"Please, just let me go, I'll do anything," Alice shouted as she banged her fists on the plexiglass wall surrounding her. At this point, she'd gotten over the useless attempts to cover up her stark naked body with more of a focus on escape. Her captor didn't seem to interested in looking at her anyway...at least, not yet.
"But why would I do that, when I'm so close to success, and you're the perfect subject," the mysterious man in the lab coat and glasses replied finally reacknowledging her after several minutes as a terrifying smile crossed his face, "Slender, athletic physique, just above average height, not to mention that fear of water I noticed watching you earlier...that would be the perfect test of adjusted brain activity and instincts...I mean, what's a mermaid who's afraid of water?"
The man chuckled at his own sad excuse for a joke, while Alice quickly tried to think of a way out of this mess. She could barely even remember how she got there...it must have been whatever the guy put in her drink when she wasn't looking. It was messing with her memory. The last thing she could clearly remember was that hot guy buying her a drink at the bar. After that, things started to get rather fuzzy. She remembered leaving with the guy, and getting in his car...then they drove to some sort of abandoned building. After that, everything just went dark.
Actually, she could remember a few flashes of images, but she can't quite tell if they were real, or just dreams...or nightmares...
"So then, shall we begin," the man asked bringing Alice back to the present with an eery grin on his face as he walked away from her plexiglass prison and towards a computer screen before typing in a few formulas on the keyboard, back to completely ignoring Alice's now desperate pleas.
Suddenly a pair of shaded silhouettes appeared on the computer screen, one looking like that of a human, while the other appeared to be some sort of dolphin. And that's when the nightmarish memories from before made sense to her along with the terrifying man's earlier comments...the mutated bodies floating in rooms filled with water...women with scales covering their bodies, and deformed heads...feet ending in flippers and gray tinted skin...this clearly insane man was trying to somehow turn people into the imaginary creatures known as mermaids...with apparently disastrous results... And she was his next 'test subject'!
"Please, I'm begging you, just let me go, and I'll forget all of this ever happened," Alice lied. She wished she could forget, but she knew she had to tell the police about this...if they believed her...
"Now why on earth would I do that, when I'm so close," the man asked with a chuckle as he typed something else in the computer, causing the two silhouettes to meld into each other. And that was the last thing Alice could make out, as the plexiglass tank quickly began filling with water from below, and some sort of colored gas from above.
Alice couldn't decide which outcome frightened her more, choking on the gas filling the chamber, or drowning in the slowly rising water. However, these fears were short-lived, as her skin began to tingle, as if her arms and legs had fallen asleep. Within an instant, she found herself collapsing into a sitting position on the floor with a splash, the water now covering her legs as she continued to cough in the gas-filled space.
But then, suddenly and without warning or reason, her growing fear and panic turned into calm. Her body lay almost limp as a small smile appeared on her face. Rather than choking on the gas that surrounded her, she was simply breathing it in, like it was air.
"Well, judging by your sudden change in perception of the situation, I'd say phase one was a success," the mysterious man said with a smile as he eagerly watched Alice.
"Whaa," She replied meekly, still somewhat aware of her surrounding and predicament, even though she hardly cared.
"And now, onto phase two," the man said, ignoring her, "My personal favorite, once you get past all the screaming..."
As if on cue, Alice's back arched, her head and feet slamming into opposite sides of her tank as her relaxed expression was replaced with several pain-caused cringes before she let out a scream. It felt as though the skin on her hands and forearms was on fire, and her legs felt even worse, as the pain spread all the way from her toes to her waist. At the same time, a different type of pain engulfed her back, running all the way down her spine. It almost felt as though it was trying to grow longer, but had reached it's limit and was now pressing against the skin and muscle constraining it, pinching her especially just below her shoulder blades and at her tailbone.
Then, without much warning, her legs forced themselves next to each other, without Alice even telling them to do so. As soon as this happened, the pain in her tailbone doubled, a feat she would have thought impossible moments ago...
Suddenly, the pain began shift from just above her butt down towards her legs, and it seemed to continue migrating down further with each passing second, leaving her legs feeling strange in its wake. The mysterious man looked on eagerly as he watched Alice's two legs begin to fuse into a single limb, starting around her waist, but quickly growing down her legs. Almost immediately following the fusion was another change, as her lightly tanned skin seemed to be losing color, shifting to a shade of grey. The texture was changing also, becoming more slick and rubbery.
But that wasn't the only thing changing. The skin on her hands and forearms seemed to be changing the same as her legs, stopping just before her elbows. A small bump formed on her back, on her spine, just below her shoulder, and quickly grew and formed into what could only be described as a small dorsal fin, sticking about three inches out from her back.
At this point, her legs had fused down to her ankles, though the process seemed almost unsure about what to do with her feet, pausing for a moment and giving her a break from the pain and an opportunity to examine all that had changed.
The first thing she noticed was of course the long, single limb that had replaced her legs, covered in odd looking grey skin, almost having the appearance of a dolphin's. Out of curiosity, she reached out to touch it, which was when she noticed that her hands and half the length of her arms had the same skin. It felt odd, almost like rubber, exceeding smooth and soft in the water.
"Well, that'll certainly make swimming easier," she thought to herself, caressing her 'leg' until she realized what she just thought.
"Wait, no, I hate swimming," she shouted in her mind, "And I'm certainly not okay with this...thing, or any of this," she reassured herself.
"Hehe, wait, no, I don't hate swimming," She found herself thinking, contradicting her own previous statement, "I love swimming. It's what I'm built for, like a bird to fly or a cheetah to run, or a fish to swim. Except my tail's much more beautiful and efficient than any fish's, not to mention how beautiful I am in general...a beautiful mermaid."
"Wait, no, I'm not a mermaid," Alice replied to herself finding it odd that she seemed to be arguing with herself.
"Well, I certainly look like a mermaid, aside from those silly little feet at the end of my sleek tail, but those will be fixed soon enough. After all feet are for humans."
"But, I am human," Alice replied meekly, somehow finding it more and more difficult to argue with her own logic, "Or, at least, I was...but, I still want to be..."
"Hehe, why would I want to be a human when I could be a mermaid," Alice's new inner voice asked herself, seemingly aware that it was winning, "I'm so much happier as a mermaid, so much prettier as a mermaid, so much better as a mermaid..."
"So much...better...as a mermaid," Alice now found herself questioning her own stance from moments ago. Of course she was better off as a mermaid. She could have the best of both worlds, swimming, sunbathing, hunting fish and flirting with hot sailors.
"Hehe, yeah, I'm so much better as a mermaid...silly me," Alice now though to herself with a chuckle, completely blending with the other opinion, letting that one take over as her reservations to the entire experience shifted from fear to joy, "Now let's finish this off so I can get back to the fun stuff," Alice thought to herself as she took in a deep breath, filling her larger lung with air as she braced for the final change; her feet.
As if on her cue, the pain from before came back, now at her feet, as they forced themselves apart, toes in opposite directions and heels touching. The feet seemed to flatten out, while at the same time lengthen a bit. All the bones in her feet dissipated, replaced by a long, single, bone-like piece of cartilage, stretching along the length of each foot. New skin formed between the two former feet, forming a triangular fin at the end of her tail, which now looked identical to that of a dolphin, at least until it reached her waist, where she shifted back to human in appearance.
Testing out her new, muscular tail, she slapped her fin down on the water, which had apparently stopped rising once it reached to her stomach.
"Hey, could I get some more water in here," she shouted out to the man still watching her, "Salt water would really be preferred...Thanks."
The man seemed elated by this request, as well as the appearance of his latest subject.
"Haha, yes! It worked, everything went according to how I predicted and hoped," he began, excitedly, "Everyone always used to laugh at me. 'Mermaids aren't real.' 'Mermaid are for girls.' 'You'll never get laid.' 'Try to not act so crazy.' But I proved them wrong time and time again! And now I've done it, I've made a real mermaid! Well, I mean, technically she's not a true mermaid so much as a dolphin-human hybrid, but hey, it's a start. And anyway, it's not easy merging mammal and non mammal DNA...especially when you're trying to also incorporate mental changes... But anyway, after all those failed attempts and half-successes, it finally worked! How does it feel to be the world's first real mermaid (on record)?"
"Dry," Alice replied coldly, clearly not interested in the man's life story, "Remember the water I asked for?"
"Oh yes, right, sorry," the man said, pressing a button, as the water level in Alice's tank began rising again, causing her to go back to ignoring the man.
"So many years of hard work and struggle, planning and experiments..." Suddenly a door opened up, a handsome young man, in about his twenties popped out.
"Dad, can you please keep it down, I'm playing video games," the young man shouted.
"Oh yes, sorry junior," the man apologized before announcing, "But it worked! This one worked! Just look at her, isn't she beautiful?"
The young man looked at the tank, the mermaid whom he somewhat recognized appeared to be winking at him, "That's great dad," he said with little enthusiasm, "Does that mean I can stop bringing girls from bars here?"
"What, no," the man replied, " Now that it works, I need more of them! The world needs more mermaids!"
The young man let out a sigh as he closed the door, not even replaying to his father's odd obsession anymore.
"More mermaids, all throughout the oceans! How does that sound," he asked Alice.
"Like a reverse sausage-fest," she replied with a bit of attitude, "What am I supposed to do? Do it with a dolphin? What about the guys?!"
"Well, technically," he began.
"No. Just no," Alice cut him off, "I'm a beautiful mermaid, and I'm not having sex with some pervy dolphin. It's a guy, or merman, or nothing."
The man let out a sigh, "I'll get right on that..." He said as he turned around and walked out of the room with his creation, now happily in four feet of salt water, "Once I get a few dozen more mermaids..."
