#strugglingocto

He felt battered. The last thing he clearly remembered was the booyah bomb being tossed at Mitralyphsis. After that vague moments here and there… Moray looking down at his face. The voice of eight. He must have woken briefly here and there. Vague memories of a blood transfusion?

“Mhh…” he slowly sat up, getting a good look at his arm. It was wrapped up in bandages where the salmonid had bit him. He had an IV for fluids in. He had quite a few bruises on him. “Where… what-“ he muttered, wondering if everyone else made it out ok.

The story is intentionally vague from the animatic alone due to it being from the perspective of Katsu (the octoling with the long and skinny tentacles), who experiences high dissociation and does her best to tune out what happened to her three closest friends.

The story is, the four friends lived in a more remote part of the domes, one with propoganda and censorship running rampant. This place is severely behind in terms of technology and outside information. Due to being isolated they had limited spawners and accidents were prone to occuring.

One by one, the friend group falls apart.

The first guy is Viktor, easily the friendliest of the group. He has an abrupt death after an unexpected accident during sparring.

The second one is Cyclone, probably the most well known OC out of the bunch in here. He had special permission to go to the surface for the sake of trading with salmonids. One day, he never returned back down, with the salmonids refusing to say where he went, becoming abruptly defensive. He currently lives on the surface and I have an oc blog for him ( @anintrovertedocto )

Andi is the third one, an octoling who is deeply closeted about his identity except to only those closest to him. When Cyclone disappears, he is included in an investigation. His identity is revealed abruptly, alongside evidence of neglecting his job since he was being military trained. He would later die in prison, but his status would be left as unknown to everyone who knew him. He is the boyfriend of the next character.

Rest in peace Viktor.

Andi? Kat? If you can somehow see this, I hope everything is ok down there.

He kept his expression cold. The other freelancers seemed intimidated. He didn’t want to deal with socializing when his priority was making sure moray was ok. He didn’t know why moray wanted to work here again, but it was only for the big run. It better go right!

I’m not high enough for this.

Just say a random rotation at Bonerattle. Please take your job seriously.

For context: I normally just do enough at the spawning grounds to get a paycheck, and then sometimes I’ll wait there and the salmonids will bring a raft over for me since I’m close by and I want to visit. I don’t do too many shifts there because the salmonids know me so well to the point they go out of their way to splat me first because they find it funny. For shifts there I’m a low end EVP.

While riding the chopper there, there was this inkling on board who was actually a low end profresh. She was friends with the other two people I got put on during freelance. Her friends were some I’ve seen around a few times, and knew I wasn’t really the thpe to talk on the helicopter. However… she started talking about the fuzzy division and how she wishes she could be as cool as them. Her friends were like… don’t see how they are any different from other high ranking salmon runners and then this kid said it’s because fuzzy inkfish are so pretty and she wishes she could look like them? At this point her friends were both gaping, and one of them looked at me slightly uncomfortably.

That was awkward as it is and then she asked if I’m the guy with the pet salmonid? It took everything not to snap back and I just said that salmonids are not pets and Tammie is my sister.

She went on to ramble about how she wants to be “pretty like fuzzy inkfish” and I eventually stared her down and explained everything I’ve seen of the process. Apparently I’m absolutely terrifying when lecturing or scolding someone so she shut up. Her friends looked absolutely terrified and I even pulled one of them aside and apologized because I’ve gotten in trouble for scaring others, even though I’m not even trying to. It’s just my mannerisms.

Somehow we didn’t wipeout until wave three because the profresh inkling panicked at the grillers.

Yes, it’s very dangerous to get bitten by a full grown salmonid when they don’t splat you instantly, but they do it very rarely? If a salmonid is biting an inkfish, they have a good reason to most of the time.

Also, small nibbles from smallfry are common but mainly harmless, and you are just supposed to clean the area after if you break the skin though I think I’m just immune to most salmon borne illnesses at this point.

My experience with being bitten by a full size chum was during a big run, and I did have to be hospitalized, but the salmonid was also one that wished death on all inkfish. Not a standard chum. I got unlucky that I bled out really bad and had to be on antibiotics for awhile.

Unless you anger a maws which… if you do that’s on you. The worst injury is the loss of a limb but that salmonid would have to be biting hard and absolutely enraged. Horror stories or salmonid bite injuries are… really exaggerated most of the time? It’s rare. Most of the time the worst someone will see in terms of bites is a Megalodontia instantly splatting someone.

You’ll likely not be maimed or killed by a salmonid unless you are really stupid.