I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 32: Long fish

About an hour more, Tim decided to take a further break. Swimming for so long has made his body ache, it was a lot of work for a stingray who stretched a bit over half a foot long (tail discluded).

His sleep bar has decreased, nothing alarming considering what he went on with just a few hours earlier, but it's still best to stop and sleep somewhere.

Especially since the way back he had to swim, along with the possible recruits, can swallow most of his sleep even if he began with a full bar.

As he swam a couple of feet above the red, yellow and blue coral that were merged together, surprisingly closer to each other compared to what he had seen so far. The quest that Lili gave him, kept running around in the little boy's head.

He observed every bit of information recallable from their chat, and Lili's claims were indeed true.

Well a portion of it at least, he doesn't know if the part about the reef needing life, was true.

But he was able to observe through travel that the large mass of coral reef here, lacked life. There were barely any other animals around here, he saw 10 or so clownfish so far but didn't want to eat them for the sake of the task.

Crabs lurked around here and there, some being red and eye catching while the others being smaller, black dotted.

He also saw the favourite type of species to feast on, the leggy ones, marble shrimp.

The urge to chomp on those was strong but through the few experiences, he didn't fail to recall that eating one of those, will consume the sleep bar as an effect.

Small critters roamed the reef, but they were far too scarce and he didn't even encounter a big bad predator on these parts.

Lili's claim was true, the sharks have fucked this place up to the core and what was underneath it.

He doesn't understand why sharks just casually came here and feasted on the reef for 6 months, but he did know that the situation was bad.

It needed help and Tim was willing to put in effort for it. Being able to endure 10 more meters of depth pressure would aid his intent to help, as the place he wanted to check first was the border that drew the line of extreme depth and shore labelled depth.

That place was odd but life must be in there, that and Tim missed staying in his own new den.

He found an orange coated coral reef that proved seductive as a place to nap on. There was a tiny hole on the top left corner, that was textured with rough thin lined bumpy coral, trickier to slip in but worth it.

Aa it opened a way to a small little hole on his left, just half a meter further. No predator can get in here so it's safe and snug to nap on.

The stars painted on the water surface signified that it was night time, so that mourned as an extra advantage in terms of proper camouflage.

Flapping his fins on the flooring although there was no sand, Tim closed his eyes and murmured. "Goodnight, system."

...

He woke up with the system describing accurate statistics, the boy was barely awake for a few seconds and became spammed.

[Health = 77/100]

[Hunger bar = 3/15]

[Sleep bar = 35/35]

[Stamina bar = 15/15]

"Well well well, my sleepy thing finally filled up. First time for everything hehe." Tim celebrated as he flapped his fins and tails around to stretch them.

Damaged tail muscle had haunted him for quite a bit and now, being able to jiggle it around without flinching in pain, just felt heavenly!

Moving around just a bit in the foot wide space he was in, Tim decided to hear out his surroundings before getting outside.

He always felt like his hearing was decent, so why not put it into use instead of bursting out of the hiding place like a madfish?

Everything stood silent, he could hear water moving up and around the coral, almost making wave splash-like sounds.

Tad relaxing, but then a female voice captivated his sense of hearing. "Where are we gonna go now? Mom is dead."

"I don't know, quit asking me that." A male tone answered, but yet high pitched enough that Tim almost missed the difference.

"This is so unfair, she just found us!" The female tone raged, swimming in place accompanied by rage.

But she spun a round too much and lost orientation, hitting the coral with the side of her face.

Tim saw that after poking his head out to see just who he could be dealing with. He spotted 2 thin and long looking fish, oddly shaped from his point of view.

"I didn't know that silvery fish can be green." The stingray thought after blinking a couple of times, to fight away the effects of reflective sun rays, that breached his eyes for a few seconds. "This is exactly what Marlo sent me here for."

And afterwards he swam out entirely out of the little space he slept at, but yet didn't swim directly towards them, with an aim not to spook.

Instead, a sent out word had to be interjected softly. "Hello, I'm Tim."

"Who said that!?" The male fish asked, his tone cracking in between the high pitch.

"Relax, I don't want to kill you. But want to offer you something instead, something that will help all of us." Timothy spoke once more, not yet revealing himself to these long fish.

Well they aren't exactly long, just a foot. But them being far thinner than Timmy, like 2 fingers come to think of it, made them look longer.

"We don't need help!" The same male tone thundered, or at least tried to, but his tone wasn't so strong.

"Shut up. Yes we do." His sister disagreed and slapped the boy's ass with her fin. "How can you help us?"

"We have a whole tribe of orphans, people like you and me who lost their parents, thanks to sharks or any other enemy." Deciphering that grand fact, he emerged from the coral and faced the fish, they seemed harmless enough.

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