CCstiles

It wasn’t supposed to keep going this long. Robert knew that.

Yet he couldn’t let go.

~~~~~~

A distress report came in from a gathering of fishing boats three kilometers off the coast— damaged nets, deep gouges carved into the hulls, one sailor dragged overboard badly enough to need stitches. The culprit was supposedly an aggressive merman haunting the waters near the reef shelf.

Nothing unusual.

Most conflicts between merfolk and humans came down to injury, territorial disputes, or panic. Robert had handled dozens over the years working with the aquarium’s marine rehabilitation division. Usually a sedative dart, some patience, and a temporary holding tank solved the problem.

Usually.. ..

The first time Robert encountered him had been six months earlier during a storm rescue operation.

A fishermans boat had crossed illegally into protected migration waters . Visibility was terrible— rain lightning and thunder the whole works. Robert remembered shouting through the radio while the engines screamed beneath him.

When the net had surfaced it wasnt empty.

Something inside it had thrashed hard enough to snap the steel hooks in a panic one of the crew tried cutting the lines loose. Robert still remembered the sound more than the sight— a wet, horrible tearing noise swallowed by thunder.

Two fingers hit the deck first.

Then blood.

Bright red against rainwater.

The creature broke free before Robert could stop it.

A flash of blazing orange and reds disappeared beneath the sea, Robert had dived after him despite the storm, lungs burning, hands numb from cold, but the ocean swallowed him whole.

But it ..he ? Was gone.

No blood trail. Nothing.

Robert filed the report himself afterward:

Failure to secure injured specimen.

He thought about it more often than he should have.

And now here he was again, staring through reinforced aquarium glass at the same creature he’d failed.

The interns had affectionatly named him Flambae.

Stupid name. Ridiculous, honestly. But it stuck almost immediately because of the patterns along his tail— vivid streaks of molten orange fading into black scales, like flames .

And God, he was violent just like them.

Caretakers came out bleeding more often than not. He bit through gloves, shattered feeding poles against the tank walls, slammed his own body hard enough against the acrylic that alarms triggered across the rehabilitation wing. The missing fingers on his left hand had healed badly, jagged scar tissue visible on the two nubs

Robert had never seen a merman sustain that level of aggression for so long.

Progress with Flambae remained nonexistent for nearly three weeks after his arrival.

He attacked handlers on sight. Refused enrichment. Refused medication unless sedated first. The acrylic walls of his enclosure were webbed with stress fractures from the force of his body slamming against them during episodes. Every morning Robert arrived expecting another incident report waiting on his desk.

Most of the staff had started avoiding Rehabilitation Wing C entirely.

“You should transfer the huge fucker” chase an older handler and robert mentor gumbled after Flambae nearly dislocated a caretaker’s shoulder during feeding. “He’s too unstable.”

Robert only stared through the observation glass.

Flambae floated near the bottom of the tank tail curled beneath him, fiery patterns dim beneath sterile aquarium lighting.

And still—

every time Robert entered the room, those amber eyes followed him.

Always him.

It should have unsettled him more than it did.

—

Then it happened

A cargo vessel had passed too close to the aquarium docks that morning, its engine vibrations carrying through the facility . The moment Flambae heard it, he went feral.

By the time Robert arrived, the enclosure looked catastrophic.

One of the enrichment structures had been ripped apart.Flambae thrashed hard enough to trigger warning alarms throughout the wing.

Then Robert saw the blood.

Dark streaks drifting through seawater.

“Shit—”