Mermaid Effect

Kansas, USA——

2:00AM

Rand suddenly opened his eyes in the darkness.

Like a fish out of water, he arched his back and bounced uncontrollably off the bed, breathing so rapidly that he had to tilt his head back slightly to let air into his lungs, from his throat There was a series of squeezing sounds from the depths, and he wasn't even fully awake, his hands were nervously tugging on the sheets while his body was shaking.

The light from the pale yellow street lamps came in from the window and hit the ceiling.Occasionally a car passes by, passing a moving halo.

Rand opened his eyes, his gaze trembling in the darkness.

The room was so quiet that the clock ticked faintly as it ticked.

He slowly realized that he had just had a nightmare.

It was a vague dream, and the scene in it was nothing more than a child playing hide-and-seek--of course, the child was actually Rand himself.In the dream, he returned to the person who was more than ten years ago, curling his body into a ball as much as possible like a hedgehog being attacked.

He hid in a small wardrobe, the air was filled with the overly sweet and thick smell of vanilla lavender bags, and he was panting violently, his throat was sore and itchy because of the tightness.

The temperature was very high, and he was going crazy with heat.And in his sweat-drenched sight, the door of the closet opened a tiny gap, and a light so bright that it was almost dazzling shot in through that gap.

None of the scary scenes a nightmare should have: monsters, goblins, or ghosts.

Only the dark wardrobe has gaps.

When a shadow blocks the light in the gap—

Rand woke up just like that.He touched his pajamas, and found that it was completely soaked with sweat, and until his emotions had calmed down, his heartbeat was still fast, hitting his chest like a hammer, bringing a faint Jojo's dull pain.

However, returning to the consciousness of reality did not make Rand any easier. He felt restless and restless, and that unexplainable emotion troubled him like a sewing needle that fell on the bed and could no longer be found. After he wakes up, he can't sleep again.

He covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath.

Then he reached out to touch the bedside table, and it was at this moment that he suddenly felt something was wrong.

The warm night air was blowing the curtains... the bedroom window was open, and he was pretty sure he had shut it tightly before falling asleep.

Rand's muscles tensed at that moment.He put on his clothes and approached the window vigilantly.

The window was open only a thin slit, and the latch was intact.Rand carefully observed his window, his brows were more tightly frowned, everything looked normal, and even he himself began to wonder if he had made a mistake...

If anything, it's just the goo that's left on the inside of the glass.

Rand stretched out his fingers to touch the small piece of mucus, they were still moist, and at the same time had a smell that Rand had gradually become accustomed to.

It was a faint watery smell.

After realizing what it was, Rand's shoulders relaxed at that moment, he covered his forehead, and then closed the window tightly.

oh damn...

He muttered silently in his heart, turned around and turned on all the lights in the bedroom.

Bright lights illuminate the bedroom in the middle of the night, ordinary beds, ordinary furnishings, everything looks so normal.However, Rand frowned. He hadn't noticed it before, but as long as he paid attention, he could smell the smell that could only belong to a certain creature.

He first looked under the bed, then checked the gaps in the cabinet, and finally, with a sigh in his arms, Rand lifted his own quilt.

A slippery blue figure had been disguising itself motionlessly before, but when the cover was lifted, it swayed its body nimbly, trying to get into the depths of the quilt.

And Rand instinctively grabbed its tail.

The figure of the little bastard appeared.

Munster's head had already got into the gap between the quilt and the sheet, its claws feebly grasped the innocent fabric, and its tail flicked gently in Rand's hand.

"Mun s.t! Damn, why are you here?!"

Rand stared at it incredulously.

He never thought that this little monster would appear in his quilt at this moment!And during the day, he had just changed the bedroom door.If it guessed right, it even tried to open the window (Rand never doubted that it could open the window, especially after it tried to open the refrigerator several times to steal venison).

Rand stared in shock at the wrought-iron door that had cost him a lot of money, and then he realized that the problem wasn't the door, but the frame.

There was no trace of the flat and smooth wooden door frame in Rand's memory, and the wood of the door frame had been completely hollowed out at the part close to the ground.That gap is a little bit reluctant for the current Munster, but if it works hard enough, it can still stuff its body into Rand's room.

This bloody little bastard...

Rand didn't know how long it had been in his bunk, but all the fabrics in the area where it had been were already soaked with the strangely scented slime.

Rand had never prayed so devoutly to God that he would not have to face this terrible scene.And Munster seemed to have noticed the displeasure of the black-haired man. He barely pulled his head out from the gap in the quilt, and looked back at Rand carefully. There was a faint reflection in his eyes. After a while, he grinned, There was a series of quick, low-pitched mutterings—it even sounded like a deliberate plea for mercy.

Rand licked his lips. He stood up unsteadily, went to the refrigerator to get a bottle of beer, and then returned to the room like a sleepwalker. He wrapped Munster in those smelly bedding and sheets. , rudely dragged off the bed and piled it on the floor, then he took a few steps back, sat on the soft bedroom chair next to the bed, stared at the obvious wet marks on the mattress and began to daze.

His mind refused to think about what to do with the pile.

"Chirp chirp?"

Munster slowly crawled out of the pile of fabrics one by one, and it was watching Rand carefully from the beginning to the end.

Maybe it was because Rand's silence gave it some kind of wrong message. After staying in place for a short while, it tentatively approached Rand's direction, and then moved a little closer.

Finally, it lay on Rand's lap and began to slide happily down Rand's pajama pants into his arms.

Rand watched its series of movements with icy eyes.The damned little bastard finally landed on Rand's shoulders, Rand's face was cupped in its wet paws, the flippers between its paws pressed against his skin, and it crawled over and tried to tear its The slick, cold fish face pressed against Rand's jaw.

Rand's lips could almost touch its tentacles, which were stretched straight for unknown reasons, and he could even vaguely see the dark red marks left between its fine and sharp teeth.

It should be the remnants of the damn venison it ate before got stuck between its teeth, Rand thought, and he reached out his hand like lightning, and got stuck under its pectoral fin.

"caught you."

He said coldly to Munster.

He pinned Munster to the sheet soaked in its slime and uttered a stern reprimand, whipping the back of Munster's body lightly as punishment with one hand (Lan Dude learned this on a pet bbs, not sure it would work on an amphibian though).

Munster attempted to wrap his tail around Rand's wrist, but was unsuccessful.Rand wasn't sure if it really realized its mistake, but what could be observed was that its tentacles drooped, looking frustrated and sad.

Finally, Rand threw the little monster into the bathroom.

Munster began to scratch the door frantically, and at the same time let out a miserable cry—perhaps because of his experience when he was younger, he seemed to hate that place very much.

Rand rubbed his temples and picked up the phone amidst its barking.

He dialed Caroline's number, and again he heard Caroline's message.But for some reason, when he listened to that person's gentle voice this time, he instinctively felt a kind of disobedience.

Caroline seemed to have become strange...

But soon he put that slight hesitation behind him, and he recorded his message with some anxiety.

"This is Rand...Sorry, I thought I might be bothering you, but...I'd still like to hear from Vincent, has he stabilized? If you have any information, any time you can Call me……"

It took him a few takes to manage to get the language right, and calling anyone in the middle of the night was never going to be fun.However, even after Munster's interruption, Rand still couldn't ignore the uneasiness that swept over his body and mind at the moment of waking up from the nightmare.

He spent the next few hours curled up on the couch, half asleep, waiting for Caroline to call back.But he didn't wait for that call from the beginning to the end.In the morning, he received a message from the animal shelter, who told him that there was a good volunteer activity at the shelter today: a small reading club.

Some children will go to the shelter under the organization of the school, they will play with the cats and puppies that are still unadopted, and read for a while...

Rand carefully browsed the attached event details, and he quickly decided to participate in this event—after all, if he stayed at home, he might be restless all day because of Vincent's affairs, as if he was about to be abandoned in love Craving someone's phone as much as anyone else.

Rand swore he really didn't like it.

(In fact, there is a hidden reason here: After a night of fighting with Munster, Rand felt that he might need some comfort from a furry, well-behaved normal pet. Of course, even Rand De himself is not aware of this.)

He walked across the corridor and knocked on Rogers' door before heading to the animal shelter.

He'd like a companion to go to the event with him if he could (although it made him feel like a middle-school girl), but this time Rogers wasn't planning to go.

He looked at Rand with a secretive smile on his lips.

"I still have some things to do today."

He said, but didn't explain what he was going to do, and at the same time, he didn't show Rand the bloody hand he hid behind the door.

This is a weather that is not very suitable for outdoor activities.

Rand got off the bus, and thought while looking at the sun-baked road.He hadn't even entered the animal shelter when he heard screams from children, and he stopped and began to hesitate.

In fact, he hadn't slept well all night, and the high-pitched voice was starting to give him some headaches.When he really came inside that building, he completely regretted it.Those little animals are cute, but the children are not.The shelter in Rand's impression of being quiet and exuding a warm atmosphere is now almost a mess, with ugly bunting on the walls, people running around in the corridor, and the puppies inside the railing growled in fright— —Almost all the staff are scrambling to maintain order.

"Oh, God, is Rand Sievers right? It's good to have you here."

When Rand was about to flee, an old lady in a blue knitted coat grabbed his wrist forcefully.

"Sorry, it's been a little hectic in here - we didn't expect so many people to come..."

She babbled to Rand.

The strong mental pressure made Rand's stomach ache. Fifteen minutes later, he realized dizzily that he had been forced to lead a group of ninth graders from a community school on a tour of the entire shelter.When he stood in front of the group of "children" who were already very mature in body, the stomach pain began to become stronger.

Even a blind man could tell that they were not serious about visiting the place, they were giggling, most spoke with unintelligible Spanish accents, and Rand noticed that a few of them were skinny and had runny noses , with obvious pinholes on the arms.

As he led them closer to the terrified animals, several of them smirked and snorted at them.

"Sorry, smoking is not allowed here!"

Rand said to him.

The boy blinked ambiguously at him.

"Oh, don't be so cruel...I gotta have something in my mouth to suck..."

The others let out a roar of laughter.

Rand took a deep breath, he smirked at the boy, and took the cigarette from his hand.

"The animals here are very sensitive, I just want to say that you may irritate them with these actions - and then you may hurt yourself because of it, and I don't think you want that."

"Then they have to be killed, hahaha..."

Someone in the crowd laughed maliciously.

Their laughter was full of disdain.

His stomach cramps started to get stronger.

After that, when Rand found out that the organizers of the event even asked him to lead the chaotic group of students to visit Area D, he couldn't bear to protest.

"The notice board in District D shows that there are some large dogs there, and they are not suitable for visiting. Moreover, these people are not suitable for contact with them..."

Rand motioned for the old lady to look at the group of people who were laughing blatantly, none of them paying attention to the poor animals.

She didn't heed Rand's words, however.

"Oh, they're just a bunch of lost lads, and the reason they're so indifferent to animals is because of their lack of contact with them. That's what our campaign is trying to correct..."

During the interval between Rand and the other party discussing this matter, the two teenagers looked at each other, and they giggled and pushed open the door of Area D.

Rand heard the roar of the group of large dogs almost at the same time - when he turned his head, he could just see a teenager pressing a lit cigarette butt on a Ronaway that was bouncing and hitting the iron railing. on the nose.

"Do not--"

He recognized the dog.

Rogers had spoken of it to him with tender sentimentality—had been abused to the point of brutality in an illegal dog-fighting ring that the police had brought here after they had shut it down.He was so aggressive that there was no chance of adoption at all, and he would be euthanized at the end of the month after going through the procedure.

You always have a hunch when something really bad happens.

At this time, this premonition swept Rand.

He dropped the naive old lady and rushed towards Area D, but it was too late.

With a ghostly growl emanating from the dog's body, it charged furiously at the railing, which was already crumbling under the impact.

And the bolt hanging on the railing finally made an overwhelmed breaking sound under countless violent impacts.

The metal railing flew up, and a dark brown shadow leaped up from the cage, instantly pressing the boy under his body.

It didn't take a second for its powerful jaws to bite the boy's fragile head into pieces.

It's like easily crushing an apple.

Everyone watched in shock at this horrific scene, motionless and holding their breath in the horror and tragedy that was coming.

Time seemed to be deliberately slowed down at this moment.

Ronaway's saliva glistened in mid-air...

Someone closed their eyes.

"Do not--"

Rand stared at the dog in horror, and he let out a growl.

Then, a miracle happened.

The dog that tore apart countless of its kind, and even forced the police to use a tranquilizer gun to subdue it, let out a whimper at that moment.

A stream of stinky urine shot from its crotch, and its four legs trembled.

When Rand came in front of it, it whimpered like crazy, then ran to the corner and curled up into a ball.