Desharow Merman Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Floating ice and white mist covering the sea surrounded me.

I looked around at lost, and saw the bottom hull of an overturned motor launch on the surface of the icy water not far away. The motor of the s.h.i.+p was still running on its last leg, creating continuous ripples of water and ice, and scattered broken oars were floating on one side.

I, on the other hand, was clutching desperately onto a leaking lifebuoy that was gradually losing its effectiveness while being submerged in the icy water. Where is this? Such a familiar situation, I thought while s.h.i.+vering. I looked down to see my hands resembling those of a young child, however, the already weak and tender fingers had become swollen with each fingernail black and blue as if near demise. The deathly temperature eroded my body, it seemed like I will be dying from the cold first rather than drowning. 

"Little De, little De, where are you, my son?"

"Please G.o.d, keep him safe and alive. My little De! My Little De is only 6 years old. G.o.d tell me where he is!"

Several voices calling out my childhood nickname came from afar. That's my family. I immediately realized they came to save me.

"Here… Dad, mom! I'm over here! I am over here…"

My response was weak, my strained throat merely uttered out a few low string of murmurs of help that could barely be heard by anyone. No, I don't want to die! I instinctively moved around in the cold water, but my body seemed to have become a frozen sculpture, rigid and numb, even barely able to move my fingers.

“I'm not dead! I'm here!” I cried out with all the strength I could muster. The light, symbolizing life and warmth, shone on the ice near me through the mist, but then it moved away and shone in another direction. That glimmer of hope felt like my last, yet I wasn't able to grasp it. The tremendous fear and despair I felt was like the fog in a cold night seeping through my bone marrow. However, there was nothing I could do other than looking warily at the gray blue dome that was close to dawn as I try to get as much oxygen as I could while the sea was gradually enclosing up my neck. 

I am going to die soon…. Dad. Mom. Please hurry and find me soon.　

This conscious thought magnified boundlessly in my frozen and sluggish mind, I even thought the pa.s.sage of time was  pa.s.sing extremely slowly. I felt like a few centuries had already pa.s.sed as I hopelessly await for my slow death, but unexpectedly, something underwater touched my small foot. I was instantly awakened from a state of near coma when my body was lifted up from the surface. The first thing I saw was a powerful, pale arm holding my short legs, my head resting on a broad, hard chest, and my cheek touching the wet, seaweed like hair.

Ah, this is a person. I am found, I am gonna be saved! 

My heart suddenly brightened, but the heavy and stiff body didn't allow me to look up to see the face of my life-saving benefactor, I could only see the slender and thin ripples of water on the sea surface driving my body to swim to the light.

Closer… a little bit closer… ah, I'm saved.

When the warm light shone on me, my line of sight and consciousness became indistinct and blurred together. I could only hear a familiar voice exclaiming in happiness, “Oh heavens, thank G.o.d! It's Little De. He's alive. He's swimming towards us! What a miracle! “

"No, no, there is someone holding onto him! That, that is a…"

My body was suddenly released and a pair of hands gave my body a gentle push towards the direction of the light. I felt my body floating for several meters in the cold waves, before I was grabbed by my arm and leg and pulled away from the water with a splash, falling immediately into a soft and warm embrace.

“Oh, my son…”

My mother's voice gave me strength, I hurriedly went to hug her tightly and began to cry weakly in her arms. Through my dim teary eyes, I looked back at the dark sea covered by mist in the distance and saw the silhouette of a man's long upper body. Ah, that's the man who saved me. Why didn't he come on board? With the water so cold, he will surely freeze to death!

I blinked my eyes to clear them before trying to discern his appearance again, but I only saw a pair of sinister and narrow blue eyes in the night fog, which instantly made me feel afraid all of a sudden. Even the courage to call him onto the s.h.i.+p disappeared as I buried my head back into my mother's arms.

The person who saved me, he did not come back up in the end. Who is he? Is he human…

"A… gares…"

Deep in the abyss of my hearing, a series of low murmurs echoed, and suddenly a pair of blue pupils emerging out of nowhere overlapped with the eyes that was deeply engraved in my memory.

That is…

I let out a scream of terror and abruptly opened my eyes, bringing me out of the nightmare as everything I just saw disappeared.

However the feeling of coldness remained intact in my body like maggots burrowing themselves into my bones. My back was sweaty and also uncontrollably shaking, however I felt myself lying on a soft mattress, shrouded in complete darkness. I wasn't sure if it was day or night above sea and my head was still feeling muddled as if I was still swimming in my dreams.

—Ah, that's right, I dreamt of a memory when I was very young that was almost completely forgotten by me.

If I remember correctly, it was off the coast of Norway… Grandfather's fis.h.i.+ng s.h.i.+p hit an ice reef, and everyone accompanying us lost their lives. Only I was miraculously rescued. 

I was saved, but the man who rescued me didn't get on the boat, instead, he disappeared into the dark blue sea. It was impossible for a normal human to suddenly appear in such cold waters. This might be the reason as to why I always believed in the existence of merfolks and would paranoidly go search for their possible existence.

But that was something that happened a long time ago, how come I suddenly thought of it…

Wait, those eyes…

The feeling of drowsiness burst and dispersed. The empty s.p.a.ce was soon flooded with violent waves of unbearable and utterly disgusting memories of the present. Distinct scenes of the humiliating encounter with that merman reappeared in my mind. With intense shame and mortification, I curled myself into a small ball. I hugged myself with my arms, burying my head in the pillow and opened my mouth to ferociously bite down on the cotton pads.

No, there's no way!

I shook my head hard and closed my eyes, but the blue eyes in my brain couldn't go away. My childhood memory mixing with last night's scene made me scream in frustration. My heart seemed to be raging with perilous waves and I couldn't breathe at all.

The mysterious shadow that rescued the young me in the sea many years ago was Agares, it was Agares!

He perhaps had planted a lure in my subconscious, perhaps he had foreseen my obsession with studying merfolks, he could've known that I would return to the sea where he existed! He might have been waiting for me to ask for something in return!  Once, he gave me my life back to exchange for a cost, and now that he had taken my virginity as a male, the purpose of his dormancy and patient for many years had been achieved.

With him being such a superior creature, I may have been targeted to be his prey since that day, oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d…

I clutched desperately onto the bed, s.h.i.+vering all over, not even daring to take a single glance around to see where the merman was because I knew I was still alone with him while being trapped in this underwater cage where I was now his feast to enjoy.

"De… sharow…"

The most fearful things always seemed to happen when one was already scared, and with my mind in complete chaos right now, I suddenly heard Agares's voice whispering in my ears.

As soon as I sat up in fear, I grabbed the bedding and wrapped it around my naked body before fumbling beneath the pillow with my hands. Under my pillow was a flashlight with a self-defense electric shock function. I successfully grasped it in my hand, and with my whole body curled up in the corner of the bed, I turned on the flashlight. 

I jumped in fright when I saw Agares crawling at the tail end of my bed. It looked like he just got out of the water as he was dripping wet. A pair of dark and shadowed eyes stared attentively at me, seemingly trying to captivate me. 

"Do…not…be…afraid of me."

TBC

h.e.l.lo Translator here! As promised, Double Update!