When he felt painful stings on his skin

He was on the right track, sensing the presence of evil as he had done since their first terrifying encounter. He crossed the oceans, exercising his right as a superior life form to hunt in order to survive. That was his task, and that was what he did – lonely, but almost untouchable.

Although he was well aware of it, the company of others was not so important to him. This awareness was part of his life. Sometimes he would hear voices telling him that he was ultimately lonely but not alone in his vast world.

Time and again, creatures in large, hard shells crossed his path. He was used to them, but he had not realised what they were capable of for a long time. Their clumsy movements and slowness he found amusing. But then he saw the blood. It confused his senses and plunged him into endless grief. They were hunters, just like him – that was the law. He avoided them wherever possible, trying to forget the taste of the water when they had caught prey and moved through the sea even more slowly than usual.

Then came the day when he himself became the hunted. He was still young, travelling with a group on their annual journey to the northern seas. He was particularly taken with a female. She was quick and she had a beautiful voice. As he sometimes did, he left the others to hunt alone for a while. When he looked for them afterwards, he was met with horror. That was the day that changed his life forever. Since then, he has lived outside the law.

The water had that terrible smell he had feared. There was no one around, but he saw his mate's body floating on the surface of the ocean. His instincts told him that she was dead. When he surfaced, he realised what had happened. Her body was mutilated and wrapped in the thin tentacles he had seen before. A nearby shell containing these hunters was pulling her towards it. They were dragging her away to make her disappear. At that moment, he felt as if his soul had sunk to the bottom of the sea. Unable to move, he observed what was happening with all his senses.

He had been too careless. He hadn't noticed these creatures, even though they couldn't have been far away. If only he had stayed here, if only he had been with her. This thought raced through his powerful body and wounded mind with unprecedented force. At that moment, screams filled the air from the shell – he had been discovered. Then he saw other strange, smaller shells filled with hunters approaching him. They were coming towards him. They wanted him. It was as if the world was crashing down around him. Instead of turning to flee, he swam straight towards those shells. This was easy because the shells were as fragile as mussels, and the weak, screeching creatures inside them quickly fell silent.

He felt painful stings on his skin, then tugging, and finally resistance. In an evil way, they had attached these thin tentacles to him, wanting to drag him to the larger mother shell. In a smaller shell, one of the creatures stood looking him straight in the eye. He was different from the others, he did not scream. All the evil emanated from this one – it was palpable, like brackish water. Red spindrift danced before his eyes. Despite the tentacles, he stood up straight, turned his powerful body, snapped the shell and dived down with all his might. It hurt for a moment, but then the bonds were gone.

He didn't swallow what was in his powerful jaws, but allowed himself to be carried almost to the bottom, absorbing the taste and smell forever. When he needed to breathe, he spat out the piece of evil from the shell. From that day on, he didn't just hunt for food. Over time, he found more and more pleasure in it. It became an obsession that slowly separated him from the others of his kind.

He played cruel games with his prey, lulling them into a false sense of security before diving down suddenly and leaping up from beneath the shells. He flung the little, screeching creatures into the air with his nose until they were silent. Sometimes, he would let himself fall onto the shells they were in. He knew where the large shells were most vulnerable, and he rammed them with all his might until they sank.

Then he felt that special evil again – the creature he believed he had destroyed. He could sense its hatred, which was as intense as his own. He knew then that he had to destroy it once and for all. It had escaped him more than once because, in his frenzy, he had killed and destroyed indiscriminately. However, he then realised that his enemies also had set routes that they used repeatedly, just like his own tribe. So he waited at the gateway to the North Sea, where it all begun.

He had been waiting for days. It had been worth it, though, because he had spotted several large shells. Those shells. Then he appeared, spinning playfully in circles before diving in. He could hear the excited cries, but he could not understand them. The meaning was lost on him.

But now, as he tensed his muscles with cruel delight, ready to attack, he could make out two words: 'Moby Dick!'

© 'When he felt painful stings on his skin': Short story by Ilona E. Schwartz, 06/2025. The illustration shows a ship and a whale in a stormy sea, CC0 (Public Domain Licence).