Tetrology Of The Sea - Book 1: From The Sea 🪼✔

Twenty-Nine

When Travis woke up, his hands were tied behind his back and when he looked up, he realized that he was underwater in a tank of some sort. He tried to sit up and look around when he saw something coming toward him from the other side of the glass. His eyes focused and he saw that it was Craig. Craig came up to the glass and looked down at him with a maniacal smile.
"Well, well, I didn't think she was telling me the truth but now that I see you like this, I can see what she meant."
Travis looked up at him and then looked down, seeing that he was in his seahorse form. Craig just stared at him with a crazy look and leaned on the glass a little.
"To know that you're a mermaid just makes this torture all the better. I've never met a mermaid before. Or do you prefer to be called a merman? I mean, what difference does it make because you're also a seahorse, which means that you have the babies right?" Travis just glared at Craig. "Oh... so that's why when Shana had sex with you she never got pregnant... You had the baby, didn't you?"
Travis looked away and Craig began to laugh.
"Whatever the means, I'm glad she didn't get pregnant with someone like you's baby. Stretch marks and all that are so unattractive on a lady. Believe me, we weren't going to have any children when we got married because I didn't want to have to deal with all of that hormonal crap and late night runs to Chik-Fil-A or something. Nope, it was just going to be me and her and sex. But you... you came in our lives again and the woman I had so perfectly trained went gaga for you again. What is it about you that makes her want you to so bad? Do seahorses throw out some sort of hormone or something that makes women want to just open their legs?"
"What do you want with me?"
"Oh, you can speak. Good. That means you can scream clearly... And I want to torture you. Because of you, I lost a lot of years that I could have had for myself. Because of you, I lost my girlfriend long before Aylin's accident. Because of you, I lost my sex toy of a wife I was going to have. You have caused me a lot of grief, fish... And now, I will cause you some grief of your own."
Travis sat up and pushed off the bottom of the tank with his tail, floating upright with his tail curled forward like a proper seahorse. He heard muffled machinery and looked up to see a hook lowering into the water and it grabbed where the rope had his hands tied behind his back, lifting him out of the water.
The hook maneuvered and dropped him on the floor. Craig came over and looked down at him with curious eyes.
"Amazing... Let's get crackin!"
He put his arms under Travis' and lifted up.
"Damn! You're heavy..."
He started dragging him toward a table when Travis decided to try and buck out of his grasp. He flipped his tail and almost flew out of Craig's arms but the ex-football player still had a good grip and tightened it painfully on Travis' arms.
"Uh uh, no escaping. This will just be harder on you than on me."
He dragged him to the table and practically flopped him onto it. He untied Travis' hands only to tie them back over his head. He then fastened a belt around his waist and looked at him for a moment. He turned his head and then walked away for a moment and came back. He grabbed the end of Travis' curled up tail and straightened it, pulling over another small table and then rammed a knife straight through it so that it stuck in the wooden table. Travis screamed out in pain when another knife pierced him where his thigh would be.
"I wonder what's in this tail of yours... I've always wanted to do a bit of a dissection of a mermaid..."
He pulled the knife out and stuck it in another where the separation of his thighs would be and began to cut along the tail. Travis was screaming bloody murder as the knife penetrated like a bee, stinging over and over again. Craig then cut little slits next to the incision and opened up the tail with all his might, causing Travis to yell again. Craig looked in it and nodded.
"Not bad, not bad... got some muscles in here –nothing out of the ordinary-, cartiledge... fat... veins... Do you heal super quick?" Travis shook his head no. "Damn shame... How fast do you heal?" Travis didn't answer. "Oh well, I'll come back and do some more things do you."
He left and Travis began to cry in pain, not able to do anything but endure the fact that his tail was splayed open like he was an actually fish. He decided witnessing his own filleting was not very comforting.

*********************

The next he woke, he found that he had dried out and his legs were back. He found two angry wounds on the insides of his legs where Craig had sliced his tail open and he hissed, realizing the knife to hold down his tail was in his ankles. He felt like he was being crucified. He looked around, seeing that he was in some sort of shack, a fishing house or something like that. There were nets and other sea equipment all around. He couldn't see that well because it was dark and the fact that his eyesight was poor without his glasses.
Hey! Hey, you! he suddenly heard beside him.
He turned to the left and could barely make something out on one of the boxes that lined the side of the building.
I saw you. You're a merman, yah? Travis nodded. I'm a fish. Name's Penelope. You're Travis, aren't you?
Travis turned to the fish a little to face it and get a little better view. From what he could make of it, it was probably a goldfish, not much help to him considering goldfish had only themselves in the bowl.
Right? Travis?
"Yes." He said hoarsely.
I've heard about you. You're a seahorse... I can help you get some help. That old lady that you live with is somewhere close to the ocean, right? Will she be looking for you there?
"She'll have someone keeping watch..." Travis said, swallowing since it hurt to talk.
That crazy guy puts me out on the banister every two hours or so. I can get a hold of some fish to relay a message and tell your friends where you are. You have a little girl, right? He nodded. Can she understand us?
"Yes."
I'll get you out of here, Travis.
Travis smiled even though he realized how ridiculous it sounded that he was resting his rescue upon a goldfish.
He heard the door open and turned, seeing Craig come back in. Craig walked up to him and looked down at him with curiosity.
"Fascinating, the scars still stay on your legs even though you're no longer a fish... I have always wondered if that was how it was or not... In that instance, I've also wondered something else about mermaids."
Craig grabbed a bucket and threw the water onto Travis, making him turn back into a seahorse. Travis hissed at the salt water hitting his open wounds and squirmed a little, unable to keep his reaction at bay. Craig made a satisfied noise and then walked around him.
"If you have human parts as a human then do you have all of them in the same place as a mermaid? For example, your stomach is here... and your liver is here..." he said, pointing to each section with the sharp point of his knife lightly. "So if you're a fish, will anything be different if I stabbed you... HERE!"
He plunged the knife into Travis' side and Travis screamed out. Craig made a face and then frowned.
"I guess not... Oh well..."
Craig grabbed the goldfish bowl and then looked down at the goldfish and back at Travis. After thinking about it, he figured that Travis had been in too much pain to realize the fish was there and set Penelope on the banister. Little did he know that the little goldfish was going to hold to her promise and get help for Travis, even though it was by sea by way of sealife.