Picture Challenge #20: Strange finding

[redblood]

INFO: They say that a picture can tell a thousand words. How many can you find?

Each week a new image will be posted, and your challenge will be to write whatever the image inspires you to write. It can be anything as long as it relates to the picture. A plot, a scene, a short story, a poem, a character, etc. You can write as much or as little as you wish. It's not the length that matters, it's what you put into it. There is no time limit to these challenges, so feel free to jump in at any time.

(source)​

 

[Greenie]

Poke, poke.

"What is that, Kyle?" The little boy who spoke was dressed in the one-piece snowsuit stood behind his older brother, carefully keeping away from the big and dead... whatever it was. It was November so not yet winter, but the weather had been chilly enough that their Mama had made sure they dressed warmly and had on gloves and tuques before they rushed off to play by the beach shore.

"I dunno Ryan," Kyle replied, still poking at the thing with the stick he had found have stuck in a rocky crevace. "It looks like a really big fish-frog."

"A fish-frog?" Ryan looked up at the back of his brother's head.

"Yeah," Kyle replied, adding confidence in his voice. "Lookit the front, it's just like those fish Mom buys from the store." He then walked a little down to where the legs were, tentatively poking them as well with his trusty stick. "These are the legs, just like a frog's."

"But there's no such thing as a fish-frog," Ryan pointed out.

"We can give it a new name." Kyle hmm'd to himself before shrugging. "Let's go tell Mom, maybe she can call the news, then we'll be famous!"

And so the duo returned home, only to have their mother shoot down their discovery with a 'yes dear' and then an order to wash up for lunch. As for the fish-frog, it was neatly eaten up by scavengers. Some strange and remarkable things are not meant to be discovered, and luckily nature took care of that this time around.

 

[PoetLore]

Jor and Bul were out exploring before lunch and came upon an odd and amazing creature. Icy white but not frozen with scales of a fish but legs of a man, the thing seemed to have just beached itself on the sand.

"What do you suppose it is?"

"Never seen anything like it before..."

"I think it's dead."

"Mebbe..."

"Poke it and see..."

"I'm not gonna poke it...you poke it."

"Baby..." Jor said and picked up a stick to see if it was dead or not. As soon as he poked it though the creature let out a deed groan and the two boys took off the way they'd come screaming about the sea monster that had tried to eat them. When they returned with their father there was no sign of the creature, only a faint indentation in the sand.

 

[Doctor Jax]

"What do you think it'd taste like?" Moromon asked, poking the thing that had washed on shore with a stick.

"Ewww! Moro, that's disgusting. It's all gross," his sister, Madaba, whined as she peeked from around him at it.

It was the size of a man, with a fish's head and two tails. The eyes were wide and unblinking, staring at the cloudy sky, while the ocean lapped at its body, part of it buried in the sand. Its skin seemed the consistency of wet, thin rubber, gleaming a strange opalescent white under the wan sun.

"Maybe Mom can cook it up into something go--"

The thing flailed a bit, and the two shrieked, flinching back and away as it opened its mouth slowly, laying still for a moment before being revived again by a larger than usual wave. It rolled to look at the children, who stared at it with horror, and it removed from a strange fold in its chest something shiny.

A pearl. A pearl of massive size.

It offered it to the children while hissing something, hand shaking, before fully expiring in the sand, unmoving. Moromon stared at the pearl in its hand - the size of a duck's egg, maybe bigger - and, the more intrepid of the two, he dashed toward it, snatching it out of the thing's webby hand. It was surprisingly warm, slightly sticky, and soft as silk.

"Wh-what... what do we tell Dad?" Madaba whispered to Moromon.

He stuck the pearl in his pocket as he stared at the strange thing on the shore.

"We'll tell him we found a really big clam. Come on, hurry, we gotta go back!"