Canât stop thinking about deep water mer!Ghost:
Youâre scuba diving around wrecks, you find a pretty little shell buried in the sand inside one and turn around to show your diving partner, but they are nowhere to be seen. You turn in a circle, look up and down to see if theyâve drifted from you, but all that greets your eyes is the old wood of the wreck and dark water.
You kick your fins to propel yourself towards the gaping hole in the hull you thought you both came through to explore inside the old thing, and take a good look around outside the ship.
Just as you are about to start your ascent to see if you can find your partner on the surface, movement catches your eye towards the rear of the ship. You turn towards it, but itâs gone behind the other side of the wreck, out of sight.
You swim along the upside down hull to the other side, mentally preparing the earful youâre going to give your partner as soon as you get back above water. You place your hands on the wood and peer over the other side, expecting to see them making some âhaha got youâ hand signs at you.
But all you see is the ocean floor. The same sand as the other side, and some large craggy rocks, but those are too far away for your partner to have swam to before you saw them.
You look to the left and right, along the side of the hill, but thereâs no other diver.
You grumble to yourself and slip over the side just to make sure there isnât another hole they could be hiding from you in. But no, this side of the ship is just a smooth curve, nowhere for a person to hide. You sigh and resign yourself to meeting with them at the surface.
Then you see something, again, out of the corner of your eye, and you almost want to head up anyways just to spite them for being stupid and reckless, but you turn towards the rocks, already glaring.
Itâs not your partner, not even another diver. Your first thought is âshark,â but then it moves again, coming out from behind the rocks, and your heart almost stops.
You know it what it is instantly, even though you can hardly make yourself believe it. You think you might have nitrogen sickness, or the pressure is messing with you, but all you can do is stare, frozen.
Because across the sandy ocean floor, less than twenty meters away from you, is a mer.
Like something literally out of a storybook, or some fanfiction AU. Itâs huge, and its dark eyes are locked on you, and- and itâs coming right towards you. Fast.
You barely have time to flail your fins, trying to kick away before itâs on you.
Its claws dig into your arms even through your wetsuit, as it holds you like some interesting little thing itâs found.
Your limbs are twitching, like they want to do something but your brain hasnât caught up to tell them what yet. Your breath comes in shaky, panting gasps through your regulator, bubbles obscuring half of your vision.
And then your mask is gone.
You squeeze your eyes shut as saltwater floods over them, trying to remember not to breathe through your nose.
Now youâre properly terrified, you canât see and the creature keeps grabbing at your gear, pulling at it curiously (you think). You are afraid to try to push it away, what if it thinks youâre attacking and gets violent? You really donât fancy being torn apart by those inch-long claws you caught a brief glimpse of before your mask was torn off.
It pokes at your face, and you flinch, then you feel it tug on your regulator, and your hands fly up to hold it in your mouth.
Its hands move to the rest of your gear, flinching away briefly when a pull to your inflator releases the rest of the air from your vest, but resuming its assault soon after. You hear a ripping noise, and your entire vest is pulled away from your back, along with your cylinder full of air. You grab the hose connected to your regulator in a last ditch attempt to keep your access to air as you lose contact with your life support.
You canât take it anymore, you have to see what is happening. You force your eyes open slowly, and they sting angrily when the saltwater touches them.
Your vision is blurry, but the creature is now so close you can see the white patterning streaking across its face, almost skull-like. It brings its face even closer when it sees your eyes have opened, would almost be touching your nose if the regulator wasnât in the way.
Now you can see that its eyes arenât black like you originally thought. A ring of whiskey-brown surrounds the large pupil, creating a human likeness that makes you pause.
Your grip loosens just enough for it to yank the regulator out of your mouth.
You jerk, and flail quickly for your backup, only to have that also ripped from you before it reaches your mouth. You make a panicked sound in the back of your throat, and your need to survive takes over.
You need to get to the surface. You shove at the creature holding you, struggling and thrashing in its hold. It tugs you down though, nosing against the skin of your face and neck.
Your hands fly to your mouth and over your nose, trying desperately to keep from breathing in, your chest spasming. Youâve never felt such tightness in your lungs before, it hurts, your brain needs air but you know breathing in wonât get you it.
The rest of your body locks up, no longer able to fight when you need air so badly. Maybe the mer takes this as a surrender, because it makes a satisfied rumbling sound, not unlike an orca, and grips you tighter.
Its eyes are wide and locked on your face, not that you notice through the panic, but it leans closer, still making that satisfied churring noise as your face turns red, then purple.
You finally lose the battle with your body, and take an involuntary, tiny breath in. You start choking immediately, seawater flooding your lungs.
You think this must be one of the worst ways to die, itâs horrible, it hurts so bad. You want to be anywhere but here, hundreds of feet of water above you, trapped under the claws of something that wasnât supposed to exist.
As your consciousness fades, the last thing you feel aside from the pain in your chest is the feeling of claws ripping through your wetsuit and across your ribs.
One last new, hot flash of pain before you feel nothing else.