The sea monster was exceptionally curious but very inexperienced. An excusable thing to say about the being that only lived in the world for the fourth day. Natural curiosity and youthful merriment caused the beast a lot of trouble. Just imagine: who would want to swim in a race against a fifty-foot monster with the appropriate breadth of the maw? Of course, no one would. Don't even try to convince some coralfish, that it's not going to be your prey. In truth, coral fishes don't work for sea monsters nor as a snack, nor as an appetizer. But fishes are mostly dim-witted and taciturn creatures. Perhaps that is why the monster could not make friends with them.
Having seen him, squids were letting out ink, disappearing in an unknown direction. Sharks were scurrying away and whales were rushing to the surface. In general, everyone was scattering from him. Which made Monster feel lonely all the time. And quite often, hungry. So hungry, in fact, that he almost always had a nasty feeling in his stomach. This, however, had no effect on his character. Despite the troubles, Monster remained optimistic, humble, and well-mannered.
On the fourth day of his life, Monster swam the familiar route, at a depth of about twelve feet, hoping to reap couple or three cheeky hogfishes, which recently made hunting near the coral reef a trend for themselves. The sun was pleasantly warm on Monster's back, the water was clearer than Inverland moonshine, and the beast was in a good mood. He was already anticipating his next treat. If it could drool, it would drool. But it could not, so it only squinted reverie.
Suddenly the sun stopped warming its back. "A cloud and nothing more," Monster decided. It would have swum on, but then a sound it had never heard before caught its attention. A low rumbling or creaking sound. The beast lifted its eyelids.
Right above him, a large and very strange fish was floating and casting a shadow, barely touching Monster's dorsal ridge with its belly. The beast became curious, so it moved up and followed the fish. The fish did not react in any way. More sounds were added to this creaking and humming. Somewhat of the roll call of dolphins, coming from the part of the fish that was above the surface of the water.
"Maybe we can be friends?" - Monster thought. And licked the fish in greeting. Its belly was in a state of disrepair - all covered with barnacles, crustaceans, and algae. It tasted disgusting. And there was disgusting slime on the tongue. "How can you be so filthy?" - Sea Monster grimaced. Suddenly something pricked him at the very ear. It didn't really hurt. More like made Sea Monster a bit sad. But How would you feel in his shoes? Just when you started getting to know someone, you got pricked in return. The beast knew that some fish were defending themselves that way. He also knew that some of them were electrocuted. But to do it like this, cheekily and without a real cause?
"What an impolite fish," the beast decided and was about to dive deeper when something pricked him again, at the other ear. The sounds similar to the roll call of dolphins became louder. Then a third prick followed. This, the third one, really pissed Sea Monster off, because the needle of some kind (now the beast saw what it was pricked by) hit it right next to its eye. "That's it, you asked for it," Monster finally lost his temper