When the city flooded twice a year, there was an exodus of its residents. The alleged reasoning for this was public safety and to allow the public sector workers to do their best to shorten the flooding period from three weeks to eight days. No matter how many official reports were released, no matter the photographs taken or the social media posts from the workers, nothing explained what they couldn't clean up.
The most noticeable were the claw marks embedded deep into the sides of the old war memorials, gauging the horses sides as though they meant to spill blood. Sometimes small iridescent scales were found inside these marks and have long since been considered a sign of good luck. Other times needle-thin teeth were found with gums still attached - these are taken to mean that the floods will return sooner, as the creatures that reside deep within it are too hungry to be sated by just two trips.
Locals never go so far as to say that these creatures are holding their city hostage, far from it. They are fond of the mild chaos caused by the biannual need to relocate to higher grounds and the clean-up period when they return. It's a matter of pride for them, their resistance to greater forces and things that they have only ever caught glimpses of.
They say you never forget your first sighting - the way those jagged spines glisten in the water like oil-slick rainbows on barbed wire and the trail of viscera left in their wake from whatever stray animals were left behind. Some even seem to play in it.
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