As the other boat drifted closer, the shouting around Joaquim slowly faded. The men on board wore work boots and gloves, with heavy coils of cable and long metal poles stacked near the bow.
They looked at the villagers, then at the thing in the water, and exchanged the kind of glance that made one thing very clear. They already knew what it was. Without hesitation, they moved in. One of them reached out with a hooked pole. Another uncoiled a thick cable.
When the hook caught, the black “creature” shifted hard enough to make a few of the villagers back their boats away. But the workers didn’t flinch. They pulled again, harder this time.
And as the thing rolled just enough to expose more of itself, Joaquim finally saw the surface clearly… and realized it wasn’t shaped like skin at all.
