I sat on the examination chair having a lovely conversation with a doctor. I was supposed to be finding myself here in Maine, but I managed to find a cold instead. Or… I’m not actually sure if it is a cold. Ever since the day Fionn and that strange lady made those scales appear on my arm I have felt strange.
The scales went away by the time the next day had hit but with the disappearance of them fatigue and dehydration appeared. I was always thirsty and the many Nalgenes that I drank a day were not quenching that thirst. I was so thirsty it was keeping me from sleeping. I spent long hours in my tent not able to do much of anything, just trying to sleep, or work up the energy to move.
I explained this all to the doctor and he sent me for blood work. Now I was just waiting for him to discharge me. And then it was only a matter of time before the test results came back. Hopefully they could figure out what was wrong with me. I was tired of laying in bed all day.
She came into the room and discharged me, giving me a prescription for some sleeping pills that she recommended I get so I could actually get some sleep.
~AT~
Doctor Sophia Smith stared at the results of her patient’s blood work in shock. She could tell there was something different about him but she had no clue how different he was. The results of the blood work for Enno, Yura came back with some interesting results. So interesting that she found herself making a slide of with his blood on it so she could examine it under a microscope.
There, plain as day under the microscope were red blood cells that were all wrong, for a mammal. In the middle of each blood cell was a clear nucleus, something that was missing from a human’s red blood cells. Every cell was also bigger than a human blood cell coming in at 10.7 um instead of 7.7 um.
She decided the best course of action was to converse with some of her good friends over at the College of the Atlantic to see if they could glean anything from this strange blood.
“You said this was a patient you had today?” Geert asked taking another look through the microscope.
“Yeah, I had him yesterday,” Sophia confirmed. “He was really tired and dehydrated but otherwise there really seemed to be nothing wrong with him.”
“So you took som blood for further tests,” Geert nodded his head. It made sense. Couldn’t find anything wrong so you take some blood for further tests. But this blood. It was strange.
“Do you mind if I call Greta to have a look at this?” Geert asked Sophia. He had a feeling if anybody could make sense of this strangeness, it would be her.
“Greta? Isn’t she the one that believes in all that mystical shit?” Sophia questioned.
“Yup, that’s her,” Geert agreed completely unperturbed by Sophia’s tone of voice when talking about the eccentric marine biologist. In his opinion, some crazy mystical shit was exactly what they needed to make sense of these abnormal findings.
He called her up on his phone and, sure enough, two minutes later found Greta bouncing into the office eager to look at the slide. “Where is it? Where is it?” she asked excitedly bounding over to the microscope to have a look before Geert could motion to where it was.
Sophia rolled her eyes at the idiotic display before watching Greta look at the slide.
“Where did you find this?” Greta asked quietly with barely contained excitement.
“She pulled it off a hobo,” Geert said sarcastically.
Sophia hit him in the arm, “I was running blood work on a patient and noticed some anomalies that I thought needed another doctor’s opinion.”
“So,” Greta began slowly, “You’re saying you got this from something living?”
“Oh for crying out,” Sophia cut herself off. “Of course he was living.”
“On land?” Greta asked confused.
“Yes,” hissed Sophia. “Walked into my office on his own two feet just yesterday.”
“Interesting,” Greta Mused.
“What’s so interesting?” Geert asked the question on everyone's mind. Well everyone except Greta, who apparently had everything figured out.
“Your person who walked into your office yesterday was a mer,” Greta explained calmly.
“A what?” Sophia asked in confusion.
“A mer,” Greta repeated. “Mermaid. Merman. You know, part fish.”
“That’s impossible,” Sophia stated firmly.
“Is it?” Geert questioned a strange lilt in his voice.
There was a glint of greed in the marine biologist’s eyes, “We’ve finally found a live one.”
Unbeknownst to the three doctors in the room, the eels in the tank that Geert had in his office were busy spreading the rumor of a live mer to other aquatic life in the building. From there, the news spread to surrounding water and buildings and soon enough to the ocean. Eventually Fionn found himself listening to a rumor of an unchanged mer on land and how the marine biologists planned to obtain him for study.
His heart leapt to his throat. He knew exactly who they were talking about.
~AT~
Fionn decided the time to be passive was over. He didn’t care if Yura hated him for the rest of their existence, he needed to warn the man about the scientists that were apparently hot on his trail.
He bombarded into Yura’s tent eyes ablaze with some mix of adrenalin, determination and fear. Yura shot out of bed at the intrusion. He yelled, “What the hell are you doing here?” at the same time Fionn shouted that he needed to leave.
“Excuse me?” Yura asked, not sure he’d heard Fionn right.
“You need to leave,” Fionn began tugging Yura to his feet. “Now.”
“What? Why?” Yura asked still half asleep.
“I’ll explain on the way to the airport,” Fionn decided. “You need to get far away from here. Go back to Alaska for a while. Stay out of water.”
They approach Yura’s rental car. Yura stumbles toward his still unpacked gear, “My stuff.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Fionn tells him pushing him to the passenger’s seat. “Give me your keys, you’re in no condition to drive.”
~AT~
I reluctantly gave my keys to Fionn and clamored into the passenger seat. He better not get into an accident because I was the only person that was supposed to drive this thing.
On the way to the Hancock County Airport Fionn filled me in on this fantastical story of scientists being after me because I was a mer. I laughed in his face when he was done with the unbelievable tale.
“You’ve been thirsty since those scales disappeared, haven’t you?” he asked. “And tired,” he added not expecting an answer. The look on my face said it all.
“I know what you’re going through. I went through the same thing,” Fionn explained quietly. “One day I was human the next I was growing a tail. I left home at fifteen for the ocean and have lived there ever since.”
“Why are the scientists not after you?” I asked. If he had been here so long surely they would already have their live mer specimen and could leave me alone.
“I’ve never been stupid enough to go to a doctor,” Fionn answered with a slight smirk.
“Shut up,” I hissed and slapped him lightly on the arm.
We arrived at the airport and quickly returned my rental car. Once we were in the main lobby Fionn told me to go buy a ticket. I turned to go purchase my boarding pass when he grabbed me by the hand and flung me back into a searing kiss that would have made a hooker blush. “I’ll find you again Yura Enno. This is not goodbye,” he whispered before leaving me on my own for the flight.
I watched him go, face red from that kiss, and head reeling in confusion. I liked him a lot. But he had kind of taken my humanity from me. The more I thought about it, the more I wasn’t sure that was exactly the truth. He did make the scales appear, but that hadn’t been the first time that I had seen them. That night when I had woken up in the water there had been green scales on my arm. I had almost forgotten about that. And, that lady made it sound like if i didn’t get into water I was going to basically die. If I hadn’t been strong, I would have been a lot worse off. So it sounds like it was only a matter of time before I would have become sick, from avoiding the water I didn’t know I shouldn’t avoid. This whole situation was making my head hurt.
Deciding to focus on the problem at hand, I walked up to purchase a boarding pass for the next available flight to Logan Airport in Boston. Once I was there I could get my flight to Alaska.
“Hi, I’d like a ticket to Logan Airport on your next available flight,” I told the lady handing her my licence.
She started to put my information in the system. I see her face freeze in alarm and look from my licence to my face several times before reaching for a walkie talkie. She called for assistance.
I was shocked to see some TSA agents coming my direction. I was even more surprised when they wrestled me into a pair of handcuffs. A task that was made pretty easy by me because I had absolutely no clue what was going on. I basically stood there with my mouth hanging open in disbelief while they cuffed me.
They took me to a cell and sat me in a chair handcuffing me to the armrest. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” I asked a little more than freaked out.
“You’re on the no fly list,” the one agent grunted.
“Since when?” I whined a little indignantly.
Another agent began politely, “Well, I’m assuming it happened when,” his tone changed to harsh and grating, “I don’t give a rat's ass.”
“You’re to be detained until the proper authorities can deal with you.”
Fan-fucking-tastic.
A few hours of mind numbing boredom later and two people entered my cell. One was a boisterous woman, “Oh, Geert, isn’t he everything you’ve ever dreamed of?” she squealed when she caught sight of me.
The tall man with her looked at her with a gentle smile before turning his gaze to me. “Yes, Greta, he’s the perfect specimen.”
The woman, Greta, pulled a shot from her pocket.
“Whatever that is, I don’t want it,” I said flatly as they both continued to advance toward me.
Greta laughed, “It’s funny that you think you have a choice in the matter.”
Yeah this wasn’t going to end well.
“Geert, hold him down while I give him the sedative.”
He nodded to her and proceeded to hold me down while she stuck the sedative into my arm. I didn’t make it easy for him, swearing, biting and kicking any part of him that I could reach, but he was an unmovable force. The sedative was administered and I found myself struggling to stay awake.
The last thing I heard before passing out was, “We finally have a mer.”
Shit.
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