The underside of the wood crunched with a layer of barnacles that blinked at him like a thousand eyes, wondering why their world had been suddenly turned upside down—but they weren’t the reason Alba stopped. They weren’t the reason his lungs squeezed his heart, making it stutter. With deft movements, he pinched between a cluster of the wriggling creatures, holding his breath when he realized. Throughout the barnacle nests, some flaking off with the movement, others encapsulated, grown into the thick shells—were chipped human fingernails.
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