It was dark and cold, save for tiny slits no thicker than a fingernail that danced stripes of light over the young Mer's body. She shivered. She was tiny, and yet the dark cage was smaller still, forcing her to curl into a tight ball to fit properly. It was not hard to cool up, but after so long remaining motionless, her muscles were beginning to ache.

Her pen lurched sharply and Kera whimpered. She dug her nails into the thick, porous barricade that surrounded her on all sides. It was like the twigs and driftwood that sometimes floated along the surface, but much stronger. It creaked as she dug into it and she winced as slivers bit into the pads of her fingers. She pulled her hands away.

When they’d first dropped her inside, the humans had dumped large, sodden heaps over her to keep her moist, but she was breathing dry air. Dusty, heavy air that hung in her lungs and choked her with a lingering smell of rot. Her confinement jerked again, the force throwing her bodily into the side and soliciting a fearful warble from deep in her throat. Her deep blue scales knocked against her chin and she grit her teeth to keep from biting her lip or tongue.

While the crate was previously in motion, this time the jerking had been to pull it to a halt and Kera sat with her heart thinking wildly within her chest as she strained for any noise or indicator. She no longer had a concept of time, sealed up in the dark like this, but it felt like ages passed before her shaking started.

The tremors gradually worsened until there was finally a sharp splintering sound and light flooded her field of view, forcing her to squint. Her azure eyes blinked several times to clear her vision, but once it had, she almost wished it had not. A large pair of hands, coated in a strange, thick brown material were descending towards her. She shrunk back and hissed softly, her lips pulling back to reveal tiny fangs. The child's attempt was rather pathetic and did nothing to impede the hands' approach.

Kera whined low in the back of her throat and tried to shy away but there was nowhere to go still trapped as she was. The hands clamped tightly around the base of her tail, crushing the sides of her fin where it met the scales and she cried out, the sound barely louder than a squeak.

Her heart was pounding desperately within her chest as she was lifted and swung around out of her cage in a single fluid motion. Kera's eyes swam in her head as her surroundings spun. She bucked weakly in the clenched grasp suspending her upside down. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes at the deep ache spreading through the top of her tail, which was not meant to support the rest of her weight. Terrified clicks spilled unbidden from her lips as she was swung one more and released. She dropped the short distance and connected with the ground – which was coated in a smooth, hard surface that was unlike anything Kera had ever felt before and was could to the touch – with aloud smack as her forearms hit first, followed by the clack of her scales as her tail crashed down behind her.

Kera winced and then scrambled backwards, curling her throbbing tail close to her side and gazing around. She hissed again, showing her teeth like she had been taught, but she could not stop the tears that welled in her eyes and distorted her vision. She did feel very threatening.

Clearly the humans did not find her overly intimidating either because they all simply stared at her with varying levels of interest. There were five of them – including the one who had grabbed at her – all standing around. There were two in her immediate view, and the one was still behind her casting a shadow over her, while the final two stood more to either side, flanking her. She felt just as penned in as she had in the wood box and the twitch of her cerulean fin betrayed her stress.

One of the humans stepped forward. A burly Male with no hair - except for a brown bushy bunch that sprouted around his nose. Kera found it an odd spot but then, humans and Mer were very different. He was cloaked in a long white garb – they all were – and had his hands stuffed out of sight into holes on either side. He towered over her and stared down his long nose with hard blue-black eyes that made her cringe. His voice was loud and deep as he barked at the others in a language she did not yet understand. Mer were usually able to rapidly understand a dialect, even if it took them longer to replicate it, but Kera was still very young and often struggled with the feat.

A conversation struck up and Kera could not help but swivel her head in the direction of each new voice that joined in. The humans all loomed over her and their garble was eager and boisterous, and it only wound her nerves tighter until her quivering began anew.

Then the final voice joined the talk, piping up behind her with a low, sinister tone that chilled Kera's heart. She started when the man began to talk and slid a bit further away. The moment she moved, she had five pairs of eyes staring at her. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes to drip down her cheeks as she sunk low to the ground and cowered.

The human that initiated the conversation broke the silence once more. Kera managed to catch a single word. Begin. Begin what? She swallowed the lump in her throat and chewed her lip until it slit and the sharp tang of her blood spread over her tongue. Part of her wished she had not understood. The humans began to disperse, though most seemed reluctant. One lingered, another male with strange pieces of sea glass covering his eyes, held in place by a rigid strip perched on his nose. He had his head cocked as he watched her, and she shuffled beneath his gaze. There was none of the hungry eagerness the others had displayed and instead it was a calm wonder that lurked in his hardened gaze, as though there was strategy to figure her out. She did not like this curiosity any more than she did the others and she bared her teeth uselessly once more.

The human began to chuckle and with a shrug of his shoulders, turned and walked away. His departure left her alone with the human that brought her in. For a moment, she had almost forgotten about him until his hands squeezed down around her tail once more. She cried out as she was dragged across the ground and then hoisted up and dropped bodily onto a hard smooth surface that clanged loudly when her scales connected with it. She tried to twist and curl back up again, but his hand was like a vice as he shoved her down and pinned her by the back of her neck. Spittle flew from Kera's lips as her tail thrashed and she wrenched at her head in an effort to get free. She hissed , but it was a desperate noise clogged with fear.

The man clucked his tongue and squeezed at her neck until Kera gagged on her lack of air. Each breathe was a wheeze and she could barely get anything into her lungs. Feeling dizzy, she collapsed and fell limp as her vision spun with angry black dots. Only once she was completely still did his grip loosen enough for her to grasp and fill her lungs.

Kera's breathing remained ragged and shallow as her stress levels elevated. Her vision spun and her body caved to the fear, falling to a limp dead weight against the frigid surface that raised bumps along her skin. She had never felt so alone or afraid before and desperately longed for her mother’s warm, comforting arms to gather her up and hold her until she calmed and the nightmare faded away. As thick straps were pulled over her back and tail and tightened to hold her down, Kera closed her eyes and tried to imagine being back home. The sound of her mother’s steady heartbeat, her smooth kelp green scales warm against Kera's cheek. Her father planting a hand on her head, making her feel loved and protected. She grasped for her comforts against the stark horror that had become her reality. While it brought her a brief reprieve and rush of warmth, her moment was shattered by a loud squeak as the surface she was on lurched into motion. It was a bumpy ride and Kera whimpered and tried to push against the bindings holding her down, but the child was not physically strong enough to resist and helpless against whatever the humans intended with her.

Later that night – at least she thought it was night; it was dark and quiet but she could not see the sky to know if it held sun or stars – Kera lay shaking and alone. She was back in the water and for that she was grateful – she did not like being dry or held out of the water where she could barely move and everything stood high above her like threatening beasts. Every time she closed her eyes, her mind flashed back to what had happened.

They had taken her to a bright room with a harsh light that hurt her eyes. There had been so many hands, but they felt funny. They had been coated in oddly colored substances that smelled off and rubbed along her flesh in an almost sticky manner. They had pulled at her arms and her tail, forcing her limbs to bend in all directions until it hurt. They had seemed especially fascinated with how her tail moved. Kera had squirmed the whole while, hissing fearfully at them, but it had only made them squeeze her tighter. One of the humans had pulled her arm a little too far and hard the wrong way. She heard the snap only a heartbeat before she felt it, but Kera had never screamed so loud before. Raw agony had ripped up her arm and left her sobbing.

After they had broken it, the humans forced her to lay still under a noisy white box that flashed bright lights in her eyes, and then they had stared at a black thing with bones on it that made her shudder. She had cried when they moved her broken arm some more, but they had pressed it to her chest and coated it in a thick hard shell that prevented her from bending it. It squeezed too tight and she wanted to chew at it still, but they had coated it in a sticky goo that tasted very poorly and forced her to back off.

The humans had plucked some of her scales and jabbed her with a thin pointy object that pulled her blood into a tiny container. One of the humans had sliced his thumb on her fang when they had pried her mouth open to look at her teeth. It would have been satisfying if he had not backhanded her like it was her fault. Her face still stung from the blow.

But the worst thing was when they focused on her fin. They had pressed it flat and the man who brought her in had used a sharp, shiny spine to slice a piece off. It had only been a tiny piece, but it had been agonizing. If she felt along the edge, she could find the but that was a little too flat and smooth, unlike the rest of her fin edge that had lots of ground as and tiny bumps. It burned mightily whenever she moved it which was why Kera was lying flat with her belly against the cold glass of the new, clear cage she was being kept in. The water was shallow enough that if she sat up, she would be breathing air again, but at least it was larger that the wood cage. She could swim about two strokes in any direction if she wanted.

She shivered. She wanted to go home. Kera had been starting to understand the human language a lot more by the time they had left her alone. Although most of what they said made little sense because she did not know the objects or ways of land, it did not seem they had any intent in releasing her. They wanted to study her. Kera was frightened of what that meant. She wanted to tell them to put her back in the ocean, that she wanted to find her family again, but she could not. She could learn to mimic their words if she wanted, but she did not want to speak to them. Her parents had warned her to stay away from the people of land because they were greedy and destructive with an insatiable curiosity. They felt the need to take apart everything they did not understand until they did. She had seen it today. Once they had found out her tail could bend and flex, they had wanted to try it with the rest of her body, and she had earned a broken bone for their efforts she did not want to know what they would do if they learned she could understand any language after a small frame of time. They might RIP open her head or ears to try to figure out why.

Kera had always been wary of humans after the warnings the adult Mer always gave, but now they were nightmarish monsters come to life and they terrified her with what they could do to her.

Kera abruptly sat up, bursting through the surface of the water with a gasp. She could not take the dead, stale taste of the lifeless water anymore. She bit her lip and felt more tears brim in her eyes as she hugged her good arm around her waist. She began to rock back and forth, finding little other comforts in her surroundings. Squeezing her eyes shut, she began to murmur to herself in the soft clicks of dolphin whistle, the language she knew best. “Mommy, she whimpered. “Please, I want to go home. Come find me. I need you.”

With no one else to talk to, she spoke to the emptiness, repeating herself for a little while with tears flowing down her cheeks. After some time, Kera was startled put of her trance by the sound of footsteps. She spun around with wide, horrified eyes, convinced it was another human come to drag her back for more ‘samples' and hurt her again. Instead, she caught the retreating expression of wonder and thoughtfulness on the older man who had regarded her like a riddle earlier. He was gone in a few heartbeats and she was alone again, but she could not shake the look on his face from her mind. She was young, but she was not stupid – at least, she did not think she was – and he seemed like he had just discovered something he liked. But she had not done anything new, had she?

As she thought about it, another sound reached her ears. It was faint and grainy, like spoken with hands covering the mouth, but above her was a faintly musical voice. It was speaking in human tongue, but did not appear to be speaking to anyone directly. Instead it sounded like singing. Had it been there the whole time? Kera gulped and sunk low in the water until it hugged the bridge of her nose just beneath her eyes. She stared at the door the man had left through. She knew that sometimes Mer could get pulled from speaking in one tongue to another without realizing if they heard it had she been speaking in his language? Had she just made things so much worse for herself?