Asceia, a powerful mermaid, was sent to land to investigate what happened to her kind and to bring them home.
••°°••
After the telepathic connection between the mermaids in the sea and on the land was severed, the Order found this to be very alarmin...
OPENING HER EYES, she immediately felt the cold surface on her back. Her vision started as a blur but she immediately recognized the familiar ceiling of the laboratory. As her senses kicked in, she felt something was different. She instantly held her throat and slowly assisted herself up. Sitting on the side of the platform where she was operated, she looked around. Seeing herself alone in the laboratory, she attempted to speak.
A hoarse voice came out of her mouth and everything around her started shaking: the glasses clinked, the water rippled and floated in the air, and the lights flickered. She quickly closed her mouth. Then her eyes shifted to the elevator door that dinged, revealing Troy and Fatima walking in together. She calmed down and composed herself. They smiled, both glad to see her up and awake. She decided to come down and feel the cold tiles pressed to her sole and approached them.
“Asceia, how are you feeling? The operation was a success,” Fatima said.
“Different,” she telepathically said, “how long was I out?”
“About eight hours...”
“Where’s the body of Leyrosa? I need to bring it back to the sea.”
“Isn’t it too risky to get back? Now that we know Yrevia’s building an army?” Troy asked.
“I put Leyrosa in cold storage. Maybe...we can put her to proper rest once everything is fine.”
Asceia just sighed. “Yeah...yeah. Her burial can wait. It is too dangerous. So now...let’s get back to work. We have two species to save.”
“Uhm...about that. We got bad news.”
“What is it?”
“Yrevia wasn’t the only one forming an army,” Troy answered.
The Department of Defense and Security took control of the government. They killed the President and assumed control of the country. They called for everyone to take a stand against the serceans. Soldiers from other neighboring countries are also coming too,” Fatima shared, “for now, no one made a move yet. But we received intel about the serceans captured and butchered everywhere in the Philippines. It will not be long before there will be a bloodbath.”
Asceia just shook her head and slightly massaged her left temple. She knew this was going to happen. But it was too soon. “I need to talk to their leader. He is making a big mistake. This is what Yrevia wants, an army she can destroy or she can add to her pack.”
“It is hard to access him right now. He must be staying in the most secured base. They also have a way of detecting a sercean through scans and blood tests. You will be shot on site.”
“You have the resources and influence, Fatima. Bring me to him, that’s all you need to do. If you can’t, then get me close to where he is based. I will work my way to him and it will be easy, now that I got my voice back.”
“Okay...I’ll---” Fatima stopped when out of a sudden, the alarm of the laboratory went off. Red blinking light flooded the whole place, giving this very disturbing feeling. “Someone set off the alarm...or we’re under attack.” Fatima was about to head back to the elevator when they noticed it was rising back to the ground level. “We are really under attack...”
“I can feel their movements,” Asceia telepathically said, warning the two whom she can also hear their rapid heartbeat.
“We need to take cover. Now! Go!” Fatima pulled them back.
But she resisted and remained in her position. “You two take cover. I’ll handle this.”
“Asceia, please be careful. Don’t bring this place down,” Troy warned as they ran to the operating room to hide.
She took a deep breath and prepared herself. She stared at the arrow symbol pointing down on top of the elevator, waiting for the right moment. She started humming the Song and extended her arms open. From the different parts of the laboratory, the water rose from the glasses, water bottles, containers, and faucets. It all crawled in the air like branches of a tree, until it formed into a ball on her palms. For Asceia, it was so good to feel her powers back again, the effects of the Song on her felt ecstatic.
In between the blaring alarms, she heard the elevator ding. It opened and five men greeted her with their rifles. They pulled the trigger and rained her with bullets, but she quickly made a gesture that created a wall of water in between her and their shots. The water wrapped the bullets and changed the trajectory, throwing them away. In one push, the water swept the men off their feet. While they were down, she guided the water to flow through their noses, mouth, and ears, which eventually drowned them.
“You can come out now. Let’s go get out of here,” she said, ensuring the men were dead.
She reabsorbed the water on and inside the bodies of men and compressed it into a ball on her palms. Behind her, Troy and Fatima followed and they all together went inside the elevator full of dead bodies. Troy pressed a button that closed the door and pulled the elevator car up. And their attention was shifted to Fatima who instantly sat down and started checking the pockets of the men, looking for something.
“What is it?” Troy asked when Fatima pulled out a cellular phone and checked out the messages.
“I think they were hired to attack us. They have our location.”
“Who hired them?”
“That is what I want to find out. We can work with this.” Fatima slid the phone into her pocket.
“I need to talk to whoever’s in charge of the government now,” Asceia said, “either he becomes our ally or another enemy we can add to our list.”
The elevator opened again, as they reached the ground level where several armed men were positioned and waiting for them. When they started shooting, she quickly created a wall out of the water to deflect the bullets. On the other hand, she manipulated the water from various sources around the parking lot and used it to carry the nearby parked car. She used it to sweep the armed men and crushed them in the process.
“Find a car, quickly!”
••°°••
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
You can share your thoughts on the other social media platforms by using our official hashtag #EverAfterSeriesWP #WavesOfScales
