Flashlight fish

Flashlight fish are elusive fish whose green, shifting lights fill the darkness of a sunken ship. In the encounter with Jacob Portman and Emma Bloom, they are more than a striking underwater sight: their movement creates a shared field of wonder, and their presence helps turn a tense exploration into a moment of closeness.

Appearance and Encounter

Inside the shipwreck, Jacob and Emma pass a breathing tube between them in near-total darkness. Then green flashes begin appearing one by one. As more lights emerge, they gather into a constellation around the pair, illuminating their bodies and reflecting in their masks. The startling transformation of the black interior into a field of moving light makes the fish visible as a living presence rather than a detail of the wreck.

Emma reaches out and flicks her wrist. Instead of making a ball of fire, as Jacob might expect from her, her hand glows blue. The green points converge around it, flashing and swirling in response to her movements like a school of fish. Their behavior gives the scene its distinctive interplay: Emma’s gesture does not simply reveal the fish but becomes part of the pattern that draws them into view.

Hidden Life in the Wreck

Jacob and Emma remain suspended in the dark, absorbed by the spectacle until Jacob loses track of time. The apparent duration is expansive, though the encounter probably lasts only a few minutes. When Emma nudges him, they retreat through the doorway, climb the ladder, and surface. The transition from the fish’s green constellation to the Milky Way overhead gives the underwater sight a larger frame: Jacob perceives fish and stars as coinciding parts of an ancient, mysterious whole.

Once they are back on the hull, Jacob asks what they saw. Emma identifies the fish as flashlight fish and explains that most people never see them because they hide. Their name makes the light-bearing quality explicit, while her answer establishes their elusiveness as part of the encounter: the fish are beautiful precisely as creatures usually concealed from view.

Peculiarity and Significance

Jacob calls the fish beautiful; Emma agrees, then adds that they are peculiar. When Jacob repeats the description, Emma smiles and confirms it. The exchange connects the fish to the story’s language of peculiarity without reducing them to a mere label: they remain animals with their own luminous presence and movement, not just an analogy for the characters.

The fish’s lights also shape what happens between Jacob and Emma. After the encounter, they sit speechless, half-submerged, their thighs touching. Emma’s hand settles on Jacob’s knee, and he lets it remain there; the inner warning that had kept him from kissing her falls silent. They kiss, until Emma pulls away and reminds him that she needs to breathe. The scene therefore moves from concealment to visibility, from watching hidden creatures to a brief, reciprocal intimacy. The fish do not speak or act for the humans; their independent, responsive movement makes the setting an active part of the encounter, and their fleeting appearance leaves Jacob with an image that joins the underwater world to the sky above.