We are on the docks and they’re coming. They’re climbing up from the water, they’re running towards us on the dock, they have knives, they look angry, but I’m standing confident in place.

I know I’m bigger and stronger than each of them individually. I grab one by the legs and whip his body against the dock. Crunch. Another whip and crunch. And then, limp and heavy, I throw the body into the water. I am aware of it resting in place on the bottom as I am forced to fight another and another in the same way: ankles, whip, crunch, whip, crunch, toss. One of their knives gets me in the ankle of my boot, and I feel the adrenaline of a closer call before throwing him into the water, and his body sinks to the bottom. I see someone kneeling beside one of the bodies underwater and think they must be able to hold their breath for a long time.

My partner is in my periphery fighting with me.

The final attacker sinks to the bottom, a gelatinous blob with no bones left to provide structure to his mass.

We run together down the dock, and I think about how we will avoid the truth of what we’ve done.