The Last Merman

The Merman came to the surface a little off the coast of Maine, near the little fishing village of Monaok. His large multifaceted eyes were green with sorrow and rage. And in his hand he held the quilled spear his grandsire had given him on his day of awakening.

He was the last of his kind.

He had been hunting with his pack when the sludge came down, black ooze from the sky that drowned his family as they tried to escape. When he and the others returned, there was nothing but distorted bodies and destruction.

His pack vowed vengeance against whatever demons of the sky had done this to them and set out for the peaks of the lost lands to wreak their vengeance. They had to go slowly, their bodies gradually adapting to the lessening pressure, but nothing would deter them.

The way had been difficult. Most had been unable to bear the low pressures of the high lands and had died most painfully in a torrent of gushing blood. Two others had been snatched away by iron nets cast down from the light above. Twisting and writing they had been raised too fast into the sky and their bodies had been torn apart in green explosions of their own flesh. Only he had survived. Now he was in the lands of Hell and his heart was full of a dark and furious rage.

He crawled retching onto the beach, and he was wracked by a terrible sense of isolation, for the Mana was no longer around him, supporting him, loving him. He had left God's country and was now in the lands of the banished ones.

He killed two demons that night, stabbed them while they had stood flabbergasted, watching the flopping thing crawling down the beach towards them. It was easier than he had thought it would be.

During the day he returned to the sea, for the unfiltered light of the sun was unbearable to his eyes, but at night he pulled himself up on the sands of the beach and he hunted. He was clumsy and awkward, for he could barely move, but his arm could throw his quilled spear far further than within the Mana and he was able to strike down the demons from a great distance. He dragged the bodies of his kills back into the Mana and pinned the bodies down under rocks so the surf would not betray him by returning the demons to their Hell.

When the Demons finally caught him, they took him to the most evil place in all their Hell. They sealed him in a box, fed him dead fish, and mocked him.

They called it SeaWorld.