Catching a Shark with Menstrual Blood
The experience of spotting shark fins while rowing a rubber dinghy through the middle of the Pacific Ocean isn't as dramatic as it looks in movies when you actually do it.
At least not when they're still far away.
“There’s one over there, and two more on the right.”
“Yes, they’re already gone.”
The support ship that brought me here had long since vanished beyond the horizon.
The destination for this broadcast was an unnamed small uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
After switching to a rubber dinghy about three kilometers from the island and beginning to row alone, the remaining distance was now only about one kilometer.
Surviving for a week on that island was the goal of this broadcast.
It was my first survival stream in three months, the first one after the sex reassignment.
“You don’t need to be scared if you see a shark. Most people think that if a shark smells blood, it’ll go crazy and come running to eat a human, but most sharks don’t particularly like humans.”
I rowed again.
Thanks to Melon Musk, that eccentric wealthy guy, laying low-Earth orbit communication satellites all over the world, real-time broadcasting is now possible even in the middle of the Pacific with just a goggle.
It’s a pretty nice world for someone like me.
“Then it’s not dangerous?”
“That’s not entirely true.”
“????”
“It’s rare for them to chase people specifically to eat them. It doesn’t mean it’s okay to get bitten. That one just got curious and bit my thigh halfway off.”
“Then it’s dangerous right now.”
“So you don’t have to get bitten?”
“That logic again.”
“It got worse after three months of rest.”
“The gender changed but the skills stayed the same.”
My name is Kim Seowoo.
I’m a professional survival internet streamer with a little over three million NewTube subscribers.
Not only in Korea, but overseas my videos are quite famous, so I had a name in this field.
I’d been wandering around deserts, jungles, and snowy mountains doing survival broadcasts for a long time, and thanks to that, I’d ruined two marriages.
Even I think my ex-wives did nothing wrong.
If I were a husband and saw my wife chasing away lions and stealing whale meat, I’d divorce her too.
“Ugh.”
Suddenly my lower abdomen felt heavy.
I stopped rowing and frowned.
“Ah, fuck.”
“Why?”
“Shark getting closer?”
“No. Menstruation.”
“lol lol lol lol lol”
“Still can’t adapt?”
“Does this get easier just by saying it’s adaptation? I lived thirty-nine years without this, and suddenly an alarm is going off in my belly.”
It had been about three months since I became a woman.
The Acquired Sex Reversal Disease itself had always existed. So rare that most people never saw a patient their whole life, but it was a medically verified real disease with separate administrative procedures.
The problem was that it had happened to me.
Until three months ago, I was a thirty-nine-year-old muscular guy, but now I was a beautiful woman in her early twenties.
That too, a strangely beautiful woman that made me wonder how I ended up like this every time I looked in the mirror.
“It was Young Forty minus one.”
“Who the hell is Young Forty, you bastard.”
“Thirty-nine is pre-Young Forty.”
“If it rejuvenated to the twenties, that’s a plus?”
“I still don’t know whether I should be happy or sad. At least it was fortunate I didn’t change my name from Kim Seowoo.”
Thankfully, my body hadn’t weakened.
Compared to my old body, there were clear differences, but still, it seemed I’d become as strong as a woman’s physical limits allowed.
“So how strong is my body now?”
“National reserve team level?”
“I don’t know if it’s national reserve team, but it seems to be around national reserve level.”
“Why use reserve as a combat unit?”
“Who wins between a three-year conscript and you?”
“Me.”
“You’re cocky as hell.”
“I finished my military service, you bastards. If this disease hadn’t happened before, I wouldn’t have gone to the army… Wait, don’t women get rejected from UDT? I don’t know.”
I laughed and started rowing again, but my lower abdomen pulled once more.
I clicked my tongue irritably, then suddenly stopped moving.
One black fin that had been circling on the right side of the rubber dinghy was now closer than before.
I stared at it for a moment, then looked down at my belly.
I saw a shark again.
And I slowly lowered the paddle.
“Hey”
“Why suddenly quiet”
“Don’t make that face”
“Seowoo, please”
“What did I do to make you look like that already.”
People who had watched my broadcasts for a long time knew my expression well.
I leaned my body forward and reached my hand into my panties.
A moment later, I pulled out my fingers with a little blood on them.
“????????????”
“Hey crazy bitch”
“No way”
“Don’t”
“There’s a saying that sharks go crazy when they smell menstrual blood. That’s a very exaggerated story.”
“Good thing”
“Then wash your hands and row”
“Still, blood is blood.”
“Ah fuck”
I dipped my fingers straight into the seawater and hit the surface several times hard.
Instead of hitting regularly, I moved my wrist irregularly, and a vibration similar to that of a wounded fish flailing near the surface spread.
“Sharks don’t just smell, they also sense movement or vibration in the water. What I’m doing now isn’t summoning sharks by just splashing blood, but giving a slightly stronger stimulus to attract attention.”
“It sounds like a crazy thing when I hear the explanation”
“Why not just go to the island”
“We have to.”
I pulled the harpoon fixed inside the rubber dinghy.
“Here’s the bait.”
“You’re not the bait, are you?”
“That’s something you have to find out by trying it yourself.”
One fin changed direction.
The one that had been circling largely before had clearly started approaching this way.
From that moment, I stopped reading the chat.
It was good to chat with real-time viewers, but moving while watching the chat during a dangerous moment was something a professional didn’t do, it was something a fool did.
The shadows in the water gradually became clearer.
It was a quite large shark, not much different in body size from a human.
When it turned its body near the boat, its gray back brushed below the surface, and I lowered my stance while holding the harpoon with both hands.
“Around a shark’s snout are very sensitive sensory organs called the ampullae of Lorenzini. They’re so sensitive they can detect even minute electric signals, which means they’re sensitive to strong stimuli as well.”
The shark came right up next to it.
When its snout rose near the surface, I drove the harpoon down hard.
Thud!
A firm shock rose to my wrist.
The shark twisted its body and splashed water violently, and the small rubber dinghy shook greatly to the side.
“Ah, I have to push it in more, but the boat is small so it’s tough. Hah!”
I pressed with my body weight, but the thing turned its head largely and escaped.
The harpoon was still stuck in its snout.
I pulled out the multi-purpose knife fixed to my waist belt.
And holding the harpoon shaft, I jumped into the sea as is.
Cold seawater covered my whole body.
The shark twisted its body madly, and I hugged it with my left arm while pressing close, then stabbed the knife in my right hand deeply toward the gills.
The resistance was so fierce I almost let go for a moment.
“Fuck, if I were like before, it would have been easier.”
Still, I didn’t let go.
I fixed my body by pressing my waist and thighs, then pushed the knife in again, and when the thing’s resistance weakened, I cut deeply into the gills.
Red blood spread in the seawater.
After waiting a little more, the shark’s movements completely stopped.
I pulled the thing and the harpoon together to the surface.
“Puhah!”
When I wiped the water off the goggle, the rubber dinghy was a little apart.
Swimming back while holding the dead shark, the chat finally came into view.
“Crazy bitch!!!!”
“Are you alive?”
“As expected, you’re alive, so I’m even more pissed off.”
“After resting three months, you do this from the first broadcast?”
“Call the rescue ship.”
“Why call. I caught it.”
“People don’t go to catch sharks to avoid them.”
“If I were like you, why would you watch my broadcast?”
I first pulled the harpoon into the boat and firmly tied the shark with the mooring line attached in front.
There was no need to waste strength by pulling the whole thing up with my current body.
When I got on the boat, my arms and shoulders felt heavy.
“It’s true the strength difference is big.”
“You killed a shark just now and now you’re talking?”
“That’s just saying it was easier before.”
I sheathed the knife back on my waist and grabbed the paddle.
The island was now quite close, and since pulling the shark whole would cause severe resistance, it was better to do some minimal processing during the trip.
I pulled out the knife again and while cutting the shark’s belly, I rowed intermittently.
“Shark meat needs to be handled well. There are differences depending on the type, but if not handled properly, ammonia smell will rise, so it’s better to remove the blood quickly.”
“You fought a shark and immediately started a cooking broadcast.”
“The content changes at lightning speed.”
“Then throw it away?”
“First person to catch a shark with menstrual blood.”
“I did it for the first time too.”
I smiled without realizing it.
The sea breeze swept my wet hair back, and the sand beach in front was now quite close.
There were many things to think about because of the fact that my body had changed in three months, but coming into an unnamed island while pulling the catch soaked in seawater felt like returning to my place after a long time.
I washed the blood-stained knife once in the seawater, put it in the sheath, and grabbed the paddle with both hands.
“Great. We’re almost there.”
“Please don’t cause any more trouble today.”
“It’s just starting, what are you talking about.”
“Don’t say worrying things.”
I pushed the paddle with strength while smiling.