Modern Monsters

Levi the Fishman

Female Reader x Male Monster

"I want you to take care of him," your grandfather says as he folds your hands over the cold keys. "He needs someone. He's so lonely as it is." He tells you all this from his hospital bed after having chased your parents from the room. "I know you'll care for him, he's been wanting to meet you."

You take the keys and hold them close, tucking them away when your family comes back into the room. When you're able to break away from the group you follow your grandfather's instructions to the letter. You go to his house and follow the little background road behind it, leading through the woods and down a cliffside to an observatory on the banks of the ocean, part of it coming from the water and extending out into it.

Your grandfather used to be a famous marine biologist and rumors had once bubbled about your family that he had been some sort of eco-terrorist fighting for the protection and preservation of the ocean. He had kept to himself in his old age, never quite retiring and still continuing his studies even as he laid in his hospital bed.

He came to you to ask you this favor, to take care of his observatory and the secrets he held inside it. He told you that inside he took care of a very special being, one he couldn't explain to her there but that she would understand when she saw him.

"He's so lonely, even I could not reach him," your grandfather said with tears in his eyes. "He's like a child to me. Please love him, he will so love you." You remember his words as you open the door to the observatory. You step into the dark open room and somewhere inside you hear the music. You find a light switch and turn it on, blinking as the glaring white bulbs burned on. You hear water splashing with the music and you follow it down the hallway your grandfather told you about.

He gave you quite a list of instructions but he said all those could wait until you went and visited this creature he was so worried about it made him cry. You come to the room, the door ajar. You peer inside, seeing a room that looked very much like the study in your grandfather's house. There are many bookcases filled to the brim with books and files and old records. There's a desk littered with papers, in the corner you see the record played. You hear splashing again and as you open the door you see there is a massive tank that makes up an entire wall of the study.

You step inside and see there is a staircase leading to the top of the tank, their dripping wet as if someone had been walking to and from the tank just recently. You look up at the tank, seeing that at the far back of it there is a door leading to the ocean.

You turn as the record skips, going to the player and adjusting the needle so it played the next song. Your grandfather played this record so much it was beginning to get warped, you noticed.

You hear a knocking and you look back at the tank. You walk towards it, seeing nothing there, but as you touch the cold glass a figure rises up before you.You gasp and flinch, watching as the creature touches the glass, blinking as it looks at you.

You realize now more than ever you are truly of your grandfather's blood because as you stare at this being all you can think is: beautiful.

You rush back to the glass and meet his gaze, his skin is pale and shimmering, deep blue and green with flecks of yellow and then a pale, white-pink along his neck and belly. His fingers are webbed and there are thick gills jutting from his long neck. He has wide, far set eyes that are, at the moment, covered by a sheer second eyelid.

You smile and wave, watching as he rises to the top of the tank and pulls himself out onto the top of the stairs. He walks down slowly, reaching for a robe he wraps around himself. He then rushes towards you and wraps you up in his long arms.

"I'm so glad you're here," he whispers to you, his voice guttural and husky.

You squeeze tight onto him, remembering your grandfather's concern for him. "It's nice to meet you," you murmur shyly.