The one to find the boy was Tim Barrabosta, a nineteen year old who spent his entire life in Docksford. A young lad who, like most people in seaside towns, spent his days toiling on the docks and sailing through stormy weather. Tim was well liked amongst his peers, a truly virtuous person who would do anything to help those in need.

The second that he caught wind of the tragedy in the neighbouring city he set off running, leaving his own eight-month-old child Eddie under the care of his grandfather.

Tim didn’t have the easiest life. He’d been living off the streets since the age of four, fighting every day for his own survival. His father was a lazy drunkard and his mother rotten to the core. He had no education, instead he opted to work, untangling nets down by the docks for pocket change.

He was employed by his own grandfather, a bitter resentful old man who had cut all contact with his son. Unwilling to ever speak to his son again he adopted Tim and gave him his name but it wasn’t all smooth sailing from there. The pair would work hard from sunrise to sunset, anyone in Docksford could get out on a boat with some fishing line but Tim and his grandfather developed techniques and baits that would build them a fishing empire.

The oceans around Docksford teem with life: fishes of every colour fathomable with corals to match, forest of kelp so dense that they blocked out the sun and a cacophony of varying sea birds squawking throughout the early hours of the morning.

Every morning they’d set out at sunrise and would only return when the waters were tossing them across the boat, by the time they reached the docks it was as if they had stolen a rainbow from the sky.

Tim’s son was born from a fling with a local fishmonger’s daughter. He’d see her almost every day, a beautiful woman with golden blonde hair which contrasted with the night sky that would usually be around by the time he got to see her. The fishmonger didn’t approve of their relationship but by the time he found out it was already too late.

It was midnight when Tim was awoken by a banging on his front door. He went to investigate, looking through the keyhole he saw the girl with a panicked look on her face. She had snuck away from home in order to tell Tim that she was pregnant, afraid of what her father might do to Tim or her.

The girl worked hard to hide the pregnancy, eventually claiming to be sick, locking herself in her room. Occasionally on nights when he knew the father was asleep Tim would sneak in through the window with various potions and ointments he had bought from the market. He’d try his best to help her through the pregnancy even going as far as to volunteer at the local churches midwifery in order to learn how to deliver the baby.

The baby was then born in an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town, Tim would take it in as his own and he and the mother would vow to never see eachother again.

As he looked at the baby in the cart he was reminded of his own Eddie at home. He thought of the fishmonger's daughter, so close yet unable to watch her own son grow up. Picking the baby up, still wrapped in the sack he’d try to shout around for its mother or someone who could tell him who this child was. But deep down he knew… The city had been devastated, corpses lined the streets and most of the buildings were in ruins. If anyone had survived this disaster they would have found him by now.

Tim left the cleanup early, instead he’d make the journey back home with his new son, the grizzly details of the scene burned permanently into his mind. On the way home he thought long and hard over what he should name the child and thus he was dubbed Samuel Finn.

His surname was given to him in remembrance of the one who left him there, the brave souls that probably died to defend him in the city of Finn. His first name was more personal however, named after the man who once saved Tim, Samuel Barrabosta.

He arrived home to a smack, Old Samuel had clipped Tim around the ear. Billowing smoke from a wooden pipe, face red and wrinkled with a scab on his rounded nose. He was in his long johns and slippers with a big fluffy blue dressing gown over the top. In his arms he held Eddie the biological son.

“You left Eddie with me, what the fuck are you doing with someone else’s child?” 

From his tone he was irritated but sincere as if he believed Tim had mistaken the child in his own arms for Eddie.

“What did I say about use of language around the child?”

Tim spoke with intent to patronise with a look of disgust on his own face.

“It’s fuckin english, the boy would hear worse on the docks, what are you doing with the kid?”

Tim’s expression shifted to be almost vacant as he thought of a way to declare his new son.

“This is samuel”

The old man would scowl.

“Well you can fuck off with that shite, forget about it, put it back you little gobshite. How many more mouths have I got to feed?”

Tim was beginning to worry, truth be told he didn’t think about what his adoptive carer would think about bringing another child into the household. He thrusted it on the old man the first time around so his only option was emotional blackmail.

“He came from the Finn, it’s the only survivor they’ve been able to find. There isn’t really anywhere to put it back unless you want me to put it in a smouldering building with the charred corpses of what might be…”

The old man would interrupt.

“Oh shut up, keep the little shit for all I care. This one’s been driving me mad since you left, always crying when you want to do something. You’re looking after this one yourself, it's about time you learn some responsibility or you’ll end up like the useless prick that dumped you on me.”

He’d scoot himself over to an armchair and sit down.

“Samuel you say? He does have a handsome name, you can't give him my last name though, paperwork would be a bastard with two Sam Barrabostas. How about you name him after the town?”

Tim was smug in both his abilities to convince and his clairvoyant ability to predict his own grandad.

“Well ahead of you there old man, I was thinking, Samuel Finn.”

“Old? Watch your mouth you cheeky bugger, I like it, Sam Finn. Rolls off the tongue, would make a great fisherman with the last name Finn.”

They’d both chuckle

“Sending him down to the boatyard already then? He’ll have your back by about thirty.”

“Nonsense lad, it just means he’ll grow up big and strong like his grandpappy.”

Not even half a year on from Sam’s arrival in Docksford the older Sam would retire from being a fisherman, leaving Tim his fishing empire. Although he would never admit it, he loved his three boys more than anything and much of the reasoning behind him hanging up his net was to look after them full time and give them the guidance he never gave to his son or Tim.

As brothers Sammy and Eddie were thick as thieves, spending most of their time together. Whilst Sammy would grow to be tall, dwarfing his adoptive father, Eddie stayed relatively small barely reaching Tim’s shoulder. Ed grew big and bulky whereas Sam was lean and muscular. Ed had the golden blonde hair of his mothers whilst Sam had dark brown hair which he let grow down to his shoulders.

It was around the age of ten where most of their differences began to emerge as this was the age that most kids enrolled in school. Despite his clear physical development, Sam was regarded as developmentally challenged as by the age of ten he still didn’t have a Punch.

Everyone in Docksford had one and to their knowledge everyone in the known world had one, a Punch is an unnatural ability that is present from birth, everyone has one and everyones is different. Some of them might not be too useful but they would still have one, Samuel just didn’t.

Ed’s Punch was first recognised by age two when he picked up the kitchen table with one hand. After further research from two worried adults they were able to conclude that he could pick up pretty much anything handed to him but he couldn’t throw it. A very strange ability but a useful one nonetheless because who needs a crane to lift heavy shipments when you can have someone pass it up to the deck.

Tim remained hopeful that they’d find Sam’s Punch eventually to the point where they’d go out on the weekends to try things that Sam would have probably never done before but as months turned into years Sam gave up.

In school Sam became a social outcast, bullied relentlessly by children who hated difference. He instead chose to throw himself into his fathers work, heading straight to the dock every day after school and hopping in his own little rowboat. His arms were strong from all the rowing which meant that over time Ed could ditch his job to go out and play with some of the local boys.

Sam did manage to make one friend at school, a fairly tall ginger girl called Sally who always kept her hair short and her sleeves rolled up. She was a bit like Sam, her punch allowed her to see in perfect measurements which in the eyes of teenagers might as well be nothing at all. When she wasn’t busy they’d go fishing together and along with Ed they’d often hang out at her family's tavern.

They remained at South Dock Academy for eight years and from their experiences they were shaped into the people that they’d probably be for the rest of their lives. Sally prepared to take over the family business working in the tavern full time, Sam did the same, now able to spend his whole day out on the sea. Ed grew lazier, working part time at the docks and spending the remaining time at Sally’s tavern chatting with the people he used to go to school with.

At nineteen years of age Sam sat half asleep gently rocking in the same old wooden rowboat, his hair still long but now with an accompanying van dyke on his chin. The smell of fish guts wafting gently through the sea breeze. With a fishing rod in his hand and the sun overhead he was at his happiest. And then the reel whirled to life…

He’d shoot to his feet, rocking the boat he’d put out one hand out to steady himself as his other clutched the rod. Pulling up against the line the rod curved to face the sea, arching to a point where Sam was bewildered that it hadn’t yet snapped.

Now holding onto the rod with both hands he muttered.

“Wow, Pop’s new rods are otherworldly”

He’d begin to reel slowly, the spool would creak and groan; the weight of whatever he had hooked seemed immense and Sam was able to determine that it was directly below the boat. Probably about 100m down.

“Fuck me!”

He’d sigh exasperated by the physical labour that he’d have to undertake to land the fish when suddenly the direction of the line would change darting forward as the fish screamed off away from the boat.

“Shit”

Sam dug his legs firmly into the side of the boat, he was now firmly standing on its side, he’d locked off the spool and the boat began surfing sideways in the direction of the line. Sam would wind the centrepin like a madman, the rod itself heating up from the rapid movement of the line. So far he was able to manage and began to make up the distance between him and the fish but sequentially bringing him further out to sea.

Its head broke from the waves but twenty metres from the boat, a fish with a keratin beak. It shone orange against the tides, some kind of parrot fish to Sam’s appraisal. This thing was easily about 430 lbs and huge, its body fat and shaped like the tip of an arrow.

He’d managed to tire the creature significantly with it now within arms reach of the boat. Sam began to lean against its weight, almost sitting on air from the tension of the rod when the creature would suddenly leap to the air splashing Sam with a wave of water.

As the fish flipped over the boat gravity helped the fish fall faster, snapping the line. Sam flung himself over the other side of the boat rocking it as he put his hand out to clutch at the fish but he was too late.it hit the water.

The sun decided to throw him a bone, illuminating the end of the fishing line with a glint of light, Sam didn’t miss this opportunity as he grabbed the frayed line and tugged at it with both hands. With his arms down the side of the boat he hauled in the line grabbing further and further down its length to pull it in. It didn’t take long before the bright orange fish was in view under the water’s surface.

Huffing and puffing he scanned the boat for his knife.

“Where the.. Where is it?”

He spotted it on the bench. Having to hold the line with one arm he reached the other out to feel his way towards the knife.

The fish burst into the air the water reflecting a rainbow over the boat, Sam grabbed a handle and yanked the line towards his chest, pulling the fish towards him.

With his other arm he then swung with all his might resulting in a mighty…

BONG- - - -

Failing to reach his knife Sam had grabbed a frying pan striking the fish in the face with its surface and knocking it back to the sea.

“SHIT”

He let go of the line, it had gotten away.

Or so he thought…

Lifeless the orange fish would rise to the surface, the impact of the frying pan instantly bludgeoning it to death. Sam would cheer, raising his arms in the air but he would quickly be brought back down to earth as he rummaged about the floor of the boat looking for his tools.

He’d throw ropes out to trap the dead fish and haul it back into the boat. After a successful day he’d then begin the gruelling task of rowing his way home.