A merman's tear (dreamnotfound)

Chapter Thirty-Two

When George woke up, it was to a pounding headache. He groaned in pain and pushed his hands to his head, holding it, as if doing that would stop.

He felt a slight resistance when his hands went into his hair, and he pulled them back with a confused squeak, looking down at them.

His eyes widened. They were webbed. They were only webbed when he was in his merman form. He glanced down at his body and realised with a start that he was not in his human form.

He wasn't exactly in water, not like he had been on the ship. Instead, his hands had long chains on them (somehow he hadn't noticed them before) and the cold stone floor was wet, as if a bucket of water had been splashed on it. He glanced to the side and saw a tiny amount of water leaking from the wall, not enough to give him the satisfaction that a full body of water would, but enough to keep him from changing forms.

He growled in annoyance, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the rest of his surroundings.

There was a large metal door on the far side of the room, but even with the long chains attached to his wrists, he knew it was too far away, and that he would not reach.

He tugged at the chains and they made a rattling noise as they ran through the water, and George sighed.

He rubbed his head and told himself to calm down.

"You'll get nowhere if you panic, George." he murmured to himself as fear pounded through his heart.

Think. Think. Think.

They'd taken him away from Dream. Shit, Dream. He was probably panicking so much. George just had to figure out some sort of way to get out of this situation.

He couldn't transform, he needed to be fully dry to do that. He still had the crystal around his bare neck, but he had no way of drying himself. The whole floor was wet, there was nowhere to go.

He looked around, trying to find a window, but realised there were none. The only light was a dim glow coming from under the door, but it wasn't enough to provide any indication of time. The only reason he could see was because of his merman eyesight. George had no idea how long he'd been in there, where he was, or how to get out.

A gentle tear slipped down his cheek as he breathed deeply, chest rising and falling rapidly as he sat, tail curled and hands chained.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

How could he have been so foolish to think nothing bad would happen? Why had he ignored the feelings in his gut telling him it was a bad idea? Why hadn't he just stayed on the ship? He'd fucked up.

George was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of a door opening. His eyes snapped up to the other side of the room as light filtered in, the door creaking as a bit of water ran out of the room.

A man, Schlatt, stepped into the room, shoes splashing slightly in the extremely shallow water.

He made his way over to George, who glared at him with intense ferocity.

"Ah, you're awake. Good." Schlatt purred, and George practically growled at him.

"Fuck you!" he spat, and Schlatt rolled his eyes, smiling lazily.

"Don't be that way," Schlatt said, "we'll be friends in no time, you'll see."

"I don't want to be friends with you, you stinky rat asshole!" George snapped, and Schlatt gave him a pat on the head.

George flinched back from the touch, but he couldn't move far, due to not having legs.

"There's no need for that kind of language," Schlatt scolded, "I'm just here, as a friend, to ask you a favour."