Labyrinth: Into the Malignant Book 2

Twisted Tails

                  

Important Note at the end of this chapter!!!!

I sat up and felt wobbly. My eyes drifted down to see my legs, completely merged. "Oh my gosh" I whispered brokenly. What happened to me? I had seen drawings of mermaids and listened to countless stories, but this was nothing what I imagined. The shimmering scales covered my body from my feet to fade into my skin halfway up my gut. Random patches of scales scarred my skin here and there, and covered my chest. There was a patch on either side of my neck that made me want to scale myself.

I looked down at the tail and gasped. In all the pictures I had seen the tail was like a dolphin's, not a shark. I would look like a slithering snake in the water if I were to swim. I brought my shaky hand to my mouth in sadness and nearly screamed. My hands were covered in rough thinner scales that tore my skin around my mouth. There was no space between my fingers other than the webbed scales.

I seemed to grab my Intangible's attention and he sat up in the small amount of light to look at my legs. His lips thinned and I looked at his tail. It was closer to the drawings I had seen, but he had strange fins up the back of the tail and spine. There were small, sharp fins up his arms and on the sides of his face.

"What are we going to do?" I whispered.

"We are going to fight this. Lie low until we know of a way to escape. Do whatever you can to leave. I fear what they have in store with us" My Intangible said trying to shift his sitting position to a more comfortable one.

"What do you think?" I asked in a nervous voice "and why did them touching you to turn you not kill them, but my touch killed one on the spot?" I added with a broken crack at the end.

"Do not ask me of what they are planning, and they have the skin two times as rough as a shark. It is thick and the ridges block the poison. I am unsure why your touch killed one. It is quite bizarre" He admitted, but I was confused. Why wouldn't he tell me what he thought? Was he protecting me? Or did he just not know and wished to stop the conversation?

Two of the vile creatures stepped into the room and their eyes roamed over my body. I unintentionally scooted closer to my Intangible and he wrapped his hand around my arm protectively for comfort, but did not show the creatures the small affection. The two creatures licked their lips and I slammed my tail on the ground.

"What do you want?" I spat. I very well knew exactly what they wanted.

"I see your transformation went very well. We are to bring the two of you to the emperor" The taller one on the right explained.

"And how are we supposed to get there?" I asked frustrated. The two creatures smiled darkly and pulled out a jagged piece of rock that looked like it was ripped from the cave wall.

"This is the fun part" The creature on the left purred and crawled over to me. His face was inches from mine as he ripped me away from my Intangible and threw me to the middle of the room. The second creature held me down roughly and held my arms above my head with my palms open. My Intangible struggled with his chains as I cried out. The creature not holding me down moved like a cat to my palms and sliced them.  I let out a scream as the pain registered.

The creature put the rock in my bloody hands and closed them over the stone. My body jerked as I felt a weird energy flow through me to my tail. I rolled over onto my stomach and felt my tail break. "Don't worry, it doesn't hurt for long" the creature laughed darkly.

I let out a dry sob before the spinning world came to a halt. The tail was gone, but my legs were covered in scales. I held my injured hands to my chest as the bloody stone dropped from my hands. The creatures had to use more violent measures with my Intangible, but brought his scale covered legs back nonetheless.