Excerpt from Oscar the Untitled

     The other fish in the sea anemone avoided Oscar. Whenever one made eye contact, it would quickly look away. Even James avoided him.

     Oscar swam slowly, not noticing the anxiety in the other fish’s faces. He turned suddenly, slashing the water violently with his tail as a wave of anger flashed through him.

     Night came, and Oscar slept. His life seemed to him to be an endless cycle of sleeping and waking. He ate little, just enough to keep himself alive.

     It was all so unfair! he mused again. So unfair that his parents should be taken away from him after so short a reunion.

     He slept fitfully that night. He rarely slept through the night anymore.

     There were seahorses in the sea anemone.

     Strange, Oscar thought. There aren’t usually seahorses around here.

     Then he saw the red eyes and the white horn glinting evilly in the pale moonlight.

     Seaunicorns!

     One of them turned toward him. Their eyes met for one brief, horrible moment, then it charged, its head down, horn aimed for Oscar’s throat.

     Oscar pulled out his sword, holding it defensively in front of him. A crack appeared in the hilt and traveled the length of the blade. The hilt shattered in Oscar’s fins. The blade followed. Oscar turned his head away from the shards that flew at his face. The seaunicorn was still charging when he turned toward it again.

     Oscar reached for his bow and pulled a scale from his body to fire. The pain blinded him. Blood streamed from the missing scale. The seaunicorn seemed frozen in place. Oscar watched the blood flow from the wound. It flowed into nothing. The seaunicorn was gone. The sea anemone was gone. Everything was gone. Around him was only black marred only by the red river of blood.

     The river widened. Oscar hurtled down it. He fought to draw a breath from the thick blood.

     The river narrowed. Oscar floated in the black. The river flowed into his wound.

     The seaunicorn resumed its charge. Oscar frantically reached for his sword, but he couldn’t find it. Then he remembered that it had shattered. No, not shattered. It was gone. He reached for his bow and a scale. His fin found a hole where a scale was missing. There was no sword. His scales were not weapons. He had never been dropped in the pudding factory that had armed him in his first life.

     Oscar turned away and prepared for the inevitable as best he could. Instead of being speared through the throat, like he expected, he heard a sickening clanging noise. When he turned back, the seaunicorn was engaged in a desperate duel. At first, Oscar could not see what had just saved his life. He just saw its horn flashing in the moonlight, desperately blocking and thrusting.

     A good unicorn? Oscar thought. It can’t be.

     With a final lunge, the thing’s horn drove through the seaunicorn’s chest. It pulled out with a violent, bloody thrust of the thing’s head.

     A narwhal!

     The narwhal turned to leave. Dead seaunicorns floated all about the anemones, their blood staining the waters red. The surviving seaunicorns fled.

     “Wait!” Oscar cried.

     The narwhal turned to face him.

     “Who are you?” he asked.

     “Rachel Quentin Levine.” She swam out of sight.

     “Oscar.”

     Oscar floated away from the voice.

     “Oscar, wake up.”

     “Leave me alone,” Oscar muttered.

     “You have to get up, Oscar.”

     “No.”

     “Oscar, come on.”

     Oscar focused one eye and saw James floating just above him. His face looked haggard, like he hadn’t slept in a while.

     Oscar grudgingly focused the other eye and said, “You look tired.”

     “Well, yeah,” James said. “Some of us didn’t sleep through the last few days. Well, you know, not sleep, but that thing that we do.”

     “Days?” Oscar asked. “I was only asleep, well you know, kinda asleep, for a few hours.”

     “Nope. You slept, well kinda slept –”

     “Yeah, we don’t really sleep. I get it. I think the reader gets it, too,” Oscar interrupted.

     “Right. Well anyway, you kinda slept through all,” James gestured with his fin to the seaunicorn and fish corpses strewn around them, “this.”

     “I thought my vision was a little redder than usual. What happened?”

     James and Oscar were both silent as they watched a tendril of blood float past them.

     “Seaunicorns invaded the anemone,” James answered quietly. “We were defenseless against them. Then a narwhal came and drove them away, but not before the damage had been done.”

     “What did the seaunicorns want? Why did the narwhal come?”

     James shook his head. “Nobody knows. They both just appeared out of nowhere.”

     “Where’d the narwhal go?”

     “It left. It never said a word.”

     Oscar’s mind raced as he connected his dream with the reality. “She,” he said, as he began to piece it all together.

     “What?”

     “The narwhal – she, not it. Her name is Rachel.”

     “How do you know?”

     “I was there.”

     “You were asleep!”

     “I saw it, though. And we’ve been over this. Extensively. I wasn’t really asleep. I saw the whole battle. I dreamed about it or I was still aware on some level or – or I don’t know. But I was there. Somehow.”

     “How did you find out her name? As far as any of us could tell, you were out.”

     “She told me. I asked and she told me. Her name is Rachel Quentin Levine.”

     “Yeah, you just said that.”

     “No, James, don’t you understand? Rachel Quentin Levine. RQL.”

     James sighed and looked away. “Oscar, look around,” he said without looking back.

     Oscar did. He saw the water and anemone tentacles stained red. He saw the tentacles beginning to recede and droop. He saw the holes in the tentacles and entire sections of the anemone missing. He saw torn sections of sea anemone floating around him. He saw the clownfish and the rare Banggai cardinalfish or two that had been generous enough to offer him and James refuge in their home lying dead for their trouble. He saw the fish still alive nursing their wounds and huddling together, turned protectively away from Oscar. He saw parents futilely trying to calm crying children. He saw relatives and friends trying to explain where the children’s parents had gone, or why they wouldn’t get up when the child cried for them. He saw one or two turning long enough to glare at Oscar. He saw the previously friendly fish not daring to approach the center of the anemone where Oscar lay, as if he himself were responsible for all their troubles. Which, he supposed, he was.

     “Why do you trust the Spaghetti Octopus? What good has come of listening to it?” James asked. “It’s just brought danger and destruction.”

     “But I didn’t want this. I just wanted us to be safe.”

     “Well, we’re clearly not.”

     “But if we can find RQL, then we can –”

     “Come on, Oscar, seriously? Think about it. The Spaghetti Octopus caused your parents to be captured. It caused-” James cut himself off and looked away.

     “But maybe we can fix this. If we just find RQL . . .”

     “You go find your precious RQL, then. I’m staying here.”

     “But-”

     “You’ve caused me enough problems, Oscar. I’m staying.”

     Oscar opened his mouth, but shut it without saying anything. He turned and swam slowly to gather his potato and bow and arrows. He stared at the potato without moving for several minutes. He felt a presence beside him, but did not turn.

     “You should go now,” James said. Oscar was glad that he didn’t sound angry anymore; now he just sounded sad.

     And why shouldn’t he be? Oscar thought. It’s my fault he’s here. It’s my fault he’s not just living a simple life where he was born. It’s my fault all these fish died.

     James continued, “If whatever’s out there doesn’t kill you, these fish might.”

     “Yeah,” Oscar sighed. “I’ll see you around, I guess.”

     Oscar gathered his things and swam toward the bloodied anemone tentacles.

     “I hope so,” James whispered. “I hope so.”