𝔖𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢

Arc 3 (3)

As for how he was to rise to fame? Who could be a better target then his boss' wife? Who at the institute didn't know about the director's wife and his love for her? She was apparently on the verge of death. 

If James could magically bring her back to a healthy state, why would the director refuse him a reward? He could easily conquer his boss' position then. Hah! Life was about to be luxurious!

And the game of deception finally started. Alisa, who was as unguarded as a fish in a pond, didn't even bother hiding her identity as she had decided to let James know of it. 

She was sure that she could confide in him and that he would continue to love her regardless. And so the shed scales were never burned and would be left in the bath without precaution.

Initially, James had collected those scales as evidence of his discovery. He had managed to get the director's trust as he had also found the last thread of hope for his beloved. All the heartache and despair he felt whenever he faced that sickly, dying face that once used to shine with liveliness and joy, was slowly becoming unbearable. 

Even if it was absurd, he was willing to hold that last thread. Whether it was successful or not, he was prepared either way. So he acknowledged James' theory and funded his project under the guise of a large scale project uniting each and every field of science, different from the one Alisa had invested in at first.

But troubles rose when he tried taking live scales of Alisa under the hypothesis that the live cells would be more helpful instead of the dead ones. 

While dead scales were as sturdy as iron, the live ones when plucked from the skin turned into a powdery substance within a second. 

As more and more scales were uprooted from her skin, more and more injuries were left on Alisa's body which had confused her, since James used to drug her with a highly efficient sleeping pill that could block the whole nervous system for two to three hours. In that time, she would be as unresponsive as a vegetative person, while the risk of dying was high as well. 

However, James could only gamble if he wanted success and take that risk as it was unknown whether Alisa would give him her scales while awake.

For half a year, he tried incessantly to get some results but all was vain. The director asked for reports from time to time and he could only vaguely a positive reply every time. 

The director's wife had been getting sicklier and could barely be called alive when the director impatiently asked him for a solution. 

Even he was frustrated and just decided to test Alisa's blood. If the scales and heart were beneficial then why not the blood? But what was unknown was that the blood and flesh was the trigger of the curse. 

The person who drank or ate it would become healthier however they wouldn't be human anymore and would acquire the monstrous traits of ancient sirens.

And so the lady was fed with Alisa's blood. The director was overcome with ecstasy when she had started to gain her rosy colour but that also didn't last long. 

When a person drank the blood of a siren, they surely would get healthier but would be on the verge of death again when their body would enter the merging phase. Meaning, the person would enter a phase where all the human characteristics merged with the monstrous ones and their body gained thousands of years as lifespan.

And so the director finally went crazy with anger. As a result James had no choice but lock Alisa at the research centre to observe and experiment on 24/7. He didn't even bother using drugs to numb the pain of tearing the scales while using Alisa at the institute. 

When everything he tried just met a dead end, he finally decided to extract the heart. It was heartless and the screams he had heard were nightmare fuel but he was also desperate. He believed that the heart would definitely give him his desired success and fame! Anyways, it wasn't him who told her to carry around precious medicinal extracts on her whole body.

In the empty dark house, James took a bath as he planned and went through all the information and experiments he had done in his head.

Immersed in a dreamland, he failed to notice the brilliantly shining scales on his face with his oh so sharp eyes........

***

Benefits from a monster? Greed sure is a lovely evil!