I glanced at Dicken—he picked up my limp body in understanding, and used his muscular arms to push himself up the slope, eventually arriving at the cliff over the sea.When I looked downwards, the scent of seawater and gunpowder gusted upwards, forcing me to hold my breath even though the sickening feeling in my body was suddenly alleviated. On the surface of the sea was the still-burning debris of various fighter jets, drifting aimlessly in the water. Gray smoke swirled over the surface as if to tell of war’s cruelty and brutality, but Dicken and I were going to jump in it anyway, and I felt not a shred of fear even now.“Have no fear, Linda.” Dicken assured me softly beside my ear, his arms still around my body as we approached the cliff’s edge. “Wait.” I grabbed Dicken’s arm, unable to resist turning around to look at Asura and Mary, the latter who was clutching on to Bob and looking at the distant battle with a troubled look, hesitating.Asura grasped Mary’s hand with his we
“Asura!” Mary cried out in surprise as she grabbed Asura’s arm which was holding Bob, but Asura suddenly firmly pulled her into his arms, pulling Mary along and making a beeline to the cliff, ignoring her struggles. Nonetheless, I noticed that Bob had regained consciousness just then, and reacted immediately when he saw Asura and Mary’s tussle. Even before I could warn Mary, Bob had already lunged at them.“Watch out!” I yelled.“Father!” Mary also cried out in surprise when she saw Bob, but the man didn’t stop—there was a flash in his hand and in the next instant, he had thrusted something into Asura’s tail.Asura bellowed in pain immediately and swung his tail at Bob, but Bob dodged it with his quick reflexes, pulled his dagger out of Asura’s tail and aimed it at his head this time. I was sweating bullets from the sudden turn of events, but even as I thought that it was over for Asura, Mary lunged between the dagger and Bob, taking the blow for Asura.I could clearly see the dagg
Splash!The sudden resounding splash over my head cut my thoughts short. I looked up to see a pair of tangled figures crashing through the flat moonlit surface of the sea. I had no idea how Mary was doing, only that Asura’s arms were wrapped tightly around her, and his tail was flapping through the debris floating over the sea—he soon swam to the depths, and disappeared from my sight.“Dicken, can Mary survive? Can your Nest restore… a human’s body? She isn’t a mermaid yet…”I couldn’t help clenching my fist as my heart sank. Turning towards Dicken then, I found him watching as they swam into the distance, leaving my question unanswered. Then, with me in his arms, he rapidly swam towards the surface, to a pile of reefs. He placed me on one of the flatter reefs and lay down beside me, with his arms still around me. He was breathing heavily and his chest was heaving, his dank breaths spraying all over my cheeks. It seemed that he had spent a lot of energy after the thrilling set of
“You lustful pervert!” I snapped in embarrassment, flushing to my ear right then.Even so, Dicken kept kissing and licking my chin while he growled a chuckle from the throat, as if he was forcing himself not to laugh. His webbed paw was brushing through my hair, while I boldly flirted back by biting his ear.In the end, we played around until we were utterly exhausted and I finally lay over his chest, wheezing. Dicken caressed my back and softly said, “Sleep, Linda. There’s something that needs to be done before we close the portal.”“What is it?” “An unexpected interloper. I didn’t think that he would be so resilient.” Dicken’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “He came here from the other dimension like you, and his presence may affect how things progress in this dimension.” I immediately understood. “Are you talking about… Gary?”“Yes. I saw a group of people bringing him into the lab when I returned to look for you. He knows secrets that greedy humans must never know, and if thos
I promptly covered my private parts, but Dicken pressed a finger on my sole in the next instant and pinched it.“Stop, damn it! That tickles!” I snapped in annoyance, but Dicken laughed happily instead, and he kept holding onto my leg and pinching it. As he looked up, his dark eyes pulled me within his bottomless gaze like a magnet, before he poked out his tongue and licked my toes. The ensuing numbing tickle seemed to shoot up my scalp from my leg, and I barely managed to clap a hand over my mouth in time or I would have been screaming shrilly.“Wait, Dicken, stop!” Flustered, I begged for mercy, even as I lost my balance and was about to fall off the reef. Nonetheless, Dicken sharply sensed that and scooped me into his arms, and both our upper bodies ended up falling into the water. Not daring to breathe, I pulled my leg out and kicked him in his slippery tail, in retaliation to his prank.After that, Dicken held me by the waist and put me on the reef again. Holding me closely,
What was going on? And where was Dicken?I stood on the reef and looked around for any trace of Dicken, even as the small encirclement around me slowly shrank, and the seabirds flew off.Then, there was a loud splash behind me as a wet webbed paw breached the surface and grabbed my leg. Startled, I slipped and started to fall backwards, only for a broad, wet chest to catch me.Then, still holding on to my waist with both arms, Dicken put me back on the reef.“Linda…”Dicken’s deep voice rang beside my ear, and he lifted my chin with a claw so that I looked up at him. With that beautiful face of his before me, I stared at it repeatedly to confirm that it was him, the panic from not being able to find him in my dream fading. It turned out that I didn’t lose him—he was right beside me, and everything just now was just a dream.“Where did you go? I thought you…” I gulped even as I calmed myself. “A storm like this strengthens me. I was just trying to create a new ability,” Dicken s
As the soldiers on the harbor carried the glass tanks holding merfolk saplings up the warship, thunder abruptly cracked up in the skies, followed by torrential rains from the thick dark clouds. Even so, the warship slowly steered away from the harbor and headed towards the middle of the sea amid churning waves.Dicken and I swam along, following the warship, which had to slow down due to the downpour’s obstruction and the churning waves. Soon, Dicken led me down to the bottom of the warship’s hull, where its spiraling propellers were just above, struggling to push the ship against the storm and leaving the sea turbid in its wake. I had a hunch that Dicken was going to sabotage the propellers when Dicken suddenly released my hand, and curled his fish tail around me. Then, before I could see what he was doing, there was a blinding blue streak that shot past my vision, heading straight for the propellers.Bzzt…All at once, the propellers screeched shrilly as if they had ground agai
My grandfather had actually performed such a brutal experiment with Bob? What was going on? Why would he work with Bob? Was his affection for the younger me an imagination, and he was merely using me as bait for his plans?No, there was no way… Bob must have threatened him…However, even as I defended my grandfather in my head, there were so many unanswered questions that appeared in my mind, combining to materialize a mirror reflecting all the bizarre experiences I didn't understand as a child. All of those things cruelly pointed to an answer I was reluctant to accept, even as the eerie scenes I often dreamt of years ago slowly became clear: the interior of pure-white building, where other children and I were being delivered for some sort of checkup…There was no doubt that those scenes had occurred in my childhood, all of which were connected to my grandfather.As my mind went blank, I sweated bullets from my forehead.“Linda?” Dicken looked at me with his dark gaze then, and wr