GLASS BACK [COMPLETED]

3

Humongous? No. Gargantuan? No, that feel right either. Colossal? Now that, that sounded better. She was probably as big as a whale, maybe even bigger. Henric had discovered a colossal mermaid! Or rather, his dad did. His moment of shock and amazement was slightly dulled by the thought. He still hadn't found anyone. As far as he could see, there was no one in the entire lab at all. How could everyone leave without a trace? No signs of chaos, no signs of panic. Then again, if they were hiding secrets like this maybe there's a reason there was no struggle.

The mermaid appeared to be just as curious of him as he was of her. She wiped algae off the glass to get a better look of him. She didn't wear seashells like Ariel. She didn't seem bashful or even aware of her nudity. This must have been what Eve felt like before she discovered sin. He couldn't tell what the color of her skin was, the tank was too dirty. Looking at it this way he'd assume her skin was green. The mermaid smiled at Henric, showing all of her teeth. They were sharp and serrated like shark teeth. He couldn't tell because of the algae and glass, but they appeared to be grey. Henric raised his hand and shockingly, the mermaid waved at him.

"I want to call you Eve. Is that okay?" He asked aloud, simply stunned by her majesty.

She nodded, smiling, and swam from the tank to the cylinder.

Henric followed her and she watched him as she swam around.

"Whoa, you can understand me?"

Eve nodded again and made a signal with her hands. Henric recognized it as sign language, but he didn't know much of it himself. Taking off his dad's I.D., Henric held it against the glass. Swimming down to get a closer look, Eve wiped algae off the glass and squinted. Then she smiled and tapped the glass.

"Did he teach you sign language?"

She nodded again and swam back to the tank, digging through the sand.Her long, silky, oil black hair, wriggled with life as she moved through the water. After a moment, she pulled out a large silver disk. She pointed it towards the glass and it reflected Henric's face, while pointing at the I.D..

'Are you saying we look alike?" Henric asked, watching hier expression. Nodding, she wiped the glass and turned her hand around, showing Henric the algae. He didn't understand what she was trying to show him.

"What? Algae? The glass?"

Eve frowned and frantically started wiping the glass, removing a lot of the algae. The she swam up and thrust her hand out of the tank, showering The factory floor with water. Henric couldn't even tell the tank had an opening because of how tall it was.

"The tank? You want me to clean the tank?"

Eve smiled and tapped her nose. Henric couldn't believe it. He was playing charades with a humongous mermaid.

"How? How am I supposed to clean it?"

She motioned for him to follow her and swam towards the end of the tank. Her did as she was told and saw a huge filtration system on the side of the tank, and a super long ladder attached to the side of the tank. There was a big screen on the wall saying the power was down. Where was the circuit breaker?

Henric followed the fat black cords from the tank along the wall going halfway across the factory. The cords led directly into a wall with a metal plate above it. Henric could tell there was some type of door right next to it, but there was no knob or handle. He took out his father's I.D> and started sliding it against the wall, hoping a scanner would activate. Unfortunately, nothing did. He took out his metal mallet and hit the wall, hoping for some type of opening. After the third hit, red emergency lights turned on above him and alarms started blaring in his ears. Next to the hidden door on his right, a piece of the wall slid away and revealed a scanner above a digital touchscreen.

A robotic voice overhead stated, "BREAK-IN ATTEMPT DETECTED. BREAK-IN ATTEMPT DETECTED."

Henric moved over to the screen and held up his I.D. "Please submit a retina scan or identification card."

He let it scan the I.D. and waited for the sirens to stop, but they kept blaring.

"Welcome David McCathey. Please enter your lab password."

Password? Crap. Henric tried to think of possible answers.

Aquarium? He typed it all lowercase. Incorrect. Maybe it was sealife? He tried again. Incorrect. Was it mermaid? The ringing was started to hurt his ears now. Mermaid was also incorrect. Henric punched the screen but it didn't damage it. What could it be? His dad was smart, but he was shah simple. There wouldn't be any numbers or capital letters. He'd forget the password almost as soon as he set it. The password on his phone was literally six zeroes, so this password shouldn't have been hard to guess.

Henric decided to give it one more try before trying to smack it with the mallet. He put his own name on the screen, all lowercase. The sirens stopped at once, and the door unlocked and opened up.

"Welcome, David McCathey. Thanks for signing in."

The wall slid back over, concealing the screen and scanner.

Henric pushed the door open and peered inside. This part of the factory was drastically different from the last area. There were several rows of computers in the middle of the area, most of them looking smashed in or broken. The floor was slightly flooded and littered with shards of glass. Along the right side were tall test tubes that reached the wall, some completely shattered. They must've tested on people too. But why would they? Henric looked to his left and saw the black tubes connecting to another large tank, also extremely dirty. In this one, he could see dead fish floating upside down in the tanks, though a few bottom feeders were eating algae off the glass. He saw one dark fat fish swallow a small dead beta in one gulp.

This part of the factory wasn't just one huge area like the one he just came from, there were partitions hanging from the rafters separating it into sections. Henric carefully walked over the glass to a computer that like it was working. The screen was on but the keyboard didn't work. He went along the rows trying each computer. They were either broken or didn't have anything in the screens, no apps it widgets. He even tried booting them into safe mode, to no avail. Walking past the computers, he kept going until he saw a sign pointing towards the maintenance room past a partition. Henric squeezed through an opening and looked around. Indeed, there was a door to a maintenance room but there were also a collection of empty test tubes together, surrounding him in the little area he had squeezed into.

They all looked damaged in some sort, some had fractures along the side and some had black soot on the inside of the glass at the top. The lid to one was completion broken, just hanging on the edge of the glass. There was a weird stench coming from past the tubes and Henric tried to slip between two of them. He put too much pressure on one of the tubes and it cracked, causing him was to fall into the dirty water and sending more glass everywhere. Luckily, he was unhurt. He picked himself up out of the disgusting water and find himself staring at another huge tube, this one more like the one Eve could swim to, but it wasn't connected to a tank system, just sitting in the middle of this dark factory floor. It stunk wanted was dirtier than all of the tanks so far combined. Algae and weed growth had taken over the tank, making it almost look like a long closed terrarium instead of an aquarium.

He noticed the hatches and seals on the side that enabled it to connect to the other aquariums. They should've cleaned this a long time ago. He pinched his nose and looked closer into the tank, trying to see if any creature could survive those type of conditions.

He squinted and noticed something big. It had scales, but it wasn't moving. He moved up to see how big it was and froze. The scales stopped... and skin continued the rest of the way up.