Out of the Blue & Into the Deep

|🔆|Chapter 3: Now|🔆|

Maya grew up in and around the sanetorium near the sea and soon she forgot about her past life. The vague memories of her early childhood under the sea were dismissed as pure fantasy: after all, mermaids don't exist, now do they?

***

As one of the new patients called her in their room, she noticed drawings. Lots and lots of drawings, drawings of a mermaid that resembled the mermaid in her fantasy, the mermaid on the drawings she made shortly after she was saved.

"Come on, Ell, mommy said it's not safe."
"Beat it, clamp."
"I can help you with that..."

The drawings triggered memories she had buried deep inside.

No. Noooooo.

"Come on, Ell."
"Clamp!"
"Want to be a huuuuuman?"

Maya held her head in her arms, not yet pulling out her hair.

"I can help."
"I can help..."

Stop it. Stooooooop.

She fell on her knees, crying.

River carefully approached her. "Are you alright?"

"I can help."
"I can help."

Maya pushed River away, struggled to get up and ran to her room.

River looked at what had triggered Maya's reaction. It was the very first drawing they had made of the mermaid they had seen 10 years ago.

The girl knows more.

***

River decided to gain more information on the girl.

Who was she? What did she do in the sanetorium? Why was she there?

And more importantly: where did she come from?

They tried to do it at least suspiciously as possible, but it was difficult to get more than a "She was already there when I got here."

When River got access to the library after half a year of good behavior, they decided to zoozle the place looking for anything related to the girl.

They couldn't find anything and when they tried to hack into the police databases an alarm went off and they were denied further access to the internet for the rest of their stay.

If they wanted to find out more about the girl, they had to befriend her.

"What a bother..."