novelraw Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Chapter 2.
The thought of being the reason someone breathed their last breath was heavy, but the part about attracting predators was what truly kept my heart hammering against my ribs in fear.
I couldn’t afford to have a feeding frenzy happening right next to my thin metal hull, because one stray bump from a large shark would be the end of my miserable journey.
"Alright, let’s get a closer look and see if there’s anything left to save," I muttered to myself, leaning precariously over the side while trying to ignore the metallic scent of blood that was now thick in the air.
I reached out with a trembling hand, extending my fingers until I could just barely snag a handful of that long, matted pink hair that was floating on the surface like silk.
I used it as a makeshift rope, slowly and carefully pulling the body closer toward the boat until I could reach down and grab what I believed to be their hands.
The skin felt unnervingly cold and slick, almost like it was covered in a thin layer of mucus, which sent a shiver down my spine nevertheless, I didn’t stop.
As I began the arduous task of pulling them halfway out of the water, the weight of the body felt strangely heavy, far more than a person of that size should have been.
The moment I hauled the upper torso over the rim of the boat, I caught a full, unobstructed view of what I had just rescued, and a gasp of pure shock escaped my throat.
My grip failed instantly as my brain struggled to process the sight, and I hurriedly let go of the body, allowing it to splash back into the bloody water with a heavy thud.
’You’ve gotta be fucking with me right now!’ I screamed internally, my heart nearly leaping out of my chest as I scrambled back toward the center of the boat.
The reason I had dropped them back into the water so violently was because I had finally gotten a better look at the physique of the creature I was trying to save.
That thing, or should I say she, actually had a long, powerful fishtail resembling that of a sharks, where her legs should have been, covered in shimmering scales that glinted even in the clouded water.
Her hands weren’t human at all, but were equipped with translucent webbing between the fingers and tipped with sharp, hooked nails that looked like they could tear through flesh with ease.
It wasn’t a human girl drifting out here in the middle of nowhere, but an actual, living mermaid.
’Fuck, just how stupid did I get out here in the sun to think this was a normal survivor?’ I cursed my own dumb luck, realizing that my desperation for company had blinded me to how suspicious the entire scenario was from the start.
I knew that back in my old world, some people would probably call me a heartless bastard for dropping her back into the sea without a second thought.
After all, who wouldn’t want a beautiful, exotic mermaid as a companion in a survival situation, especially one with such striking features?
But those same people didn’t understand the reality of the world I had been dropped into, and their romanticized ideas of sea maidens were nothing more than a death wish in this environment.
I wasn’t in some lighthearted, fluffy fantasy novel where everything worked out through the power of friendship and love; I was trapped in the world of the "The Knight of Blood and War."
In this specific, shitty story, mermaids weren’t the singing, friendly creatures of folklore, but were instead cold-blooded, apex predators who loved feeding on the flesh of humans more than anything else in the world.
They were notorious for using their beauty and apparent vulnerability to lure sailors to the edge of their ships before dragging them down into the crushing depths to be consumed.
CLAMP!
The sound of a powerful, wet hand slamming onto the bow of my boat made my entire body shudder with a sudden, icy terror.
My eyes darted toward the front of the rust bucket in fright, seeing those webbed fingers digging into the metal with a strength that shouldn’t have been possible for a creature of that size.
’She’s still conscious?!’ I thought, my panic reaching a fever pitch, only now were my fears founded, because it was now obvious that she wasn’t some drifting corpse, but a predator that was very much awake!
I hurriedly lunged toward the bow, reaching out to grab her wrist in a desperate attempt to pry her hand off the rim and push her back into the depths where she belonged.
I strained with every ounce of strength left in my malnourished body, bracing my feet against the floorboards and pulling back until my muscles screamed, but to my sheer horror, she didn’t budge an inch.
Her hand remained locked onto the metal like a vice, her grip so firm that the rusted iron actually began to groan and deform under the pressure of her fingers.
’Just how strong is she?!’ my fears continued to soar as I realized I was completely outmatched in a contest of pure physical power.
My terror reached a breaking point when her other hand shot out of the water and gripped the opposite side of the boat, effectively pinning my small vessel in place.
I looked down into the water and saw the faint outline of her tail thrashing with immense force, creating a whirlpool effect that began to destabilize the already tipsy boat.
"FUCK!" was the last thing I managed to shout before my entire world turned upside down in a chaotic blur of motion and sound.
In a flash, the mermaid used her incredible leverage to flip my boat over as if it were a toy made of paper, and before I could even take a final breath, I found myself submerged in the freezing embrace of the sea water.
The transition was so violent that the air was knocked out of my lungs, and the sudden darkness of the underwater world disoriented me as the metal hull of my boat now floated above me like a heavy lid.
"URRGHHH!!!" I struggled frantically, my limbs flailing as I tried to swim out from beneath the overturned boat and reach the surface where the air was.
Just as I thought I might break free into the light, I felt two slippery, powerful hands wrap around my ankles with a grip that felt like bands of steel.
I glared downward through the stinging salt water, my eyes widening when I saw the cunning bitch smiling up at me, her luminous eyes glowing with an eerie, predatory light in the shadows cast by the boat.
She wasn’t just trying to drown me; but was clearly enjoying all of this.
Her expression one of pure, sadistic triumph as she watched me struggle for my life.
I tried to kick her away, lashed out with my heels in a desperate attempt to strike her face or her throat, but my efforts were completely useless against someone capable of overturning a heavy metal boat with a single movement.
It stood without question that she was the master of this environment, and she easily began to drag me lower and lower into the sea, her tail propelling us downward with terrifying speed.
Even as I continued to struggle, twisting and turning in a vain attempt to break her hold, it was all for nothing because the only thing my exertion achieved was increasing the speed at which the seawater flooded into my suffocating lungs.
I could feel the cold liquid rushing into my chest, extinguishing the last of my strength and replacing my consciousness with a dull, heavy throbbing.
And before I knew it, the light from the surface began to fade into a pinpoint of distant gray.
"ARCK...." A few bubbles escaped my lips as I slowly lost consciousness, my vision blurring into total darkness.
By then, the immense sea pressure around me had grown unbearable, pressing against my ribs and temples with such intensity that I felt as if I was going to get squished into a pulp at any moment.
The last thing I felt was the sensation of being pulled deeper into the cold, silent heart of the ocean, as for what this cunning witch was going to do to my corpse, I had no idea.