GLASS BACK [COMPLETED]

2

Henric was wrong. The cafeteria was completely empty. He was starting to worry now. Did they evacuate too? He can't be the only person in town. That's impossible. He ran to the kitchen door and shouted. "HEY! IS ANYBODY STILL HERE?!"

No response.

No no no. This isn't real. His dad wouldn't leave him. He gave him specific instructions. They had a plan. They would be perfectly safe. Henric forced open the metal panel where they served food and slid into the kitchen. Nobody was there. Nobody was watching him. Nobody said anything. There was no food being prepped, no one was cleaning, nothing was happening at all. The machines weren't even on. Henric searched through the cabinets and found a metal meat tenderizer. Leaving out the kitchen door, Henric ran back to his father's office and bashed the doorknob with the mallet, breaking the handle. He kicked the door in and rummaged through his dad's dresser. All he found was files for project plans and case studies. He was about to close it when he spotted a folded up map. Henric unfurled it and saw that it was three times the size as the map he had earlier, and it had labeled the third floor as section F. It wasn't like the other floors, it was shown as one huge room instead of a bunch of rooms connected by halls. Henric tried to check the computer to see if his dad had clearance down there but it was locked and the office phone had been disconnected.

They were going to be down there. Henric had no doubts. Where else would they go? He wasn't sure if it was big enough to fit the whole lab staff but they had to have gone somewhere. Hanging on the wall by the door was his dad's I.D. tag and a key. He grabbed him on his way out and reached the elevator in the middle of sections C and D. The was still no sign of anyone. Henric wondered if someone could be watching him on the cameras. If they were, they would've stopped be from breaking my dad's door down. He reassured himself. He shook the thought and pressed the down button.

Just like he expected, the elevator didn't move. There was a key slot next to the firefighter button in the elevator, so he took out his dad's key and tried to use it in the hole. The key wouldn't fit, so he tried repeatedly pushing the down button. To his surprise, a metal slot slid up, revealing a scanner. He quickly used his dad's newer I.D. on it and pressed the down button again.

This time, the elevator began to descend.

The elevator had no music, so Henric stood in silence as it went down.

Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Henric was starting to worry. Where was the elevator taking him, Hell? Luckily, the elevator began to slow down before he started to freak out. It dinged and opened up into a big room with an aquarium and a dozen fish tanks. The room was filled with blue lights in each corner. Henric noticed a digital sign on the wall that read 'McCathey'.

Henric walked around the room to another door. Inside was a much bigger office with a name plate that said 'McCathey'.

Henric kicked the door in anger and turned around to look at the fish. He had to use his dad's I.D. to get to the third floor. On the smaller maps, the third floor is just listed as a testing area. Is there a wider area where the third floor converges? Or is it just a columns of testing spaces stacked on top of each other? Is it even possible to get to someone else's area without their I.D.?

Henric tried to think logically. He was young but he wasn't irrational. Henric didn't grow up around kids he grew up around animals. He didn't play with toys he tested new inventions. He was too smart and too collected to lose his head. He walked over to his dad's computer. The wallpaper was a bunch of fish in an aquarium, and they had a little tiki head to swim into. His dad only had four icons on the desktop, probably because he didn't want to obstruct the view of his wallpaper. The icons were for Files, Recycle, Cameras, and Door.

Henric clicked on cameras and nine boxes appeared on screen. Of the nine, six were black. The others were pointing at him, in the office, the aquarium outside and a corner of the wall near the biggest fish tank. He tried to click on the others but nothing showed up. Minimizing the screen, he clicked out of it and clicked on door. Instead of a whole application, a little text box appeared on the screen. It said 'Would you like to open the door? Yes or No'.

There was no reason for him to say no, so he clicked yes. Instantly, the computer chimed and a loud clank could be heard from the other room. Henric clicked back on the cameras and saw that a huge opening had appeared in the corner of the room. Henric put the key and I.D. around his neck and grabbed the mallet. The door was camouflaged to look like the wall, it didn't even have a handle. Henric had to push with all of his might go force it ask the way open, it must've weighed tons. Once he finally opened the door he looked around in awe. To the left of him was

A long, gigantic tube filled with water, fish, and aquatic life. The tunnel like tube must've been hundreds of feet long, and it scaled the wall, connecting to other tubes across the factory like building. How did they build this down here?! A better question would be why his father never told him about it. There must've been thousands of fish down here. The other side of the room had regular fish tanks, though some were larger than average. All of the tubes had lights on the inside, but it was slightly difficult to see through because of the algae on the glass. Henric walked around and observed the tunnels, trying to see the many types of fish swimming around. There has to be something bigger here. These tubes were big for a reason. His dad probably had stingrays, sharks, maybe even whales.

After walking the entire length of the factory, he reached a wall with a cylindrical structure in the corner. The tube wasn't closed off, it connected to a larger tank on the right. Henric didn't see any fish swimming in it, just sand, a big boulder in the center covered in kelp, and a bunch of smaller rocks. Then he noticed a small light blue starfish on the glass. Henric had always been fascinated with starfish. They didn't bleed, they could regrow limbs and they had eyes on the ends of their arms! His dad told him they could move too, though he had never seen it happen. Henric put his right hand on the glass, right where the star fish was. "It's not a fish." He remembered his dad telling him. "We call them sea stars."

Henric tapped on the glass, trying to get the sea star to move. It didn't budge. He hit the glass harder this time, rapping on it with his knuckles. Behind the boulder, something moved, causing a ton of sand to swirl up.

Slowly, a long slender shape rose from behind the boulder. No, It WAS the boulder! An arm reached over and swept away the seaweed. The creature rose and stared and Henric wild-eyed and mysterious. She swam up to the glass and shocked Henric, causing him to jump back a step.

"You're a mermaid." he whispered.