Even in the throes of death, Caromis knew only to run.

  This was in spite of having no legs, no hands, no nothing; she could vaguely sense she was suspended in something liquid. She felt both chillingly cold and blazing hot at the same time, like an ice cube being dropped into a pot of boiling water. It was wordlessly agonizing, as she didn’t even have a mouth with which to scream. There was only pain unending that she would have to accept. That was when a hook grasped her, carrying her away.

  At that moment, an island drifted through a sunless sea. Here, where only odd pinpricks of light broke the monotony of the eternal dark, a grassy chunk of land torn from some world or other happened to be floating along all by its lonesome through the void of its surroundings. An orb mounted to a metal pole cast its warmth and light upon the trees and shrubbery that inhabited the isle, a few scant clouds hovering above so close it felt like you might be able to grab on. The entire thing remained encapsulated within the safety of a nearly invisible barrier that only occasionally flickered to reveal its outline. The hexagonal patterning on its surface kept out the encroaching depths beyond its borders.

  A single portable camping chair dug into the dirt and loam at the edge of the island. Its legs were firmly embedded into the soil, supporting the weight of someone sitting and fishing in the abyss. Clad in rubber boots and sturdy outdoorsmen gear, the figure could have been mistaken for a mere fisherman, if it wasn’t so freakishly tall. Long, gangly limbs matched equally twig-like legs and a stretched torso. Their head sported a large bucket hat that drooped down over its face, obscuring them as to be almost without exposed skin. Their hunched posture clashed immensely with the comparatively tiny camping chair, which for anyone else would have been rather generous. They watched their rod obsessively, line cast off the limits of the isle into the deep.

  Patience was key to fishing. The Angler knew that very well, which was why they had not moved from the spot for a while. But then the line wiggled, and they knew they’d caught something. It was with firm and gentle technique that they began to reel in their new catch of the day. They’d grown used to the action, sharpened through practice to the point of unconscious reflex. The Angler knew only to fish.

  With one final spectacular yank, the rod came up in a flash and brought with it the sight of a ball of human flesh soaring through the air. It bounced across the grass, once, twice, twisting and unfolding. Long before it came to a stop it was already shifting to a new form. Stumps sprouted from the flesh, bone branching out only to be covered by fiber and muscle and sinew. Fresh new hands hooked themselves into the ground, bare feet springing forth from just-formed ankles and joints. Before eyes had even finished forming, it began to gulp down air from a new mouth. Caromis had never been so happy to breathe. Almost immediately she noticed the only other person in her midst and whirled around to confront them.

  “Don’t attack,” the Angler whispered. She could hear it clearly like they’d been right next to her, despite the fact they’d not moved an inch, planted in their seat. Describing how it sounded was even harder; it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say there was no sound at all. It was an androgynous auditory sensation to assuage the ears.

  She hesitated. In truth, Caromis really had intended to strike, but to be read so cleanly like that before even making a move unsettled her. Even more than that, the fact that they didn’t shift at all rang all sorts of alarms in her head.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  The Angler whipped their rod around in a little circle, a quick spinning motion, and the faintly glowing fishing line lashed through the air like a viper. Call it mercy or just intuition, but she had the faint realization that this immobile figure was more dangerous than they looked. The rod itself hummed at a frequency she could barely hear, but it was there. Some kind of energy coursing through the material, likely.

  She raised her hands. “I’m not attacking!”

  “Just making sure,” said the Angler.

  Caromis rubbed at her throat absentmindedly as she took in her surroundings. It was nerve-wracking to remain so close to the edge, so she backed away, preferring to throw her lot in with the nature reserve that was the isle. A return to the abyss wasn’t something she was eager to experience. She glanced down at her body. It was just the way she had last wanted it to be: the limber limbs of a young woman stared back up at her. She sported the tame brunette palette of a hundred compiled averages, and the shape to boot.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Who are you?” they said.

  “Caromis.”

  That was a response borne of repetition, of a question asked so many times that she felt no need to think about what she would say. She knew who she was.

  The Angler shook their head slightly. “No. WHO are you?”

  Okay, well, the emphasis gave her a bit of a pause. Were they asking for her life story? She opened her mouth to explain, to expound, but there was nothing. She drew a blank trying to conjure her memories of the past. Instead, the vague outline of something missing gnawed at her mind. Or was it closer to the truth to say that there were multiple? Whole chunks of her mental space seemed to be missing, excised from thought entirely. It felt… intensely empty.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  The Angler rubbed at their chin with one hand, thinking. After a bit of thought, they spoke.

  “I am the Angler.”

  She personally felt like the name was a bit too on-point for her taste.

  “But WHO are you?”

  The Angler refused to divulge that information, unfortunately. “Not important.”

  That piqued her curiosity a wee bit, but truth be told, she was far more concerned with finding an escape from this place in the middle of nowhere. Even more worrying, she didn’t remember where she’d been before she was here. There was only the fading feeling of her time spent in the abyss, twin sensations of freezing cold and boiling hot that had been so agonizing.

  “Where am I?” she asked. “I don’t know this place.”

  The Angler cast their rod into the sea once again, pensive. “This is my home. It has been this way for some time.”

  If they wanted to play coy, she wasn’t about to indulge them. Quite frankly, she had better things to be doing. Closing her eyes, she tried harder to remember whatever it was that mattered so much to her. Even if she could not hold onto the truth, she could still catch the faintest of glimpses. She could hear the illusory sounds of people unseen, screaming and crying. Caromis just wasn’t very sure what she was supposed to be thinking about. Yes, it felt like something familiar was calling to her, like she was meant to know, but the specifics slipped from her awareness.

  “I just want to know what’s going on.”

  They shook their head. “You act like a human, Caromis. Why do you lie?”

  Caromis hated the clever types. They were always much harder to fool, and this Angler seemed far smarter than they let on.

  “You don’t know me,” she said.

  “No. But I know no one forgets to put on clothes.”

  The gears churned in her head for a bit before the realization set in. Whatever had happened to her, she’d lost all the clothes she’d been in prior to ending up here. She instinctively moved to cover herself, all the while noticing that the Angler hadn’t even twitched. It was really like they were rooted in place, eyes ahead, no room for distractions. Nothing like her; how did she even forget that she lacked any kind of clothing? A vague sense of pride patted her on the back, telling her she was vaguely important to the powers that be.

  She was supposed to be a professional. Botching an aspect of human life such as dressing yourself would ordinarily paint her as an amateur. This was the kind of rookie mistake that would be inexcusable for anyone, let alone herself. How had she forgotten?

  Caromis’s eyes flicked left and right, trying to find a solution to her problem. As expected, there was no one else. She would have to swallow her ego for this one.

  “My bad. Could you… do you have any spares?”

  The Angler jabbed a thumb over their shoulder pointing to a shack in the distance. She thanked them and moved on. Honestly, the fisherman was creepy. She simply could not feel comfortable around them, the incipient concern of being stranded mingling with the information that she would probably be spending lots of time together with them. Ever curious, she tramped through the wildflowers of the plains endemic to the island. The scenery did feel like a welcome change of pace from the harrowing experience she’d been subject to prior to her rescue.

  The shack the Angler called home was hardly a place most people would live. Rotting wood sagging from years of neglect met its match with the vines that grew over its sides, looking for nutrients. Surprisingly (but probably not), the door was unlocked. Caromis mimed dramatically holding her breath, and then took the plunge. Stepping into the not-so-lovely home, she immediately noted how disrepaired the whole place was. One might even think a poltergeist had come through and scattered everything everywhere, that was how thorough the destruction was. Heaps of refuse, bits and bobs; they sat high on shelves, waiting for a use. It was a headache and a half to dig through the pile, but she did eventually find unused clothing to slip on, like shorts and a tank top. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

  Now that she was lightly clothed, she took a closer look at all of the things left lying around, presumably fished up by the Angler in question. No matter who they were, she could at least tell they were a hoarder. She stepped into a side room only to find some kind of evil maze, built wholly out of rubbish piled high to the ceiling. Among them were rods, tackle boxes, and coiled up fishing line. Fishing really WAS this person’s life, even when they slept.

  Stepping outside again, Caromis felt blinded by the bright sun in the sky, the sphere mounted to a metal pole. She could easily see the predicament she was in and how the outside battered the isle’s barriers, begging to be let in. If only she could remember who she was, maybe then she’d have some notion of what was going on. She sighed, lying down in the grass to stare up into the ‘sky’-- which was just the scant few clouds that defied all logic to form a mile or less overhead. The light felt warm on her skin and relaxed for the first time in a long while. She had a lot of questions, of course, but she decided she would have her answers later; for now she’d rest.

  The Angler merely sat and fished as they always did. They had an idea of what Caromis was up to, but their body continued to remain in place as if filled with lead. Apathy kept them from doing more, saying more. In the end, what was the point of doing anything if not to fish? They were sure that the fish they’d caught would come back to them eventually, anyway. All they needed was to be a little patient.

  And if there was one virtue you could assign to the Angler, it was patience.