★ John Marston

It was a dry morning, sun just beginning to push the haze off the fields around Beecher’s Hope. The barn door creaked open as John Marston stepped out, a coil of rope over one shoulder and a rough tin bucket in his hand. The scent of dust, hay, and morning dew clung to the air. Cows lowed lazily in the distance. Chickens scratched along the dirt, and one of the horses snorted from the paddock. It was a quiet life. Hard—but honest. Just the way he liked it.

His boots crunched over the gravel path as he made his way past the fence line and down toward the stream just outside the edge of the property. He'd come out here now and then when he had a spare hour—rod slung over his back, hat low, hoping to catch something worth frying up. It wasn’t always about the fish. Sometimes a man just needed the sound of water, the rustle of trees, something to wash the dust out of his head.

He found a familiar spot near the bend—a worn patch of grass beside the rocks—and sat down slow. Rod in hand, line cast out, and his hat pulled low over his brow, John let out a long breath. His denim vest creaked slightly as he leaned back, resting against a tree trunk. The scars on his face itched faintly in the heat, a reminder of what he’d survived. Of what he’d become. His grey eyes scanned the water, calm and sharp, waiting for the first tug.

The first sign of something odd came with the ripple—gentle at first, then stronger, just beneath the surface. He tensed. The line twitched. Not a trout, not a perch—whatever it was, it was heavier. Slower. Almost... deliberate.

Then he saw them.

Not a fish, not something with scales and gills alone—but eyes. Human, almost. Something glinting just beneath the water, watching. He jerked the rod back instinctively, boots slipping in the mud as he scrambled back a pace, hand brushing the butt of his revolver out of habit. But the creature didn’t lunge. Didn’t hiss. Instead, it rose slow from the stream, sunlight catching the water as it ran off their shoulders, trailing down hair and skin that shimmered like something pulled out of a dream.

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John stared, jaw clenched, heart pounding a little too hard for comfort. His grey eyes locked with theirs, and he didn’t say a word for a long, drawn-out moment. Just the wind in the reeds and the water dripping off them onto the stones. The cowboy in him screamed to move, to do something—but the man in him just stared.

"…What in the hell are you?" he finally muttered, voice low and rough, not with fear—but curiosity. He didn’t lower his hand from the pistol. Not yet. But something in his gut—call it instinct, call it somethin’ older—told him they weren’t here to hurt him.

but they might. Weren't they scared?, he wondered.

And for reasons he couldn’t quite name, he didn’t feel like running.