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The water was getting warmer. Leon could feel the softening of the sea on his skin. It was harder to see judge the season changes under the surface but the heat from the sun lingered longer and travelled further the more winter thawed. His kind were deep dwellers and they tended to retreat to the darker depths where it was safe but also cold and dark. He understood why that was but he also knew he wasn’t like the rest of his family very early. He was curious. A terrible trait for a merfolk. Neptune knows, everyone tried to correct those inquisitive impulses in him but they persisted. Since he was a tiny thing with a tail barely strong enough to fight a slack tide, he’d been curious.
They were migratory and inevitably when they moved with the shift of the seasons, Leon and his family neared the surface of the ocean. It was part of their annual pilgrimage and it was the biggest threat to them. The ocean was never a kind or unkind mother. She gave equal affection to all her children. That included creatures far bigger and hungrier than them but merfolk never feared the most ravenous deep sea dwellers as much as the beasts roaming the surface in their wooden boats. Leon heard the stories. Every merchild was raised on the cautionary tales of human cruelties. They were extremely effective at curbing juvenile interest. Usually. Leon heard all the stories and he held the same unkind thoughts about sailors as any of his kind but there was something which kept drawing him towards the surface.
He loved the way the sun turned the waves gold where it kissed the liquid skin of the ocean. They never got that where they lived. The dark depth held its own frigid beauty but that sun… It was mesmerising and Leon was enamoured with it. Since young he’d been plagued by dreams of feeling that light on his skin for more than a brief gulp of air. The few times he’d cheekily snuck away and managed to crest the waves long enough to look around, he saw the way light coloured land. It was so different than the glow they basked in under the water. His family were so plagued by paranoia they rarely ventured even to the lighter levels of the sea. He found it sad.
They hadn’t seen humans in generations and Leon was secretly questioning the validity of the stories. He knew better than to share his thoughts but they festered. It wasn’t like any of them had actually seen a human so how could they know with such certainty the land dwellers were such monsters? Sometimes they encountered other shoals who told them of missing merfolk from their mist who got caught but Leon was sceptical. All the stories sounded the same. Stories of humans luring merfolk and gutting them alive. It was almost too beastly to imagine another sentient creature behaving so crudely towards another living being… Surely even if there were monsters among them, not all of them could be so irredeemable.
Leon, like most mer, only saw humans when they were embraced by the ocean. Sadly the land dwellers didn’t have lungs like them and their mother’s embrace was death for them. Merfolk could live on land for a long time if pushed to it but humans expired almost immediately below the surface. He’d seen the corpses sink slowly deeper and deeper and he’d been curious enough to investigate them. Humans looked almost similar to them, except their strangely split tails. They called them legs and Leon heard how they were used to traverse lands but of course he’d never seen them in action and he found the strange limbs fascinating. According to lore, humans also used them to swim but it was clear from the undeveloped muscles they had to stay near the surface. No way those flesh sticks could resist the powerful pull of a deep sea current. Even if that was possible, their silly lungs would burst like popweed!
The few bodies he’d seen were not…whole by the time they reached the lower levels. Leon wondered if all humans were this bloated and pale. He understood the missing chunks of flesh were evidence of fish fisting during the descent but it wasn’t like they had a comparison. He’d seen strange human tools in the sunken ship graveyard they sometimes swam through, but he’d always been hastily herded away before he could indulge his dangerous curiosities. The pictures he saw framed looked different from the corpses but most were decayed and stripped of their imagery.
Maybe if he was allowed to explore a little, he’d be able to get his answers but all he managed were brief sneaks before his family called for him to return. His family knew how precarious his curiosity was and they were extra vigilant with his whereabouts. Honestly, Leon found it overbearing. He understood the abundance of caution came from a place of care but it felt suffocating. Perhaps this was how humans felt when their lungs flooded with briny water? It was unpleasant.
That didn’t stop him from sneaking away every chance he got of course. He wasn’t doing it to be cruel or make his family worry. He didn’t want to hear his brothers and sisters cry because they feared for his safety. He was being careful. All he wanted was to be a little adventurous and swimming through old wreckage was hardly a hazard. The biggest threat there was splintered wood and the occasional slumbering octopus. But Leon’s family understood something he learned later. The wreckage was just a gateway. Eventually he got more curious and as he got older, the pull of the sun seemed to grow with him.
He wanted to feel that warmth dry the salt on his skin. He heard the stories from the dolphins and wales. They had terrible stories to share of the humans as well but they also mentioned the beauty of the surface. To most merfolk those were just fantasies and they were harmless but to Leon… It fed his restless dreams. His kind had a name for merfolk like him. Sun sick. They were dangerous in their obsession and most shoals abandoned young who showed the signs like Leon. His family had stuck by him, guarding and trying to help him but the yearn was getting harder to ignore.
Some spoke of hushed tales from a distant past when merfolk swam on the surface and drank as much sunlight as they desired. They stayed below the rays until their skins darkened and peeled. Leon couldn’t even imagine such a thing but some mentioned stories of times when merfolk lived on islands, above ground like any human until they yearned for the ocean’s embrace again. Even crazier, the stories claimed those same mermaids lured the humans to their deaths to feast on their flesh! It belayed belief. Leon couldn’t imagine a time when everything he’d been raised to believe was literally turned on his head. In those tales, apparently their ancestors were far more numerous and the sailors far less dangerous. However the humans tipped the scales and his kind sought refuge in the dark subterfuge of the ocean beds. Weather such stories held actual truth to them was impossible to say but his kind certainly believed it.
All Leon knew for certain was that his fatal attraction to the sun wasn’t that insane if those fables held any nugget of honesty. According to the elders that was what made sick mer like himself so dangerous. What if they spread it? Curiosity was contagious, that much was well known, so what if Leon’s silly games became less silly? What if, Neptune forbid, he mothered offspring? His sick interests would surely pass on to them in the way he’d speak of the sun and its alluring beauty. No, it was safer for the shoal if mer like Leon were left to die. It was the kind thing to do and the ocean never wasted anything. Everything that died simply joined the wondrous cycle of the waves in their gallop around the world.
Well, his family loved Leon too much to abandon him. Weather that was a cruelty or a kindness was still hard to say. They’d certainly tried everything to erase the sun’s song out of his head but it endured. For a long time it seemed like Leon was cured but all it took was the accidental caress of the rays across his pale back to melt his blood with barely restrained excitement. He’d followed his family obediently in their migration but when they cozied around one another for the night, secure in the caverns hollowed out in the cliff faces. Surely a little indulge couldn’t hurt. He’d done this dozens of times before and while he felt guilty for deceiving his kind-hearted folk, he just wanted a taste. Leon would be careful. He always was…
It wasn’t night yet but it was getting close. In the lower depths, where his family slept. The sun rays were already retreated but the closer to the surface Leon swam, the warmer the water became. It’d be dark soon and while he loved seeing the strange lights dotting the black canopy above, what he desired most was the golden light. His family would never allow him to risk a swim during the zenith of the sun rise but he’d satiate his hunger during the set.
Leon felt the pleasant heat dance down his arms the more he ascended and he shivered. How lucky were the land denizens who got to experience this delight daily? He was close enough to see the gold dance on the water skin and his pulse quickened. He forced his tail to slow its mad beating before he flew out like a lunatic. The sailfish were already giving all of them a bad reputation.
The waters around Leon was calm and noiseless. He was alone. This far out from most reefs, few ventured and his family were exhausted after the miles they covered. They wouldn’t stir for hours. Leon had the night to himself, albeit he didn’t plan to linger too long. They’d resume their migration tomorrow and he’d need some rest if he hoped to keep up.
Had there been any distraction to divert his unfocused attention, Leon would have missed it. A tiny glow closer to the surface. He tilted his head, curious, and cautiously swam closer. There was something caught below the tiny spark, something tasty. He could smell the blood dripping from it and his stomach churned hungrily. He’d been too preoccupied with his thoughts of the sun to properly eat with his family when they shared their daily meal. He swam closer, intrigued by this unexpected offering of meat so out of place.
Leon glanced around, searching for the body of the creature missing it but he couldn’t see anything. Perhaps he’d missed a fight and someone came out of the scuffle missing some weight? That wasn’t unusual. Perhaps another predator wandered those waters earlier and had a meal? This could be a remnant of whatever fell prey. Also not unusual. Perhaps it was just his lucky day.
Perhaps he should have remembered the wisdom of his kind and been weary of unexpected gifts. The ocean was giving but she taught her children to be cautious of every bounty. How many stories had he heard where his folk were trapped by treacherous gifts dangled from the surface? How many times had he scoffed and declared he wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall for such an obvious trap? Leon almost felt pity for the ones who lamented how their sisters and brothers lost themselves to their curiosity and were never seen again. He’d secretly even judged them for their lapses.
Leon bit on the piece of meat with rapacious hunger. The blood squeezed out and darkened the water as he tightened his jaws on the succulent meal. His nostrils flared so he could drink in the delicious fragrance of and his eyes darkened with the stir of his appetite. His teeth were sharp, perfect for tearing and Leon worked his jaws to rip a strip. It was delicious and he gobbled the exotic meat with unrestrained greed. This was not like any fish he’d tasted. It was richer and there was something herbal which lingered on his pallet. Now that his appetite was wetted, Leon attacked the piece of meat with even more abandon, carelessly fitting the entire chunk inside his mouth and opened his throat to swallow the flesh whole.
He’d forgotten all about the suspicious glint and it was far too late to realize his mistake when the hook caught into the flesh of his throat lining. He felt the painful sting of it dig into the tender tissue and Leon reflexively reeled away, snagging the metal and ripping an agonising cut all the way up. He tasted blood and this time it was his own. Tears stung his eyes and he beat his tail anxiously to get away but the hook caught in his cheek. He felt the metal pierce all the way through, tearing his face. He reached to yank at the painful object but before he managed to tentatively touch his injured cheek, the hook pulled at his skin. The pain ripped a yell out of him and the noise bubbled to the sunny surface.
Merfolk were hardy and they were no strangers to fights but there were very few instances where they’d get hurt. In most instances, it was among themselves and Leon hadn’t made enemies. He wasn’t as familiar with pain as others. The tear of the metal through his cheek felt agonising and he quickly stopped pulling against whatever was stringing him. His vision was blurry but he saw the taught line pulling him towards the surface. It’d been almost translucent when it dangled its dangerous bait but now, as it forced Leon to swim along or suffer more pain, it was impossible to miss.
Leon saw a darkness loom above the surface and he realized with a sudden heart stopping clarity, he was being reeled towards it. The shadow became more and more solid the closer he got and terror finally overpowered all else. This was a ship. Humans. He was being caught just like the stories said. Fear so acute it wiped his thoughts clean overwhelmed his mind. All he could remember was the many cruelties humans did in those stories and his mind screeched for him to escape. Leon forgot all about the pain in his cheek and twisted his powerful tail to get away. Except…
His body didn’t move properly. He felt numbed and he twisted but his jerks were weak. Merfolk had tails so powerful they could break bones but right now he couldn’t even free himself. Panic pickled his brain with anxiety and he couldn’t think. He felt dizzy and his stomach turned nauseatingly. That’s when Leon recalled the mean…the bait. It must have been poisoned with something and he’d eaten it so greedily. He felt it surge back up but it was far too little too late. His head broke the tranquillity of the surface and his mouth gaped to swallow the unfamiliar air. It burned like fire.
‘Holy shit, captain! We caught ourselves a big one!’ He heard voices but they were dissonant. His mind was reeling and Leon trashed with wild desperation as more of his body was pulled free from the ocean’s sheltering waters.
‘Give me a hand!’ Leon trashed. His body was sluggish but desperation gave him strength. For a time it seemed like his efforts were paying off. His tail remained below the surface, rippling despairing waves which reverberated through the impassive ocean. Leon was alone. Nobody would come to his rescue. His family was sleeping peacefully, confident in their security and knowledge they were all together. By the time they’d realize Leon snuck off again… It’d be far too late. He was exhausting quickly. Whatever was making him dizzy make the water feel heavy on his scales, like it clung to them and dragged. His struggling lessened and his anxious gasping hastened. His vision swam and Leon felt things grab at him. At his hair and his arms.
The hook pulled and ripped the gape in his face wider until his nostrils were coated with the spurting blood. He screamed but his voice remained muted. Merfolk could breathe on land but they needed time for their land lungs to kick in. This violent tear from his mother ocean’s womb was excruciating to Leon, as cutting as to any fish on land. His larynx wasn’t working properly to make sound yet and even screaming with all his might, all that came out was hot air which left him heaving harder.
‘This one’s a beaut! Cap’n?’ Leon’s back bloomed with a dull throb as his body was cast out of the water and onto hard wood. He didn’t have a lot of breath left in him and this knocked the rest loose. His tail flicked from side to side, slapping wetly on the planks and agitating the fresh aches burning along his spine.
‘Oh yes… This one will fetch a nice coin. Too bad about its face. It’s pretty enough to sell to a collector but with a cut like that, it’ll be the fish mongers for it. No bother, if we’re going to gut it, we might as well enjoy it first.’ Leon’ stare was unfocused. Out of water, everything seemed brighter and louder. It was over-stimulating and even if his thoughts weren’t stumbling through wet sand, he’d have a hard time focusing. The colours kept melting into each other and hurting his head. The sounds too. He understood them but they were so loud and ugly. All he wanted was to cover his ears but his fingers wouldn’t move properly when he tried. He just kept scraping his nails on the wood until he felt splinters cut into his fingertips.
‘Can’t believe you were right… They do exist…’ Leon’s skull seemed to shrink when a raucous cacophony of gruff laughter answered the awed statement. Leon felt fingers grab at his hair and lift his head off the wood, bending his neck back until the bones protested. He blinked without seeing anything past the blinding glare of the sun. It wasn’t beautiful now, just painful. Dark silhouettes peppered the corners of his eyes but he couldn’t distinguish details. One twisted his neck so he was leering down at Leon and more fingers pinched at his face, squeezing his cheeks cruelly and aggravating his injury. The fingers felt like rough coral and they carelessly pulled the hook out his torn cheek before squeezing the wound so hard Leon reflexively pulled back despite the burn on his scalp.
‘’Course they do. This time of year they migrate in groups. Knew they’d come around this spot eventually. What did I tell you lads?’ More of that dissonant cheering. ‘And, where there’s one, there’s more. We’ll sell this one for meat but we’ll get our chance to fetch a better price for a whole siren tomorrow. Now that we caught up with them, we’ll fish them dry.’ His family! Leon screamed more hot air and wept uselessly. They warned about his dangerous sickness bringing calamity to the mer around him and today he’d proved every elder who urged his abandonment right. Because of his curiosity, he’d practically waved a flag for the fishermen to find his family. And he couldn’t even warn them. All of them sleeping peacefully and unaware with their tails and arms around one another for comfort and warmth, innocently dreaming while land monsters celebrated their catch. And all Leon could do was cry…
‘But… This one’s a male, isn’t it?’ That hesitant voice from before. It sounded more timid than this monster they called Captain. As if to prove him right, the Captain bellowed a mean spirited laugh and so close Leon filched as if physically struck by the noise.
‘Disappointed it doesn’t have tits? Or a cunt?’ Whistles and laughs. Leon was slowly regaining his sight but he kept blinking. His eyeballs were drying so quickly out of water and they stung when he tried to focus on any one shape.
‘I…’ The timid voice stuttered and that elicited more lascivious laughter.
‘Relax kid. Those things are hermaphrodites. They all have pussies and you’ll get your tits on another. Here, let me show you.’ Leon felt a very brief moment of unbidden relief when the hand let go of his hair and the burn on his scalp eased but then other hands grabbed at his shoulders and pushed him flat on his back. He struggled but those course palms were strong and he was sapped.
‘Grab the tail and hold it. Careful now. Even drugged, those things can give a decent wallop.’ Unknown sailors rushed to follow the Captain’s orders and Leon’s fins were pinned down. He rose as much as he could to see what the monsters were doing to him but with his shoulders pinned and glaring sun blanching the world to a searing white, it was just more shifting shadows moving too fast for his lethargic mind to track properly.
‘Come here and pay attention. I’ll show you how to handle one of them. I’ll show you the way my Captain showed me.’ Rough fingers on his waist, on his drying scales. ‘This is where they have their egg purse. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch one with eggs. Those things sell for a lot. Rich types eat them like caviar. Figure this one’s barren but it never hurts to check.’
Leon’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open to scream out air. Fingers dug into the folds of his lower abdomen. They knew what they were doing and crudely pushed aside the tight seam of his scales to open him up. It hurt. The hands were too rough and he was too tender. His tail tensed and shook but it stayed pinned to the wood. Thick fingers forced themselves inside him, scraping along the tender walls of his opening. The nails dragged until they scraped, seeking deep along the soft crevices for eggs he hadn’t produced yet. The stretch was too wide as more of the hand shoved inside him, going deeper and making him bleed. The dispassionate sun dried Leon’s hot tears on his cheeks.
‘Holy shit Cap’n! You got your whole fist in there!’ The monster holding his shoulders down laughed like this violation was funny. He did his best to breathe but every inhale of dry air reminded him of the hand inside his guts. The fingers were still moving, scraping and tearing. It was an immense relief when they pulled out, just as painfully as when they entered.
‘Course I did. All those things are loose. I tell you, once you had mermaid pussy, a whore just doesn’t compare.’ Leon was getting used to the pain of the laughter and he grit his teeth to bear it. He had other agonies to keep him distracted. He felt the warm leak of his blood trickle out his purse and he gasped though the waves of pain. It didn’t help much.
‘You look excited kid. Ready to pop your cherry on mermaid cunt?’ He didn’t recognise this voice but it was just as brutish as the rest.
‘It’s nice and open for you. Juicy too. Those things always get wet from a man’s cock, trust me.’ The captain spoke with far too much conviction for Leon to hope he hadn’t done those vile brutalities to others. Others of his kind. He tried not to, but his thoughts wandered to his family. They’d suffer the same fate.
‘C’mon kid, don’t be shy. We’re all going to get a turn but since you’re new, we’ll give you the honours.’ A head splitting cheer. Leon’s eyes rolled in their sockets and he saw more edges in the face above him. A grin missing a front tooth. A new weight settled over his upper tail. He couldn’t rise enough to see what it was. Perspiration started running down his face, or maybe it was more tears. His eyes stung too much to tell. Merfolk didn’t sweat unless they were on land and Leon was unfamiliar with the feeling. The sudden prying of his purse again made him violently flinch. Fingers were opening it once more, a little more hesitantly than he first time but it still hurt. They pushed into him, palpitating around curiously.
‘Oh wow. It feels just like the real thing. But…colder?’ Leon recognised the voice and perhaps there was a tiny flutter of hope in the recesses of his terror stricken brain which dared imagine the hesitant sailor might hold some kindness in him. That flutter was crushed to death when that same sailor fingered his purse with all the curiosity of a child tearing insect wings to see what happened.
‘Well yeah. It’s not a human cunt and don’t forget it. Those things might try looking like us but they’re monsters. They don’t have feelings but they’re good at pretending. You forget what they are and you end up with a nasty scar like this.’ Another shadow cast itself over Leon’s dizzy stare. He recognised this one by the voice. It was the Captain and he could focus enough to see what the human touched. He was moving his fingers over a long scar across his face, stretching from lip to eye. Leon traced it and flinched at the unadulterated vitriol he saw in the man’s glare when he reached the blue eye. He’d felt the frost of arctic seas but that glare felt colder.
‘Should…Should I use protection?’ A moment of stunned silence and Leon was relieved the Captain twisted his face away. It felt like he could breathe again, even if the breath brought misery. For some reason he couldn’t articulate, Leon preferred the stabbing pain poking between his ribcage to that rage he’d seen in the bottomless voids of the captain’s eye. It reminded him of the deep sea floor, so deep even his kind refused venturing. It reminded him of squalls so unforgiving they split the very seas.
‘Are you kidding? Afraid you’ll fuck it pregnant?’ The Captain’s voice was cracking with humour.
‘N-No… What if it has something?...’ The sailors laughed and it was obvious the speaker felt embarrassed from the way his voice faded.
‘You’ll be fine. But if you’re too chicken, move over. One of the others will be happy to take your place.’ Cheers and whistles. A few enthusiastic agreements too.
‘N-No! I want to fuck it!’ Leon couldn’t believe he’d ever thought this brute understood the meaning of kindness. All the stories were true. Humans truly were irreprehensible. If only he’d been wise enough to listen…
But his self-indulgent moment of pity was gone. He felt the split of his opening as something thicker and hotter than fingers thrust through his flesh. It stunned him for a second and the thing slipped out to repeat the violation. He’d only seen cocks on the bloated corpses but Leon understood the purpose of the bizarre appendages. Merfolk had similar lengths which grew out their purses if mating required it. As the captain said, they were hermaphroditical. He understood what the monster was doing to him and continued mutely screaming hot air to the voyeuristic sun.
‘That’s it lad! Looks like you forgot all about your worries. Feels great doesn’t it?’ The Captain laughed merrily and the sailors echoed the terrible noise. Leon’s belly quivered sickeningly as the fleshy organ fucked him deeply. The tears opened by the fingers widened and bled more furiously.
‘Oh fuck… Feels amazing!’ Whistles and claps. They felt like thunder slaps against Leon’s eardrums. ‘Think I’m gonna cum! Oh fuck!…’ He felt the wet heat flood his body. Thick and viscous and far, far too deep inside him. Leon turned his head and vomited saltwater. A few chunks of the poisoned meat he’d foolishly ate burned up his oesophagus.
‘Congratulations on your first fuck and a mermaid at that. Lucky brat. Now move over. There’s others waiting to have their go.’ Leon blinked, his eyelids opening with growing difficulty. He wanted to just fade away but of course that was a kindness he wasn’t allowed. The time for kindness was gone, left behind below the waves. He felt another engorged rod split him. It throbbed and churned the disgusting mess inside his purse. Then another when this one emptied rotten seed inside his body.
‘Don’t you want a go captain?’ The hands which dutifully kept his shoulders down were gone. Leon barely twitched anymore. He felt too weak and the sun was a lot hotter on his virgin skin. If this was the cruel lash of it close to setting, Leon shuddered at the blister of the rays at its zenith. There was nothing beautiful about the ball of fire. He’d been a fool and his leaking purse was testament to his fatal choices.
‘Course I do. Was being generous in letting you rats go first. I like them sloppy anyway.’ The monster currently fucking him continued grunting his bestial delight while the captain grabbed Leon’s face and turned it again so they could lock eyes. That rage was mixed with satisfaction at the shattered state of him.
‘You’re a strange man Cap’n.’ Whomever spoke laughed and Leon suffered the noise in forced silence. He felt more spunk drench his guts. Too much to stay inside his stuffed body and it bubbled out in gross spurts.
‘Think I can get his dick to come out?’ The Captain kept holding Leon’s stare hostage and he saw the shift of the scar as the man grinned.
‘I’ll pay you double salary if you do.’ A mixture of laughs mingled with groans. Some claimed it wasn’t fair, some shouted encouragement. None mentioned kindness.
‘His dick?’ Leon hadn’t heard the hesitant sailor’s voice for a while. All of them mixed together in one murky discord. The only reason he recognised it at all was because the rest hushed to let him speak.
‘Oh you’ll like this rookie. Show him, if you can.’ The Captain’s finger pushed deliberately into the open hole of his cheek inside Leon’s mouth. He felt the poke on his tongue and tasted the bloody grime. His tears seemed to please the watching monster.
Fingers kept his purse open and more felt along the lips to the sensitive nub cresting the seams. It was shrunken but the accidental rubs of the men against it as they fucked him stimulated it enough to make it plump up enough to stick out the protective casing. A mer’s cock grew out if mating required it or if it was pleasured. The latter was the furthest thing from Leon’s mind but his body had nerve endings as sensitive as any human’s. His physiological response to the fingers rubbing the nub insistently had nothing to do with pleasure. Leon’s cheeks reddened with dumb but undeniable shame at his cock engorging. His blood grew hotter and he hated how the Captain leered at him, fingering his wound like he’d done with his purse.
‘It really is a dick. Leaking and everything. Is it really enjoying this?’ Leon hummed, a tiny noise and the only thing he’d managed to make in all his attempts.
‘Course it is. Told you they were all loose.’ The Captain laughed, a sound like broken glass. Leon didn’t know where he found the strength but his useless arm lashed out to claw at the scarred face. He needed it gone. He couldn’t bear the stare of that eye a second longer. He managed to slap the face but his power betrayed him when he tried to claw the skin. He’d have loved to add more reminders to the monster’s visage but all he managed was to barely push him away before his arm fell heavily back on wood. The Captain turned to look back at him and the smile was gone. The arctic frost sharped his glare and Leon could almost taste the bitterness of his rage. It was insanity but he smiled, feeling a mad victory in the resistance.
‘Captain! You ok?’ Another monster was quick to pin his arms back down but they needn’t bother. Leon was truly done now. The captain pulled his bloody fingers out his cheek and ran them across his scar. Then the smile returned slowly and Leon realized he was still capable of feeling more fear.
‘Think it’s time to start carving this fish up. Get me the cleaver.’ Leon’s heart fluttered madly in his chest and the seconds it took for whomever to fetch the requested tool, felt like a small eternity. Time came to a standstill and all he had to look at was the horrific abhorrence clawing behind the Captain’s blue eyes. This monster resented the waste of Leon’s every breath and whatever was making him smile like that terrified the mer.
‘Here you are Cap’n.’ Leon didn’t dare tear his eyes away to look at whatever was handed to the man. He felt it before he understood it. A powerful drop of a blade across his shoulder socket. It reverberated through the space of his cells and the marrow of his bones. The blade hacked through his flesh but caught on the bone. So it rose and fell again, carving deeper. The shock was so intense it briefly stunned the pain. He didn’t feel it but his blood spurted across his face and he turned his head to look. When he saw the large blade splitting his arm from the rest of his body, everything else rushed to assault him. The pain, the fear, the loss, the rage. It was all tearing him apart and he screeched, voice finally breaking out. The sailors stepped back at the cry but not the Captain. The Captain grinned and held his other arm down to butcher it off.
‘There. Like cutting through butter.’ The monster laughed with a face red with fresh blood. The cackle seemed to rouse the cruel spirits of his crew and they soon joined in, shaking themselves out of their momentary petrification. Leon couldn’t look away from his useless arm, stretched out where it had once been except he couldn’t twitch his fingers no matter how hard he tried.
‘I’ll hook them up to bleed them.’ Someone spoke and reached to take his limbs away.
‘We’ll string this one to dry in the sun over there. His blood will attract the rest of them.’ Leon whimpered when he couldn’t follow his arms anymore, finally starting to understand what just happened. ‘Now move over. Still haven’t gotten my turn.’
The loudest cheers yet followed this declaration but Leon hardly cared anymore. His thoughts were slipping like water though his fingers. He was vaguely aware of the familiar weight settling on his tail and another cock penetrating him. He groaned dully and barely registered the pain lightning striking his exposed nerves as the Captain rocked his body. A sudden slap across his face made him blink but he was still miles away. Another slap and Leon realized the Captain was demanding his attention. He did his best to roll his eyes towards him but his thoughts remained disconnected. No amount of fresh pain the monsters visited on him could mend the splintered shards of his mind.
‘Useless fish. It’s like fucking a corpse.’ Which was not enough to stop.
‘There’s no helping it. It’s bleeding out.’ The Captain cursed and grabbed his waist in a vice, fucking him with brutal jabs of his thick cock. Leon’ slighter body was dragged across the wood to impale his purse on the man’s rod. His innards were so loosened he couldn’t tell if this man’s appendage was any different to any of his crew. He moaned a puff of air when the Captain released inside him. He seemed determined to add insult to injury and took the time to play with Leon’s cock enough to pull a pathetic spittle of cum out. The meagre spurts entertained the gawkers immensely and they cheered their captain with an encore.
‘Time to gut it and hang it out to dry. Pay attention rookie. You’re prepping the next one.’
‘Yes sir!’ Leon saw from the corner of the eye the glint of the deceitful sun bounce of the cleaver’s edge. He was beyond feeling terror and he just followed the tool with dead fish eyes. ‘You start at the purse then cut straight up to the ribs. Just follow the line of the belly to split it.’ The blade cut into his purse and just as the Captain said, moved up to burst his belly. Leon saw his flesh split and the pink contents spill out. It was crazy he didn’t feel any of it.
‘Once you reach the sternum you stop and move back down to the pelvis. They have similar skeletons to us up to the hip so it’s easy to separate the tail from the torso. Like this.’ Leon heard more than saw the squelching carve of his meat. His scales were hard and they slipped off the knife edge with a hiss. He didn’t feel the cuts but when it was done, a strange weightlessness registered to his numbed senses. Leon stared with an inexplicable morbid fascination as one of the sailors carried his tail. He realized that weight absence was being lifted in the air and the sailor pushed two large hooks into the meat, just as he’d down with the arms.
‘Sometimes you can sell the tails as a unit but since we played with this one, we’ll just descale it and fillet the meat. It’s tougher and less pricy but the scales sell to jewellers and scam artist who claim they have medicinal properties.’
‘Medicinal properties?’ The Captain chuckled, still running his knife with expert precision along Leon’s chest, following the sternum to the neck to perfectly butterfly his skin over his ribcage.
‘Oh yeah. Some people will believe anything. Sold a few cocks too. They claimed if you eat mermaid dick it helps with your libido. We’ll dry and sell this one too.’
‘That’s crazy.’ The Captain laughed and nodded.
‘Fuck if I care. Long as the money’s good.’ A chorus of agreement. ‘Now all you gotta do is string it up and let it dry in the sun for a day. Make sure to keep it nice and salted. After it’s done, we pull out the rest of the guts and organs, separate the useful ones like the liver and kidneys to sell separately, and strip the meat. Easy. Think you can handle it rookie?’ Leon was barely present. He was alive in the strictest meaning of the word but the gathering monsters could literally see the shortening of his breaths in the pathetic inflation of his exposed lungs. Hands hoisted him off the floor, hooking fingers into his rib bones to yank him up. Hooks pushed into the bleeding meat of his shoulders and that he did feel. Leon couldn’t say what vitriolic duty saw fit to return his senses now but he registered every twist of the meat hooks into him. He would have screamed or cried if he still had the strength for any of that.
‘Do you think more will really show up?’ The hesitancy was gone from this sailor’s voice as he hoisted Leon’s remains over the side of the ship to fix him to the capping. Blood waterfell down the side of the boat and stained the ocean below to a bright vermillion. Leon couldn’t turn his head anymore but he knew his tail and arms were fixed right beside him, like puzzle pieces pulled apart.
‘No doubt in my mind. They’ll smell the blood and recognise it as one of their own. I told you, they might look like us but they’re stupid animals. They’ll come flocking and get caught just like this one.’
‘Hopefully we’ll catch some whole next time.’ Leon squinted, realizing he was forced to stare right into the blazing sun. He closed his eyes, thinking of his hatred for the star to his dying breath.
‘Don’t worry rookie. You’ll get your chance to see mermaid tits. Fuck them too.’