only then that he was ready to leave the nest. He swam up towards the river’s surface and took his first gulp of air, instinct guiding him to fill his swim bladders with oxygen to allow him to navigate the river’s currents.
While filling his swim bladders, he saw it out of the corner of his eye. A larva of some sort, floating on the river’s surface, close to the bank, gently swaying with the flow.
He made his way over to it, his eyes fixed on it. The larva was wriggling, its little body shaking back and forth in the water. It looked enticing.
As he got closer, the larva, seemingly catching sight of him, intensified its wriggling, almost to the point of thrashing, trying to move away from him. That was until he got nearly face-to-face with it.
It stopped all movement. Its small body still, as if he were a T-rex from a movie, unable to perceive it when it wasn’t moving. The idea felt preposterous, humorous, and insulting all at once. He almost wanted to scoff if his fish body could.
With a swift gulp, he ended this farce of a standoff and swallowed the larva, marking the first meal of his lifetime.
It didn’t taste like much, earthy with a salty aftertaste. It wasn’t particularly pleasant or tasty, but he had to get used to it. After all, this would be his meal for the next month.
In the next month, he made his way down the river with his siblings, following the currents, eating the occasional larvae he could see, and hiding under shade to avoid predators — however, shelter was scarce in a few areas, and a few of his siblings didn’t make the journey to its end, snatched up by larger fish and birds — until finally, the freshwater gave way to saltwater, the saltier taste telling him that he had reached his destination, the ocean.
There, he formed a school with his surviving siblings and traversed the ocean, from the Sea of Okhotsk to the North Pacific Ocean to the Bering Sea. He fed and grew and explored the endless expanse of blue. And he had to say, the ocean was beautiful, even within the large school, his vision blocked by the bodies of the other salmon, he could see the vast coral reefs, the rays of light from above where he could not reach, and the many colourful fishes inhabiting the same space he was.
And it was at the Bering Sea that he felt it, that his fellow salmon felt it too. The call to return and spawn.
The school immediately made a U-turn, making their way back to their natal stream, the Salmonling following along. However, when they returned to the river that they had came from, they met their first challenge.
They had to oppose the downstream flow of the river, swimming against it to reach where they wanted to be.
It was hard, the Salmonling couldn’t lie. Just entering the river took out a lot of his energy. After far longer than he wanted it to be, he eventually got the hang of it, catching up to the other salmon that he had fallen behind of.
A bit further upstream, they met their second challenge. When he had first left the river, following its current to the sea, he had swam down various waterfalls. Waterfalls that he had to now get over.
His siblings jumped, high and arcing, and made their way up and over the waterfall, continuing their journey. Salmonling had tried too, swimming slightly under the river’s surface and propelling himself upwards, leaping out of the water. But he fell short, smacking his face against the jagged rock walls and falling back down under the waterfall.
Again, he tried. And again, he failed. This time, his tail scraped against a sharp rock and tore a few scales off. It hurt, but he persisted. He had to get over this waterfall. He had to return to his natal stream.
So over and over again, he tried and failed, his body getting more banged up with each attempt. Until one particular attempt, he smacked against an angled rock and was thrown onto the riverbank.
He gasped and thrashed on the gravel. He needed water. He couldn’t breathe on… land?
Oxygen passed through his gills as per normal, as if he were still underwater.
How was this possible? Didn’t fish need water to be able to breathe?
He stopped struggling after his discovery.
Were his instincts lying to him this whole time? That he had needed to be underwater to survive?
His panic turned to anger.
Useless evolution. How many millions of years had passed, and yet his instincts still screamed at him that being above water was dangerous when they could easily breathe on land.
Taking a deep breath through his gills, he calmed himself. He still had to find a way to get up the waterfall somehow.
With his vision limited from what he could see with one cheek to the earth, he took in his surroundings. Green earth, tall looming trees, the rocks that lined the riverbank, and the waterfall that he couldn’t overcome. Surely, there was another way for him to get over that waterfall now that he had access to land?
Scanning over what he could see, he finally found it. A small slope near the waterfall that led upwards of it.
Yes, he could use that. The slope wasn’t too steep. If he were careful, he could definitely use it to get over the waterfall.
He flopped his way over to it, the gravel digging into his flesh and peeling scales off with his rough movement.
Then, he fell.
He had been unable to see the small hole before him and flopped into it.
He landed on his feet, sticks and rocks cutting into his skin, causing him to lose more blood than he already had.
He winced. This was not viable. He was only hurting himself more and more by trying to get over the land this way. Sighing, he took a step back to the river.
Wait.
A step?
He looked down at his feet, at what he had deemed useless over the years, finding no use in them in his aquatic life and only finding them cumbersome, wanting to cut them off. Was this what it was meant for?
He took a tentative step. The sticks pressed uncomfortably against his soles, but it was a step regardless, a stable and awkward step.
Yes. Yes! He could use this.
He turned back to the slope and continued his journey with renewed determination. He will make it up the waterfall.
Step by step, he made his way up the slope, his goal coming closer and closer into view. He could feel it. He could make it. He could join his sibling. He could–
At the final stretch to the end of the slope, he was snatched up.
“What on earth is this thing?”
“I don’t know… seems like a mutated salmon.”
He had been caught by some humans.
“It looks kinda gross.”
“Yeah, why on earth would a salmon have human feet?”
Salmonling couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but he knew it was bad to stay in their grasp, so he thrashed and squirmed, trying to escape their grip.
“You reckon this thing is edible?”
A finger poked at him. He struggled harder.
“Who knows? You wanna try?”
“Ew! No thanks.”
Their grips were too secure around him. He couldn’t escape it even with the help of his blood and fishy slick lubricating their palms.
“Hm…. you know, it's still a salmon, if we cut off the legs, we could pretend it’s a normal salmon and sell it.”
“Ooh~ yeah, with that size, it could fetch a pretty buck.”
“Open the cooler, then.”
He was finally let go, only to plummet into ice and water.
He closed his eyes on impact, not expecting the freezing cold waters. When he opened it, he was met with the glazed-over eyes of another fish.
It stared back at him, with grey eyes and an open mouth, and Salmonling knew that it was dead.
Even with the freezing waters, he felt chills run up his spine. He was scared. Was this going to be his fate? Was he going to end up dead like that?
The cold crept into his flesh, chilling them to the point of numbness, and the realisation slowly dawned on him. He was going to die like this.
He thrashed, hoping for escape, hoping that his activity would allow him to stay alive longer. But it was useless in the end. He felt the numbness creep up from his feet and tail to his body, and finally to his head.
In his last moments, he could only regret not making it to his natal stream.
When he came to, he was surprised.
He was now hovering in the air outside the box he was stuck in. Did he live and somehow escape the box? Well, here’s his chance to continue his journey.
He tried making his way back to the river, however, there was some invisible force tying him to the box and he could not go too far from it.
He didn’t understand why. Nothing was restraining him or chaining him to the box. He should be able to leave as he pleased.
Then, the humans opened the box and pulled out something from it.
And– Oh. That was his body.
He understood now. He was dead and is now a ghost.
Unable to leave, he had to watch as the humans cut off his feet and filleted him, packaging parts of him into little plastic packs. Could he not have peace in death? He didn’t want to watch himself mutilated.
But fate disagreed with his desire, and he was dragged along with his body when it was transported to a strange place, placed alongside many of his brethren’s bodies and displayed under harsh lighting, humans picking and choosing between their bodies to take.
A black haired human walked up to their bodies and took hold of the package containing him, examining it before giving off a pleased hum, placing it into a basket. The human walked around the strange space for a while longer, picking and choosing a few other items before leaving with him.
The human made his way to another strange space, and left him atop a surface once inside. The human then used a mysterious contraption to do something with his body.
The Salmonling peered over the human’s shoulder, before being horrified by what he saw. The human was turning his flesh and skin golden brown instead of the pink it was. What kind of sorcery was this?!
Then, the human sat down and used a tool to split apart his body even more than it already was, and brought a piece up to his mouth.
As soon as the piece hit the human’s tongue, he nodded, seemingly happy with the taste, his black eyes glinting red for a second, and everything went black for Salmonling from there.
Baek Saheon shot up from bed.
What the fuck did he dream of?!
Him as a salmon? And salmon with human feet, of all things? And then his roommate ate his body? What on earth…
Whatever. He shook the nightmare out of his head. A dream was just a dream. It wasn’t real, just something his brain somehow made up.
He slipped out of bed, ready to start the day, and opened his room’s door, heading in the direction of the washroom. But the moment he stepped out of his room, he smelled it. The scent of a freshly cooked fish.
Slowly, he turned his head towards the kitchen, desperately hoping that what he was thinking of wasn’t happening right now.
Kim Soleum was seated at the dining table, a fork in one hand and a knife in the other. He was cutting into a pan-seared salmon and eating it with delight.
Baek Saheon froze at the sight.
Kim Soleum, seemingly able to sense his gaze, turned to look at him. “What? You want some salmon?”
Baek Saheon felt bile rise up his throat at the question. How could he? After that weird dream he had?
Turning away from Kim Soleum, he rushed into the bathroom, hunched over the toilet, and heaved into it.
He doesn’t think he could ever eat salmon or even look at it ever again.