Safety in the Seafoam (DNF + Karlnap)

Chapter 5: Mermaids - spotted

Final day of double uploads.
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George POV.
✨A few months later✨

“Get your tail out of my face.” I spoke gruffly, flicking my wrist against his deep purple scales.
“Get your face out of my tail.” He retorted, whacking at my face before slowing down slightly to swim alongside me. A smile grew on his face. “We’re just a few days out now… then we can rest through the Summer!”

“I can finally stop hearing you bitching?” I said, letting out a fake sigh of relief. “We can’t get there soon enough.” The water was beginning to warm up, matching the temperature up on the surface as well. I had been living through it for years and knew what to expect.

“I’m going to go up for a breath of fresh air.” Karl stated. “I feel that I’m gonna get light headed if I swim for any longer.” My hands curled themselves into fists, claws digging themselves into my soft skin, watching as my long-tailed friend. “Are you going to join me?”
“No thanks.” I responded, shaking my head again. “I want to get to where it’s safe.”

“We are safe.” Karl reassured me. “At least for the minute. I haven’t seen any boats in days. No humans nearby to harass us.”
“I don’t need air.” I blatantly told him. The brunette examined me for a second, seeming concerned before slowly making his way towards the surface.

While he was gone I lowered myself down to sit on a rock, tail digging through the sand and drawing some patterns. I glanced up to the surface while waiting and saw the black little smudge which was my friend up taking in his oxygen.

“Can you hurry up!?” I asked, hands moving up to my face to call out to him. “We need to keep moving if we want to stick to our…” I coughed, feeling slightly dizzy. After taking a moment to get over the feeling I looked back up towards him. “We need to stick to our schedule.” I watched as he floated back down, still feeling dizzy.

“Let’s go.” He nodded before hesitating. A concerned look crossed his face. “Are you okay George?” His tail flicked at the sand and I glanced down at it momentarily before looking into his swirling grey eyes.

“I’m fine.” I reassured him, swatting his hand away when it got too close. My tail brushed his arm as I swam ahead of him and he rushed to catch up.
“You look a little pale.” He noted. “Are you sure that you are okay?”
“I’m fine.” My tone grew harsher and I glared at him.

Karl seemed as though he was caught off guard by this and hurried to catch up, however he was still studying me curiously. “Are you sure that you are okay?”
“Yes I am su-sure.” I gave a nod, hand rubbing at my forehead. “Let’s keep going. We need to cover a lot of ground before resting for the night.”

I kept my gaze forward, swimming fast and staring ahead as a school of fish which we had been following. Being able to focus on a couple of the larger fish hanging near the back of the group managed to stop me from feeling dizzy.

The brunette continued to try and call out to me, try to gain my attention to make sure I was alright, yet I continued to stare forwards. Eventually he managed to close the distance between us and grab my arm. “George!” His voice was firm and he glared at me. “You need some air and something to eat.” He told me.

I didn’t respond to him, however I attempted to tug him off of me. My arms moved to grip at his waist, feeling the ridges of his scales as they blended in with his pale skin. The brunette was too exhausted and eventually he gave up. “We need to go.” I whispered. “We have to keep moving Karl.”

“No, we have to get you some fresh air.” He replied. Karl’s gaze was focused on me, and reluctantly I agreed while looking into the eyes of my best friend. We just focused on each other as we slowly headed up to the surface, not caring about anything else as the brunette worried about my health.

Once we broke through to the surface my eyes screwed shut and I panted desperately as I took in the warm evening air. Karl’s own eyes fluttered shut and we both stayed up there embracing and taking in more air in the evening.

Dream POV.

Thank God for being allowed to listen to music as I worked, or at least when I was on cleaning duty. I was humming the lyrics to a song as I moped along the deck. I continued to make my way towards the edge of the deck before stopping as I found myself almost stumbling over a net. I sighed in annoyance.

I pulled my headphones from my ears and shoved them into their case before kneeling down to gather up the net with the plan of moving it. However as I lifted myself up I noticed something moving out in the water. Cautiously I peered over the railing before turning to Schlatt who happened to be nearby.

“Captain, there are people down there.” I said, pointing over the edge. Schlatt’s brows furrowed and he hurried over to look, but after seeing the people he gasped and stumbled back.
“Those aren’t people Dream.” He informed me. “Those are mermaids!”

“What?” I asked. My eyes widened and he looked back down at the water with his grin widening.
He lifted a walkie talkie up to his mouth. “Attention all available crew, please report to the bow of the ship. We have spotted two mermaids.” The loudspeaker was not the best quality and it was quite faint, coming from around the ship.

I continued to watch over the side, curious as to how the two figures in the water weren’t able to hear what was going on. Maybe they didn’t understand English. “Okay Dream.” I was caught off guard as Schlatt acknowledged me again. “I need you to grab that end of the net and get ready to throw it over the side on my mark.”

“Will it really be that easy?” I asked, brows furrowing as I shuffled around the ship. “Won’t the mermaids hear us and swim off before then? Or get out of the net?”
“Trust me.” He kept his voice level. “This is a large, good quality net, and a quiet, good quality ship. They won’t be able to escape… trust me.”

The net was lined by weights, which I assumed would help to capture the pair of sea creatures by weighing down the net and trapping them. “Are you ready?” Cautiously I nodded, and after getting confirmation from him we dropped the net over the pair, who upon realising what happened began screeching out in shock.
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1169 words

Nice