Prologue

The air was muggy, but warm as usual. That was the way Florida was any time of year and everyone who lived there knew it. The breeze always blew through the palm trees near the docks a certain way in the summertime. At least that was what Curtis Mann observed every night from his old fishing boat and home. The boat had been in the water ever since his father had given it to him and never once had he had a problem with it. It was just as his father had told him. If he treated her right she'd never break down and Curtis had done so. Curtis spent his every waking moment on the water, using his nets to snare fish and bring them in to shore all for a profit. Curtis loved the sounds the water made as it lapped against the sides of hi s boat, almost as though the liquid was kissing it.

Curtis had given his heart and soul to the ocean years prior when he'd just been a little kid. He was always taken back to the simpler days when he'd run up and down the shoreline with his sister and collect shells, taking them home to place on his bookshelf. But those days were long since over and he doubted his sister even remembered doing any of it. She never talked to him anymore anyway. He sighed and walked from the dining table in his boat's cabin towards his little bed in the back. He had the best view of the stars in the back where the moon shone just right and he could look out of the window and see it reflecting on the water.

Curtis took a deep breath and let it out. He rubbed at his stubbly chin and stretched. He really needed to shave something awful, but the job had taken up most of his time and he'd found he'd let himself go a little. He never cared though; it was the mark of a hard working man, some hair on the face. Plus nobody cared how anyone looked in Florida. It was mostly drunken tourists and Disney freaks anyway. The top two things Curtis avoided. He barely drank, avoiding making occasional trips to any of the bars lining the shoreline, or so he told his family. Over the past few years the job had started to wear on him. He'd turned to alternative methods of coping with stress rather than the healthier ones and as much as his family had belittled him in the past simply for choosing the job he had, he didn't really want to bring up his coping strategies with them.

Suddenly the boat rocked a little. Curtis didn't give it much thought, chalking it up to a rogue wave from another boat passing by, but as he stared out of the back window of the boat he found there were no other vessels around for miles. Confused, he spun around and made his way to the front of the boat. His radar showed no indication of a storm coming and all of his other instruments were in order. He was about to shrug it off and leave before the sonar system he'd installed himself on his day off picked up on something big underneath him. The boat shook again and Curtis stared at the blip on the screen as it moved back and forth. He grabbed the rifle he kept in the nearby chest and loaded it before proceeding onto the front deck.

He didn't see anything. The thing had been on the sonar moments prior and it beeped again, indicating it was coming back. Curtis cocked the gun and pointed it at the moving water. The thing darted under the waves when Curtis made contact with a fin protruding above the water. He cursed under his breath. He'd tried to shoot a shark. They were common to the area, but none had ever been known to be as aggressive as the particular shark underneath him was being. It appeared again a moment later, fin bleeding, but still going and knocking itself against the side of Curtis' boat. Curtis slipped and fell, the gun clattering on the deck. He cursed louder and scrambled up to try and take aim again, but the shark was faster. It slammed into his boat this time and Curtis fell closer to the stepladder leading down to the water. He coughed and winced at the pain he felt in his hip.

He was seeing stars and not the ones in the sky or on the waves. The shark was ramming his boat for no reason. Curtis tried to stand, but he found he was unable. The last fall had majorly injured him. And he could barely move. He couldn't reach the rifle either. Curtis looked over at the water lapping on side of the boat and under the dock. If he could get up he could reach the steps up onto the dock and he could get help. He tried to get up, but he also couldn't reach the ladder. Curtis found he didn't have a spare moment because suddenly the shark rammed the boat again and Curtis went tumbling into the water. He came up from the depths, sputtering and coughing, struggling to keep afloat. He was unable to hold onto anything with his injuries. It hurt too badly to swim over to anything and it was taking everything he had to stay above the waves where he was.

Curtis saw the fin and he knew immediately there was no way he was going to escape the shark. He swallowed hard and tried to swim away as fast as he could, but once again the shark was faster. In one swift motion, the shark grabbed a hold of Curtis' midsection and the man cried out in agony. He could feel the shark's teeth digging into his flesh and organs and he gasped for air which wasn't coming to him at all anymore. Curtis sent out one last prayer to God and he closed his eyes, letting himself fade into darkness away from the pain as he sunk below the waves as though he'd never been there at all.

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