A Disturbing Case Regarding Fish Oil

WARNING: Includes themes of kidnapping, nonconsensual experimenting, and mentions of dismembering and deaths.

Xander wipes imaginary wrinkles off his shirt for the millionth time; it’s going to happen at the usual spot where he, the guys, and Mira, have their secret picnics underneath the Weeping Willow Tree. So, it’s place she’ll be comfortable there. She won’t suspect anything.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Xander mumbles to himself as he leaves his room.

At this rate, Mira could take a long nap from stress; call her and her friends old fashioned, but they follow a strict tradition of having a picnic by Woodland River every other Friday, so when Xander sent her a message through the shell to meet at the spot on a weekday, she was naturally worried.

“Oh, Lord, is he dying?” Mira whimpers, “Or maybe he’s moving. He probably told the guys before coming to me. But they would’ve told me, unless they think I’ll overreact…”

She swims in a figure eight beneath the murky water; her fin creates ripples, and her black hair trails floating algae.

“Or what if someone found out he and the guys have been keeping a mermaid a secret, tricked me into coming here alone, then put me into an aquarium!?” Mira rambles while roughly rubbing her scaly shoulders. Her swimming is matching the speed of her paranoid thoughts popping into her head; at this rate, her figure eight could combine into a giant whirlpool.

“What if it’s a date?” Mira asks, abruptly stopping, “It is a date.”

Xander did sound nervous when he invited her to the spot, so this out-of-the-blue meeting could be a date. Thankfully, the Lilies are in bloom, especially the dark red ones, and they would make the perfect accessory; Mira carefully plucks the dark red Lily from its pad, places it behind her pointy ear, and brush a strand of her hair behind the stem.

Xander’s throat closes when he sees Mira waiting for him; she’s beautiful, he thought as he cuts the engine. Is it possible to move fast and slow at the same time because that’s what happening to Xander as he practically drags his feet through the soft grass.

Be cool, be cool, Mira thought, pushing her hair behind her shoulders one more time.

“Hey, Xander, what’s happening?” she asks, her voice trembling. What’s happening? Mira sucks in her lips, feeling more than embarrassed, but that feeling is cut short when Xander towers over her with a strained smile on his pale face.

“Um, nothing much, you?” Xander asks.

Bruh, for real? Mira thought through her equally strained smile; if there’s one positive to get out of this awkward meeting, it’s that Mira and Xander will make perfect statues.

Xander suddenly jumps into the water and basically death grips Mira’s warm, clammy hand; like a switch, Mira’s brown skin turns into a deep shade of red and sharp tingles race down her tail.

“Mira, you trust me, right? Even if things look bad, will you still trust me?” Xander asks in a tight voice, “No matter how things look?”

Mira scoffs; this has to be a joke, right? There’s no way Xander would tell her to meet up and answer stupid questions like this.

“Uh, sure, yeah, I trust you,” she replies, “W-Why would you ask me that?”

Her ears perk up at the sound of a motor emerging from the Reed Grasses; she freezes up when a yellow boat carrying two men with nets speeds towards her and Xander.

“Trust me on this, Mira, ok?” Xander asks again, frantically looking back at the men.

Whatever he’s thinking at that moment disappears when he wraps his arms around Mira’s upper body and pulls her under; his stomach lurches when she does a barrel roll, but his grip isn’t letting up.

“Hold on, son!” a gravelly voice yells from the surface, “Get the net ready!”

The voice belongs to a burly man who’s pointing at his equally buff companion, holding on to the net.

Mira’s chest tightens, like air is fighting to escape Xander’s arms, but he won’t budge; a dark object with holes falls on her and pulls her to the river floor. Whatever is making this thing heavy has shiny spheres tied at the four corners. She pushes her head against the net, but it only leaves small, red marks on her face, so she tries to lift up one of the spheres, but it doesn’t move.

“The heck!?” Mira cries as she helplessly watches the spheres come together and pull her up to the surface, “What the?!”

Now, everything hurts; the sun burns against her skin, and the stem of the Lily is chaffing the side of her ear. The burly men pulls her onto the cold, sleek boat and speed off.

Mira shoots her head up and lets out a melody that’s similar to a siren.

“What’s she doing?! Make her stop!” the man driving the boat orders.

A heavy hand pushes Mira’s head down and something thin, but sharp, pierces through her tail; whatever is inside is cold when it surges through her body, making it numb.

“Please-please, hear me…” Mira softly begs before passing out.

Three years after meeting the group, Mira shared her distress song with them; When a mermaid whispers the song into someone’s ear, that song is ingrained into the mind. So, whenever the song is heard, the listener can follow the song to the mermaid’s location.

Elijah arrives first since he lives close to the river. Levi and Gabriel arrive soon after.

“Tell me it’s not what I think it is!” Levi begs as he jogs towards Elijah, “Tell me it isn’t real, man!”

“I-I-I…” Elijah stammers, in disbelief himself.

Gabriel comes running to them with red, glassy eyes.

“Who else could’ve known about her?!” Gabriel cries, “And where the heck is Xander?!”

Elijah paces around in a small circle until he spots Xander hunched underneath the Willow; his sobs grow louder as Elijah comes closer.

“Guys, it’s Xander!” Elijah calls Levi and Gabriel.

When the three reaches the Willow, Xander reveals his bloodshot eyes and spit falling from his trembling lip.

Elijah rushes to his side. “What the heck happened?! Are you ok?! Where’s Mira?!”

Xander looks away, his chest heaving and feet shaking; right now, he’s imagining how the Apostle Peter felt when he denied Jesus, but he’s more of Judas Iscariot in this situation. He brought death to Mira.

“It-It’s my fault,” he confesses, “I didn’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean?” Levi interjects with narrow eyes.

“I-I needed the money,” Xander adds, “They said it’ll be painless, that she won’t feel a thing.”

Elijah steps away with his mouth hanging open; it can’t be true, he thought.

Levi shoves past Elijah and grabs Xander by the damp collar.

“Tell us where she is!” he demands.

“At Sara’s Naturals,” Xander replies.

The tank they put Mira in is wide, and decorated with fake seaweed, colorful rocks, and chipped coral.

She’s knows a little about tanks from what the guys told her, but it has been hard to picture. Now that she’s actually in one, it’s terrible; the glass is freezing to the touch, there’s a weird smell that’s a mixture of bleach and mint, and there’s not enough room to swim around. The room is no different; the floors are white with millions of little dots on them, steel cabinets, and off blue counters full of neatly placed knives, scalpels, and handheld containers. In the center of the cabinets and counters is this long table with a drain attached to it.

Mira shudders at what could’ve been done here; the whole room reminds her of the basements serial killers had from the movies she and the guys used to watch.

The double doors facing the tank swings open and a young woman, who looks to be in her mid-twenties, strolls in with a metal cart carrying huge knives, glass bottle, a funnel, and a syringe holding clear liquid; the lady is surprisingly beautiful with her bouncy, voluminous blonde hair, red lips, and deep blue eyes. When the lady finishes setting the cart next to the table, she gazes at Mira and warmly smiles.

“You’re even more beautiful than I imagined,” she says, her voice sounding smooth as honey, “When that boy made the call, I couldn’t believe it. A mermaid so close to civilization, what are the odds?”

Mira looks away from the lady’s gaze. “I-I-I called my other friends. They’ll come for me, unless you let me go…”

The lady chuckles. “I’m afraid I can’t let you go or let anyone take you away.”

When Elijah, Levi, and Gabriel arrive at the building, they were expecting a giant, grey, soulless factory, not a small store with flowers hanging around the main entrance and the inside looking like someone’s kitchen; there are shelves on shelves of spices, vitamins, scented candles, and fish oil pills. At the back of the store is the customer service department, which is just those wooden fruit stands you would see at a farmer’s market, and the woman is wearing a simple flannel with jeans and an apron.

“May I help you, boys?” she asks in an overly perky voice.

Levi steps up. “Hi, we’re looking for the mermaid you kidnapped,” he sneers, “How much is the ransom, or do we have to buy her back like some slave?”

Elijah yanks Levi away from the booth; we clearly didn’t think this through, he thought.

“Well, I wouldn’t use the word kidnapping, but yes, you do have to buy back our specimen. Are you associated with any marine sanctuaries, or park reserves?” the woman calmly asks.

“Uh, no and no, the specimen is our friend and we would like to buy her back ourselves, please,” Elijah pleads, “We’ll adopt her, if that’s also required.”

The woman stares at them with her soulless black eyes before yelling, “SECURITY!”

Instantly, the main entrance is sealed off by a metal curtain and red lights consume the store; the woman disappears when smoke emerges from the vents and knocks the boys out.

Despite the cold, Mira leans her back against the tank while hugging her chest.

“They’ll come and save me, they’ll come and save me,” she mumbles to herself; Xander looked like he didn’t want this happen, so maybe he told the others where I was, she thought, but what if he didn’t?

The doors swing open again, but it’s three armed men dragging in Elijah, Levi, and Gabriel in handcuffs. The men drop them on the floor and leaves.

Levi slowly sits up. “What the…?”

“Are we dead?” Gabriel asks groggily with his eyes still closed.

Elijah slowly sits up and shakes the fogginess in his head away; there at eye level is Mira inside a giant fishtank.

“Oh my gosh, Mira!” Elijah screams, fully waking up the others; the handcuffs feel like fifty-pound bowling balls pulling on their wrists.

Before Mira could say anything, the lady loudly claps.

“Now, this is something straight out of a fairy tale,” she says. Her calmness sends a chill down from Mira’s spine and into her fins.

“Who the heck are you?!” Levi hisses, “Why do you need Mira?!”

The lady sighs. “First things first: I’m Dr. Noel and we need Mira because, to put it bluntly, we’re tired,” she says nonchalantly, “Tired of standing up and hearing our knees crack, tired of paying for gym memberships, and just being weak. After years of trying, we humans just can’t stay in shape, or stay healthy; all of these fitness regiments, diet fads, hospital stays are for nothing if we keep getting worse, so I came up with a solution: nature, or more specifically, cryptic nature.”

“What?” Mira interjects.

“Come on, we all know nature has so many remedies just sitting there waiting to get the recognition it deserves and once the elusive, fantastical creatures of our mythologies are properly studied, then there you have it!” she exclaims, “Mermaids are one of the strongest, and most resilient creatures in history, why not get a taste of what they have to offer?”

Gabriel gulps. “And how do you do that?”

Dr. Noel pulls a remote from the pocket of her lab coat a points at the fish tank; the floor opens beneath Mira and sucks her through a tube on the ceiling, then ends with her falling on the metal table. Automated, metal straps comes out the table and holds Mira’s neck, wrists, and tail in place.

“By harvesting the fat and fluids of a mermaid, we’re able to create a fish oil pill that actually benefits us,” Dr. Noel says while putting on blue, rubber gloves and a facial mask, “It wasn’t easy at first; the separation of the hosts from the tail was a pain and there wasn’t a proper way to store the bodily fluids, so, as you can imagine, the garbage disposals were full.”

Mira lets out a weak cry as she helplessly watch the boys fight against the handcuffs; Dr. Noel lightly taps the syringe and injects it into Mira’s arm.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be painless.”

THE END…FOR NOW