The silence in the kitchen didn't just hang; it curdled. Elias's father dropped his heavy slicker, the yellow plastic hitting the floor with a wet thud.
The man's wooden leg struck the floorboards like a gavel as he closed the distance between them, the scar by his eye twitching with a frantic, rhythmic pulse.
"The city?" His father's voice wasn't a shout yet—it was a low, vibrating growl that reminded Elias uncomfortably of the Leviathan's hum. "You think that neon graveyard has something for you? You think you're special enough to survive the gears of that machine?"
He stepped into the dim light of the single overhead bulb, his face a roadmap of hard years and harder lessons.
"Your mother thought the same," the man spat, the words coming out like jagged glass. "She wanted the lights. She wanted the 'opportunity.' And what did it give her? A cold bed in a hospital hallway and a lungs full of smog because she didn't have the right credits for a filter. That place doesn't breathe, Elias. It consumes."
Elias stood his ground, his hand tightening on the strap of his canvas bag. He didn't mention the glowing brine still dried into the fibers of his shirt. He didn't mention that the "old ways" felt just as suffocating as the smog his father feared.
"It's toxic," his father continued, his voice rising now, echoing off the thin walls of the shack. "It's a poison that rots the soul before it touches the body. People like us—people who know the weight of a net and the pull of the moon—we don't belong in boxes made of steel and glass. You go there, you're just another piece of scrap for them to grind down."
The man grabbed his gutting knife from the table, slamming it into its leather sheath with a violent finality.
"Fine! Go!" he roared, lunging toward the door. He kicked it open, the wood hitting the exterior wall with a crack that sounded like a gunshot in the pre-dawn stillness. "Go find your mother's ghost in the gutters! See if the city licks your wounds the way the salt does!"
He stormed out into the dark, his wooden leg unevenly thumping against the dirt path as he marched toward the pier. He didn't look back. He didn't offer a blessing or a warning. He just disappeared into the grey mist, leaving the door swinging wide to the cold morning air.
Elias watched the silhouette of his father vanish. The "daily dose of protein" was more important than a son who had lost his way.
Elias stepped out of the house, turning his back on the sea. He didn't go to the pier. He walked toward the horizon where the sky wasn't grey, but a bruised purple-orange, glowing with the artificial heartbeat of the city.
...