I blinked incredulously, but the hand print soon disappeared, making me suspect that it was another one of my hallucinations. I approached the window carefully for closer examination. I rubbed the cold glass window and truthfully, there's really nothing there other than interweaved rain marks.
I'm probably justreally tired.
I rubbed my forehead and watched as the wind and rain outside the window got worse and worse. It was clear that the best solution for this kind of weather was to stay indoors because not only would I not be able to help the sailors in any way, it would also increase the risk of me falling into the sea. Right now, my mind was still feeling groggy, still yet out of my dream state, and without any energy to think about anything else, I fell back into bed to sleep.
I woke asleep for a while in a dazed state, until I was woken up by a sudden burst of cold and wet wind. When I opened my eyes, I found that my cabin was unusually dark and the sky was looking gloomy, similar to those evenings in Moscow on the verge of an extremely cold night, a dark red colour, as if soaked in blood. The window over the table was somehow opened with a bitingly cold sea breeze blowing into my room.
I let out a sneeze and got up quickly to close the window. Subconsciously, I looked up at the clock on the wall above my head.
Only half an hour passed, how did the weather become like this?
While thinking such strange thoughts, I went to turn on the desk lamp to reflect the light on the glass clock. I glanced at it carefully, but my eyes were frozen in place as if they were glued there.
The glass clock reflected the view behind me. There was a dark silhouette with two faint looming lights hiding in the shadow of the door.
My adrenaline suddenly rushed up to it's peak, making my hair stand up instantly.
That merman...was actually in my room.
My breath seemed to be lost, and my body was glued in place. I could only hear the murmur of the sound that was made by the merman's throat getting closer and closer behind me. The desk lamp flickered a few times before going off with a hiss, causing my surrounding to sink back into darkness once again in an instant. Soon, a damp and musty scent could be smelled right behind me.
"De… sha… row…"
Each pronounced syllable was like a call to my very being. A wet webbed claw fell on my shoulder, making me shiver suddenly. My body seemed to act faster than my mind as I was already using the desk to jump up and with a speed I never knew I had, I opened the window and leaped onto the deck outside.
"Guys! Help! Someone come here!"
I hurriedly stumbled into the fog that was enough to blind me, but unfortunately I was not able to see any sailor, not even Rhine. The dim lights in the captain's cabin suddenly disappeared, making everything seem eerily bizarre, as if I was on a ghost ship, alone on the big three-storey ship.
Of course, there was still that demon-like merman.
"De...sha....row..."
The merman's low, magic-like voice penetrated through the rain and wind, pursuing vigorously into my ears like a shadow following the body. I'm very sure that it was my name he called. Oh my goodness, how did he know?
Although the merman did not show any intention of harming me before, I still could not help feeling fear and dread in this situation. Facing an anesthetized merman versus a mobile merman on land are two different things altogether! I had to get my hands on an anesthetic gun immediately to avoid being attacked by the merman, and more importantly, prevent him from going back into the sea.
I tried to keep my pace on the rocking deck as I headed straight for the captain's cabin. I climbed up the stairs leading to the second deck, but in all the panic, I slipped and fell down uncontrollably. But in the next moment, the anticipated pain did not come. All I felt was a wind rushing towards me from behind before my back was blocked by some sort of resistance with my waist unexpectedly wrapped around by something, leaving my body suspended in the air, but it was only for mere seconds before I was pressed fully down onto a long, thick, slippery, and scaly thing.
I immediately got up and tried to escape, but as soon as I turned over, I was blocked by the dark shadow over me with a cold wet hand tightening around my waist. I struggled to sit up and retreat from the stairs, but both legs and feet were firmly coiled up by his tail.
The merman's half-human body rose up inch by inch, soon his height surpassed mine. His long damp hair in the rainstorm looked like seaweed, crawling over my arms, neck, head, and soon over my eyes, covering my line of sight with nothing but shadowy darkness.
The heavy rain practically made it impossible for me to breathe. I blinked a couple times in an attempt to clear my eyesight, but I still felt a sense of disheveledness in front of me as before.
Through my blurry vision, the outline of the merman's pale face approached from under his hair and huddled beside my collarbone. Both his claws grabbed hold of my arms while his head wandered over my upper body, as if carefully sniffing in my scent. Suddenly his lips touched my covered chest. I felt my already wet and clingy lapel became taut, before a tearing sound was heard.
I shook my wet hair. Flustered, my knitted eyebrows twitched my eyelids dry of water, as I stared at the merman's every movement with my heart beating violently.
Oh my god, what on earth does this merman want to do?!
Just now, the merman unexpectedly exposed his layers of sharp teeth and forcibly went to tear apart my top garments before staring at my now naked upper body as if he was carefully examining something.
I supported myself with the stairs. My breathing was labored and my chest was fluctuating violently as I stared at him nervously, not knowing what was so unusual about myself that attracted the attention of the merman. However, the merman simply narrowed his eyes and glanced over my body as if he were just making sure that the upper body of his prey was still intact before moving his claw to the edge of my trousers to grab hold of my leather belt as if he was now interested in my lower body too.
"Wait!"
I let out a scream and went to hold onto the merman's back hand firmly with my freed one. The merman then looked down, his eyes now focused on my hand as if there was something that had caught his attention. That was when I realized what it was.
—The wound on the back of my hand from hiting the bathroom wall hasn't healed completely yet and because of the excessive amount of movement just now, the wound had cracked open wider with blood flowing out heavily.
The merman, like a shark, was actually serching for my wound as he had smelled the blood.
In that split second, I imagined myself meeting a great white shark in the sea, and thinking that I would die at the very next moment, but the remaining rationality left from my fear gave me a glimmer of hope due to the unusual behavior of the merman. He looked at me as if I were his food, so why wasn't he directly attacking me?
Perhaps it's because merfolks were used to tasting their prey first… All the biological knowledge stored in my brain seemed to turn into useless waste of little value when facing this mysterious and unknown merman. There was only one voice shouting from the bottom of my heart, No! I don't want to die so painfully!
I watched helplessly as the merman grabbed my injured hand. As soon as he brought it to his opened mouth I instantly curled up my fingers in desperation. I was frightened to the point where no sound could come out, thinking that I would be bitten off a few fingers in the very next moment.
However, the merman just simply held the tip of my fingers gently with his sharp teeth and licked my wound with his tongue. Although his claws were firmly clinging onto my palm, the force of his licking was very soft. I could feel his sharp teeth carefully controlling the force as to not hurt me.
I looked at his face in astonishment. For a moment I thought I was making a fuss over nothing. My beating heart that was about to jump out of my throat, seemed to be caught and held high by his sharp claws near my throat.
I tried to persuade myself to calm down a bit. Maybe the merman was just expressing amicable intentions since I helped him heal distinctive characteristic to treat my injuries, similar to the legend about merefolks repaying a kindness with gratitude.
But I still couldn't convince myself at all.
The merman's eyebrow was raised, his head hung low, however, his eyelids were clearly still open and staring at me intently.
Under his long wet eyelashes, there was a sense of evil and aggression that could not be concealed. His vigorous licking became more and more greedy and wanton. The scarlet tip of his tongue, like an erotic snake, flicked gently between each of my fingers, as if deliberately playing obscenely with them, making me feel a strange sense of crawling numbness, like tiny insects drilling into the blood vessel of each finger....
It seemed straight out of a dream, like an illusion materializing before my hand. His glistening torso, only inches away from my eyes, was proof of merefolk's close similarities to humans. I had to keep myself calm at all costs --- on the surface, anyway.
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