(OLD VER.) When Mermen Run From Their Demons

Our Lowest

⚠️THIS PART CONTAINS SERIOUS TOPICS SUCH AS TORTURE, MENTAL ABUSE, AND DEATH. READ WITH CAUTION⚠️

Tape #16 - Our Lowest

Caleb

"Don't do it again. Please don't do it again."

     "Look up."

     "No." I yell. I refuse to watch. I can't.

     "Look up or it gets worse for her."

     My head is shaking. The rest of the lab thinks that this is a private experiment with the newly discovered merpeople. Maybe that's what this originally was.

     But now it's my own private torture chamber.

     Dried blood covers my body and it's so itchy that it stings. My neck is too weak to even support my head anymore, but I have to do it.

     For Sofi.

     She's shaking at the bottom of the tank, with is now tinged pink. I can practically smell the metallic taste radiating from that water. But then I remember that smell is coming from me too.

     The king has been drifting in and out of consciousness, but the demon woman doesn't care about him at all. Because she knows that I would feel satisfaction in seeing her torture him too.

     I wanted to kill him. I wanted to make him suffer. I wanted to slit his wrists and watch him bleed out. I wanted him to be the one in that tank instead of Sofi. He is a monster.

     I may be one too, but I have my reasons. What were his?

     "Please." I pleaded, "Don't hurt her anymore."

     She gave a disturbing smile, "But hurting her is hurting you. We'll stop once one of you tell us where those portals are."

     Sofi shook her head at me. But still, the demon must sense I'm close to cracking.

     "Her pain is your fault. Can't you see that? You're the one who has the information that could stop her torture. So why don't you tell us?"

     I don't know how long it's been. I don't know if Trevor is still coming. I don't know if he abandoned me.

    He wouldn't do that.

     Right?

Where the fuck are you?!

     After I completely and utterly broke down and screamed every single curse I could at my father at the beginning of this ascension into madness, she hasn't forced any 'answers' on me again. Though I'm sure she'll do it again if this continues. If we aren't saved soon.

     One of the torture methods they imposed on me was dropping me into a tank filled with water in my legged form, and drowning me.

     You must understand how that would feel to a mermaid.

     I would try to breathe in the water and instead felt as it filled my throat and lungs— and not in the way it was supposed to. Every time I breathed in harder as I progressively got more and more deprived of oxygen, and each time the pain in my chest got worse until the point where I was sure it would split open.

    Then, when I still didn't crack, they sent electricity through it.

     I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back into the sea without making myself sick at the memory.