Prompt: Everyone Wants to Rule the World

Fedrick swam through his algae garden, hoping against hope a nice fat sea slug would be scavenging the barren crop beds. Empty-handed and empty-bellied, he pushed down with his bowed legs and stretched his hind fins, swimming up from the empty garden to the dimly glowing curve of the energy net that surrounded his stead.

He drew cold water across his gills and sent the chill down his spindly arms to the pads of his rounded fingertips to numb the sting as he pressed them against the energy net. It wasn’t long before one of the great sharks swam toward him, trapped between the energy fields that shaped the net in a dome against the ocean floor.

The sharks disdained Fedrick’s overtures of comradeship, but he called this one Stump because it had lost most of its dorsal fin in a long-ago battle. Stump cruised to a rest next to Fedrick, his black eye rolling back to watch as Fedrick pushed through the stinging energy field and climbed onto the shark’s back.

He prodded the shark to the far side of the net and pressed his pads against it, taking in the sting that allowed them to pass through. Without him, the shark would be burned alive against the nets. Between them. Outside, in the open water, Fedrick relied on the energy he had absorbed to control the shark long enough for his journey…

Dogs in House	Houdini ,Brindle
Music	Tears for Fears, “Everyone wants to Rule the World”
Time writing	20 minutes
March word count	4,717