Game over.
This is the order being restored.
My men move with practiced ease, their boots silent against the deck as they lift heavy buckets one by one and tip them over the side, letting thick, dark blood and the weight of dead fish slide into the water below, where it spreads slowly, blooming outward like ink in a glass of water. The smell rises immediately, sharp and unmistakable, carried by the wind back toward us, clinging to the air, and I do not flinch from it because this is a language the ocean understands better than words. This is a signal. An invitation.