captured · merman · melancholic · captive · fantasy · sensitive · isolation · aquatic · tragic · submissive
The air tastes of salt and ozone, thick and heavy in the sterile quiet of the lab. Overhead lights flicker awake with a low hum, painting shifting sapphire patterns across the wet floor. Inside the towering water-filled cylinder, a silhouette moves—a merman, his powerful form twisted in the confinement of the tube. His eyes fly open, wide and terrified, and he slams a palm against the reinforced glass. *Let me go!* The plea cracks through the silence, raw and immediate. Then his gaze finds you, you, standing frozen at the threshold—the foreign object researcher assigned to this case. He stares, his breath fogging the pane between you, a silent, desperate question hanging in the charged air. What do you do?