-1-

My (ex) co-workers are a bunch of punk ass bitches

I tell them as much and they just laugh  because, like me, they are wasted as fuck.

“For real, I’m doing it ! ” I shout, going into an over exaggerated body builder pose to show off my pecs before throwing back a shot of the shitty cotton candy vodka Maddie thought was good idea to buy.

I make a note that next time my friends and I trespass in the defunct sea themed amusement park that we’d all just been fired from because of a fucking documentary--Maddie couldn’t be in charge of the alcohol.

I make a show of of it. Sauntering to the bolted security door at the end of the main pool and twirling  the crowbar Jen had found in Tyler’s car.

“Come on Jake, you don’t have to do it,” Layla hiccups.

“Nah, I wanna see this shit!” Tyler goads.

I turn back to where the group of my (ex) co-workers are sitting in the front row VIP section of the aqua stadium, a dozen empty liquor bottles and snacks between them.  I flash them the confident Jacob King smile like what I was about to do was no big deal.

In reality, I was scared shitless and mostly starting this dumbshit for the attention.

We’d broken into AquaWorld a little after 2AM. No one could find the keys for the amusement park rides so we  spent the first part of the night in the aqua stadium shit talking the news network who made the investigative documentary that shut down every AquaWorld in Arizona. Then we shit talked our bosses for not giving us any warning or options and firing us all on the spot two weeks ago without severance.

After all the bloodletting the party descended into flirting—which was to be expected since every ex-trainer in AquaWorld was hot and cocky as hell. We were all recently graduated college swimmer  or retired Olympic  swimmers who’d been scooped up by AquaWorld. The pay was shit but they'd lured us with promises of retiring in our 40s, being trained to do cool shit like ride dolphins. train whales  and partake in the endless benefit packages.

Which had all been mostly true until the fucking expose documentary and abrupt firings.

Tonight’s trespassing party was  our final fuck you to AquaWorld and I’d decided I was going to up the ante and break into the restricted area.

Our former boss, Arizona’s local eccentric billionare nepo baby Lorne Abbott, had been working on some new top secret  show just for called Oceania Fantasy before everything went to shit. They had quarantined off a side of the pool and said it was restricted  while they set up for Oceania Fantasy. Rumor had it there were armed guards guarding whatever was in there.

Sometimes during practices or clean ups you could hear whatever was back there thrashing against the wall. It sounded like it was huge. Most bets were that it was a bunch of albino animals they were dying galaxy colored or some shit.

We’d been trained to handle dolphins, seals, sting rays (and…sure, fine, a few of the more experienced trainers at a different park had been working with killer whales) so I couldn’t imagine what kind of aquatic animal was so dangerous it had to be put in a restricted area.

But tonight I was going to find out.

“What if there’s like,  a piranha  or like a shark or something back there? Stop being an asshole, you’re going to trip an alarm and get us all busted! ” Maddie slurs

I flip her off and keep going, smacking at the door’s industrial-sized digital padlock with Jen's crow bar until I get a loud crack.

“Jake. Don’t!” someone hisses.

“I’m going to ride a shark, bitches,” I call back to them as I yank off the lock and go through the restricted door.

The door shuts behind me with a thud and then there is no sound. I half expect one my co-workers to come behind me but they don’t.

The pool area beyond the restricted door looks almost exactly the same as the area I just left---the entire AquaWorld indoor facility was really  just one big ass pool with seating in the round that had a bunch of massive prefabricated walls anchored under the pool to make 4 identical "aqua stadiums" for all the shows.

There’s no shark or sea monster in the water, the entire pool  looks as abandoned as the rest of this place. Whatever they had been keeping in here must have been shipped out with the other animals.

Still, something about this place is gives me the creeps.

I walk back to the security door I came through but it’s locked from this side. I bang on the door to get someone to open it for me on the other side but no one comes for me.

Shit.

I could swim back to the other side--there were large vents at the bottom of each pool so we could shuffle the animals from one aqua stadium to the other if we had to. If I could find the vents at the bottom of  this pool I could unlock it from this side and swim back to my friends. Bonus—I’d probably give them a real scare when I came out the water on the other side.

 I’d worn my swim trunks because we’d planned to fuck around in the pool, so I toss my shirt off, take a few breaths and dive into the pool.

I swim to the far side of the pool and spot the vents, outlined in bright orange tape, and head for them. I’m about to open them when a human face floats in front of me.

And it is pissed.

Startled, I scream and water fills my lungs.

I rush back to the top, breaking the water,  expecting the stranger  to come up too.

Instead I’m struck violently in the back of the head by...a tail ?

It feels like getting smacked with a tire and I see stars but I shake it off and swim as fast as I can  for the edge of the pool to get my ass back on dry land and make sense of what the fuck is going on.

The thing in the water chases after me, practically matching me stroke for stroke, except it’s not stroking it’s arms. It’s moving like it has an engine in it’s ass. I make a sudden turn to the right, kicking up as much water as I can to try and slow it down. I scramble up out of the pool, nearly skin my knee picking up my shirt  and run for my fucking life back to the restricted door.

I pound  on the door this time, screaming and calling for my friends to open it and save me.

"OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR ! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR ! HELP! PLEASE!”

I look to see the thing is hovering at the very edge of the pool watching me cooly. Then it places it’s hands on the  concrete edge where the pool meets the ground and pulls itself up and out of the water.

“YO! MADDIE! TYLER ! SOMEBODY !"

It’s tail is all muscle that  flexes and slaps loudly against the concrete as it undulates towards me. It was like watching a fish flopping around on land but more controlled and scary as fucking hell.

When it gets to me, it rises up on it's tail like a snake about to snack on its prey.

“Jesus Christ! What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck,” I repeat on autopilot, cowering against the door.

“"Où est Luka ?,” it growls.

 I’m speechless.

“Wo ist Luka?,” it repeats, snarling.

He keeps  repeating himself, his anger building until he gets to a language  I can understand

“Where is Luka ?,” he spits in English

“I don’t--”

It’s dark eyes go wide suddenly, and over it’s shoulder I see the crackling sparks of the tasers we kept in case a large animal got violent. Two burn holes appear on its shoulder and it rears back, twisting and flopping on the moist concrete. I look up to see two armed security guards on the aqua stadium’s catwalk, making their way down to us.

Going for broke I race to the other side of the pool and pull the fire alarm. A blood curdling alarm sounds through the building and all of the doors in the facility unlock. I bolt out the emergency exit and run around the back of the building to the parking lot where I can see my friends booking it for their own cars.

I rode my Harley Davisdon and start it up with my bare wet feet and head home. I am so drunk and feeling so reckless I have to say a prayer when I make it home in one piece. I fall face first into the leather couch and pull the trash can close for the hangover tomorrow.

Shit , I either did it too hard tonight

Or I just saw a fucking merman.

 

***

-2-

“Dude,” Jayden, my new roommate, says throwing the trade magazine his grandma’s country club published in my face.

Despite not growing up anywhere near the California coastline, ‘dude’ was Jayden’s word for everything and this dude meant ‘hey, fuck up, look at this’.

Jayden was my little stepbrother but he was 24  going on 70. He’d let me crash in the townhouse he owned after I’d gotten the AquaWorld news two weeks ago and a bunch of us had to bail on our lease.

 We’d been on the college swim team together for a while but he’d been smart enough not to take in the lure of AquaWorld and instead took a job teaching and coaching at a private school that paid for him to finish grad school. The kids probably thought they were getting a cool, young teacher who wore his hair in long twists down his shoulders, but then they quickly learned Jayden was a nerd.

 And not in the cool way. 

His favorite hobbies included reading the physical newspaper, attending step class on Friday nights and enthusiastically following every fucking rule ever.

 I pick up The Club at Las Campanas Monthly and see a stock image of healthy looking millennials with the words We’re Hiring Lifeguards! above their heads. I throw the magazine into the pile of other papers that I also had to get to; loan notices, legal paperwork for a class action ex-AquaWorld trainers were planning, unemployment applications.

I’d told myself today I was going to get serious and  start looking for a job or applying to grad school but none of that seemed relevant right now because last night I had seen a fucking mermaid.

Or at least I think I did.

Either way I plan to find out.

I swipe Jayden’s iPad from its charger and in mere seconds place an order on Amazon Prime Now for a security uniform and an orange safety vest.

“Dude!,” Jayden says from the kitchen when he gets the e-mail confirmation for the purchase on his phone. “I thought last night was the final fuck you to AquaWorld.”

“It was. This is about something else,” I say. “I’ll pay you back.”

“What do you need a security uniform for ? What else could this possible be about ?,” he asks. “You're 25-years-old, you  can’t keep doing dumb shit--”

“It's not dumb shit. I--, okay, look it’s a long story. Do you believe in like….mythical creatures ?”

He rolls his eyes and goes to the sink to handwash the bowl he’d been eating his favorite off-brand Raisin Bran out of.

“Are you high ? Actually, you know what ?,” he spits. “Fine, Jacob. I don’t want to know. Then I can’t be an accessory.”

He heads out to work and I scarf down half a box of Froot Loops  and catch up on the text chain from my co-workers about last night.  It looks like everyone made it home safely, but most of the liquor had been left behind in the rush.

When my Amazon box arrives two hours later, the  security guard get up is surprisingly convincing. I wear my old AquaWorld badge holder but turn it around so no one can see there is no ID in it.

I make a quick stop by Dunkin Donuts, squishing the box on my motorcycle, before heading back to the theme park.

There are police officers in the parking lot, probably mildly annoyed they’d been called to a trespassing of a closing theme park.

Arizona wasn’t much in the way of water attractions and that was what made AquaWorld so special. It had been the perfect kid friendly mix of amusement park rides, aquarium and interactive water shows. Sometimes I’d felt like a kid going into work everyday. I played with animals for most of the day and on my lunchbreak I could take a quick ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl.

The orange safety vest mixed with me looking like the most average white guy with a shit ton of confidence gets me a simple nod from a cop as I proceed  into the AquaWorld pool facility.

There is a cop interviewing an AquaWorld security guard inside, and I notice the padlock to the restricted facility is back.

Doughnut box in hand, I take the service elevator to the top row of the stadium and into the security overlook where a few guards are milling around, probably waiting to be interviewed by the cops about last night. 

 The AquaWorld security jobs was pretty crappy but they’d been kept on the payroll longer than us trainers after the closing. With the high turnover rate there was always a new guy so no one gives me a second look as I walk into the guard room. I go straight towards the group with the box of doughnuts and get very few questions about who the fuck I am.

 “Hey…I think they changed the code on the lock to the restricted area,” I tell one of the guards. “I think I’m supposed to be in that area today.”

I can see them looking at me like I’ve sprouted antenna so I know I’ve said something wrong

“The restricted area isn't our problem. It's guarded by  GS-9, that fancy schmany private security firm,” a guard says frowning.

“Oh, I know that...I..I just got hired over there actually. I’m kind of juggling two jobs,” I cover. “Um…the pay is great, you guys should look into it.”

I catch a glimpse of the door that connects this security guard overlook to the guard overlook  in the restricted area.

“I should probably get to the other side,” I say picking up the doughnut box with one hand and a random cup of coffee with the other and going to the connecting door. “Little help ?”

A  guard sighs but swipes her badge and I walk into the restricted area’s overlook. The guard room on this side is empty and I don’t see any GS-9. Abandoning the doughnuts and coffee I walk carefully down the stadium seating towards the pool.

  -3-

I’m barely down from the first tier of steps when I spot the guy from yesterday in the pool and---

Oh, shit he totally  has a fish tail

Although fish doesn’t seem like the right word. It reminded me more of the texture of a seal or dolphin’s skin.

The tail was seamless extension of his muscular lower back, it  was a rich navy blue and  languid with seemingly decorative scales toward the bottom that caught the overhead lights and glimmered. The cadual fin at the bottom of his tail reminds me of a butterfly’s wing.

I’ve never seen anything move like he does. It was more than just swimming, his back curves gracefully as his swim in a counterclockwise circle,  his tail  coiling into a spiral around him. He was just under the surface of the water, barely displacing the water with his movement.

He hasn’t spotted me and I walk down the stadium steps slowly, deciding that no matter what I was not getting into the pool since that seemed to put him into attack mode. This thing was part animal so I’d just treat it like I’d been trained to treat any other  marine animal I wasn’t familiar with.

His head flicks up when my work boot touches  the concrete and he swims up to the edge, his arms resting on the concrete. I make direct eye contact to establish my dominance, but leave my stance open so he doesn’t see me as a threat. His complexion is alabaster white,  in stark contrast to his dark heavily lashed eyes and dark hair. He was wearing jewelry, a silver septum ring, a metal choker and a gold necklace. 

His dark gaze softens as I approach. I get closer and keep my eye contact as I carefully bend down to approach him. 

And the motherfucker pulls a knife on me.

Well, a box cutter.

The box cutter flies up from the water, he does a sort of slapshot with the end of his tail and it lands in his open palm. Then the blade gets pointed right at my neck.

“English ?,” he spits, his expression hard and menacing again.

Fuck, he’d tricked me.

“Uh, y-y-y-eah. I-

“Where is Luka ?,” he demands.

“I-I-I I don’t know, man,” I stutter. “I don’t know anything I’m just--”

His eyes narrow on me and then widen.

“Oh. You are weak,” he says, as if coming to a realization about me.

“Don’t call me weak,” I argue for some asinine reason.

I did not feel like going to toe to tail with this thing but nobody was calling me weak.   I still held the record for on the Arizona Central University swim team 25 meter. I could bench press 250 pounds no problem. I’d watched all 15 seasons of NCIS with Jayden last summer.

“You misunderstand. All homo sapiens are weak…you are just weaker and more defenseless than most homo sapiens.” 

“Says the guy who needs water to get around.”

“Yes…I travel easier in water,” he says like he’s talking to a toddler. “Which is what makes up almost 75% of this planet. I can also breathe above and below water, which you can not.  You are not a threat to me, homo sapien…I think I can use you.”

“Use me ? You don’t know me--”

“The others are angry toward me but you are terrified. You do not have a weapon like the others and you ran out of here yesterday like a scared child. You even left your slippers, homo sapien--”

“Okay, first of all they’re called flip flops and second of all my name is Jacob King not homo sapien,” I tell him.

His dark eyes narrow.

“You are a king?”

“What ? No. No…it’s just a last name.”

“Of course,” he says. “Yes. There are so many humans you need extra names.”

Now that the cocky bastard is talking he  sounds a lot younger than I originally thought. He could easily be my age if not a few years younger.  

“Søren,” he says, extending his hand.

I opt not to take it in case it’s a trap.

 “Okay,--Who or what is…Luka ?,” I ask.

His pompous expression falters.

“Luka is my heart,” he says touching his gold necklace. It has a small charm in the shape of a constellation in the center.

“Is he another…merman, is it ?”

He cocks his head.

“Merman," he repeats as if testing the word. “Yes...that seems to be the term most easily understandable to your kind. I want you to help me find Luka.”

“When did you last see Luka ?”

“Maybe 121 moons ago,” he says. “I know there are other pools in this place. He might be in  one. You will deliver a message to him  and in exchange I will not hurt you.”

I stare.

This was the only locked down area in the entire park  and no other AquaWorld was getting an Oceania Fantasy exhibit. If AquaWorld had another merman he wasn’t here. I could only imagine where Luka could be and I imagine it’s not great. Our world isn’t great with things we don’t understand.

I tell Søren as much, but he seems undeterred.

“No. Luka is alive,” Søren assures me. “I can feel it.”

He holds the gold necklace out to me and when I touch the small constellation charm, it pulses lightly—like a heartbeat.

“How did you two end up here ?,” I ask, letting the strange necklace go.

“In the time I have been here I have seen nothing but cruelty from humans towards me and the ocean’s precious animals you kept here,” he says swimming back a few inches. "I will not divulge our secrets to you. ”

“God, you saw that AquaWorld documentary too ?,” I say half-joking.“Let me guess, you get Sea-N-N ?”

He does not seem amused.

“I did not need a documentary or book. I saw it with my own two eyes. I felt it. The other animals you kept here were so unhappy and the crowds distressed them.”

“Wait, you can talk to fish ?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he glares. “My kind are sensitive to emotions of creatures we share DNA with. Like humans and porpoises. The sorrow of the animals here was stronger than anything I’ve ever felt. I am glad they were able to be taken away from here.”

I’d been so annoyed by the documentary causing me to lose my job I  hadn’t really considered if it had been factual. To be honest, I hadn’t even watched it.

“Fill you lungs,” he orders suddenly.

Before I can ask why,  Søren reaches for me and drags me into the pool. Suddenly submerged, my body is suspended and bound  in mid-water by his tail and arms so I can’t flail. I’m about to fight him for my life when I hear the echo-y sound of footstep above, followed by men shouting.

Søren turns to face me and opening his mouth, seals his lips over mine. Oxygen flows back into my body and the sensation is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I don’t feel the familiar  pressure at the loss of oxygen from being under and my body feels lighter.

I can sense the water around me, feel it more intently than I ever have before. It’s relaxing and surreal.

The men above the pool shout more and little rocks begin to break the surface of the water. It reminded me of what little asshole kids did at the park’s  koi ponds when they wanted the fish to come to them. Giving me a slight nod Søren swims back up, leaving me to sink to the bottom of the pool. I hold my breath and a few seconds later the men’s footsteps recede.

I come back up, breaking the surface. I don’t feel the same need to catch my breath that I normally did after a swim. I scramble out of the pool completely freaked out.

“What the fuck ? I was breathing underwater...What hell did you do to me ?,”

“It was a theory we’d heard about…I guess it works.”

“Am I mermaid or something now ?”

He glares at me incredulously but for all I knew this could be Vampire rules

“No, I was just temporarily filtering the carbon monoxide for you. It is not permanent.”

The two men—who were likely  the real GS-9 Security—had left a bucket of the same fish and  squid mix we used to give kids to feed the dolphins. I’m actually curious if he likes that sort of thing, but he merely pushes the bucket of fish away disgusted.

“How about this ?,” I venture.  “I’ll see if I can ask around and help you find Luka. But in order to get back here you have to get me the code to the door. When the guards leave, watch what numbers they put in.”

“How would I get it to you ?,”

“We’ll figure that out when I come back.”

----

A/N

NillaLatte totally guessed what AquaWorld was in the comments!

I hate to say it but I do think of FTUF as my "girl story" and this as my "boy story". I didn't intend it that way.