The Holding Tank

They were surrounded by unfamiliar waters. The seas were saltier and foggier, the smell of medicine and unnatural products filled Nixes nostrils. They knew something was wrong, they could sense it but couldn’t figure out what was happening. Nixes felt their body going around in circles. There didn’t seem to be a way out of the suffocating water. Every way they turned, met with dead ends.

One loud siren screams out into the open. Bubbles rose to the surface, their lungs expelling outwards. Moments later, the air bubbles vanished, popped into nothingness. The open world above them seemed closer than it had at first. Nixes, prepared herself for a leap into the skies, slapping their almost white, translucent skin, with their white translucent flipper digits.

“You can do this.” They motivated themself, switching each left and right flipper towards their peeling barnacle face, which trailed up their cheeks like ivy.

One lunge into the air, their tail crusted like the bottom of a boat, their metallic green and blue colouring shimmering, and Nixes was twirling above the waters, their wavy hair cascading down their back like ashy grey smoke, swishing back. Nixes enormous black and white pupils, were slitty like cat’s eyes. It was like seeing the world through a pinhole, focusing on everywhere around them.

This was not the ocean. In fact, this was not an open body of water at all. As Nixes started to crash back down, into the water, their splash expelling outward as they landed, they recalled some of the other merfolk, muttering in gossiping circles. A body of water, but not an ocean, river, lake, or stream. An unnatural place where humans gather for fun. Built, not made from Mother Earth, with human flooring that covered the bottom, no sea grass or seaweed swaying in the ocean breeze. No other creatures alive, just floating rubber things.

“I think they call this a swimming pool.” They said slowly to their self “And what a dreadful thing…” Nixes stared around them.

There was nothing around except more and more water. Just one rectangle box with hard walls on either side. No matter how much they pushed and punched the sea walls with their flipper fists, ramming it with their tail, bashing like a bull seeing red, Nixes couldn’t make the box collapse. Out of luck and out of motivation, they had sunk to the bottom of this human pool, like a deflated balloon, hopeless and ashamed.

“How could I have been so stupid?” Nixes tutted. “How could I have fallen for such a stupid trick?”

They rested their ashy hair upon the bottom wall, their locks spread out. Their eyes shutting from their ordeal, Nixes drifted into a slumber. Then, their eyes darted open. The rumblings of a machine vibrating the water. Nixes arose from the ground, their tail trembling, every single scale standing up straight in terror, like goosebumps. A large dark shadow descended towards them, like an octopus with eight spindly tentacles, inching ever closer.

Giant rusty metal claws, like that of a lobster or crab, hurtled towards them with a sole purpose, to capture them.

Nixes tried to scream, their siren call echoed, creating ripples in the water. Tugging and wrestling to break free from its grasp. They felt as if they were being strangled by an eel, but with no personality to appeal to. The more Nixes struggled, the more the metal claw squeezed them tightly, their rough-skinned body, feeling as though it would just burst.

They were being lifted from the salty water, dangling high above the pool floor, they inched ever closer to the surface. Nixes began to panic, how could they breathe without the water? One pull and one splash later, as the claw dragged them from the pool, Nixes was struggling to breathe, lying on their back like a dying fish. It felt as though their lungs could not pump enough air though their body. Their blood wasn’t pumping through the blue veins popping out, their heart ceasing to work hard enough.

Nixle was too exposed, and there they drew their final breathe out into the world. A large crowd of human spectators, waiting on rows and rows of seats gasped in horror. The human screams echoed louder than the vibrations in the pool water. The claw grasping around the mermaid’s body let go. Puddles of chlorine water spilt out onto the hard tarmac flooring, leaving the sirens empty shell on the ground. So lifeless, so soulless.