Safety in the Seafoam (DNF + Karlnap)

Chapter 115: Floating

George POV.

“Are you able to stay afloat?” I tentatively asked the humans, although my head was tilted towards Dream whom I was holding snuggly. My arms were wrapped around his waist, and my tail was moving back and forth slowly in the water, brushing against his legs and the fabric of his clo-ves with each twitch of movement.

“Yeah…” The blond muttered, and after a moment I let him go. I was slow and tentative, like a parent when letting go of a young mer, as though he would sink the moment that I was parted from him. But obviously he knew what he was doing. I had seen him swim before, and although it was not with the grace of someone like me, it was manageable.

“We will try and find you both some food.” I told the pair, watching as Karl pulled himself away from Sapnap. “We’ll only be gone for a few minutes.” Dream gave a small ‘okay’ and I smiled at him, feeling slightly worried about everything.
“Is there any food that you prefer?” Karl asked them. “That we could provide…”

“There won’t be much.” Sapnap admitted in a slightly guilty manner, as though he and Dream had done something wrong. “Humans… we can’t eat raw meat.” He admitted. That made me freeze, since the situation immediately became more difficult if they could not eat any of the fish that we would be able to provide.

“I mean we can eat some raw meat, but only if it is prepared properly.” Sapnap continued to explain. “Like sushi. We can eat sushi.” Karl and I both gave a curt nod at his explanation, however it made a wave of nausea begin to run through me.

I was unfamiliar with what kind of fish was called a sushi, perhaps it was a human name for something extremely common. Or since humans had the ability to traverse oceans, the fish could come from a distant sea and I would never encounter it in my life.

For a brief moment I glanced over towards the ship in the distance, which was continuing to travel away from us. Even if they tried to turn we would be back above the surface before they were anywhere near us. “We will have a look.” I assured the two of them, exchanging one glance with Karl before diving under the water.

The other mer followed after me. We swam down as far as we could, far enough for most of the light to be enveloped by the blue. There were fish swimming around, but it seemed like that wouldn’t provide the proper meat for the humans.

“What should we bring them?” Karl questioned, taking in all of the options. They were all swimming around a few weaves of coral, but all were similar species, none of which would be good for the pair of humans.
“I don’t know.” I admitted. “Nothing seems right.”

“Do you think that the humans will die if they eat ‘raw meat’?” I questioned. “Or is it just that humans do not like the taste?” Since that could be a massive difference, and give us a lot more variety in our options. Karl shrugged uncertainly, since neither of us could be confident of the answer we didn’t want to risk it, since dying from eating something bad would be miserable.

After continuing to look around for a few minutes I gave up with a sigh, looking towards the brunette. “What should we do?” I asked him honestly, moving down to sit on the soft sand. It was a solemn mood, yet I still was hyper-aware of everything that was going on around me.

“What do you mean?” He questioned, slowly moving down to be at level with me. This could have been just a generic question of ‘what should we get them to eat?’, but he could tell that it meant something else as he settled down beside me. He was silent as he took his place, studying me with concern.

“We have to help them survive, meaning we have to keep them above the water for an indefinite amount of time even when they are asleep. We have to keep them warm so the humans don’t freeze to death. We have to find them food even though humans can’t eat the fish raw and can’t eat the seaweed.” I paused and took a breath. “It feels impossible.”

He nodded in agreement without saying a word. Although I didn’t say anything out loud I was feeling all sorts of mixed emotions about this. They had just risked their lives to grant us our freedom, it seemed only fair to be helping them in response, but it was going to be a difficult, time consuming thing.

After weeks of being confined to a small space we were finally free to swim in the never-ending ocean. The feel of fresh water instead of the strangeness of the filtered tank water, at least ‘filtered’ was the word the humans used. But immediately after being granted that freedom the humans were thrown into the water.

With us helping them it would be like we were restrained to the humans, tethered nearby as the humans could be in constant danger. They could drown, or starve, or freeze, or catch the attention of a hungry shark. All of which would be exhausting for us to deal with.

“I want to be able to help them though…” Karl muttered. “Sapnap is my friend and I owe it to him…” He was slow and hesitant as he said that, almost as if he wasn’t fully convinced of what he was saying. I didn’t say anything though, instead just listening to my friend talk. “You owe it to Dream as well. Don’t you?”

“I do.” I was quick to confirm, since he had done a lot to help me, but only this morning I learned that it was also him that doomed me to these months of torment, being dragged away on a ship to who-knows-where. It was unlikely we’d ever see familiar sights again, based on how fast the thing was moving.

My lips pressed together in a firm line and I thought uncertainly. Plus, even if I did owe it to them, did I owe them that much? Did I owe the struggle of having to worry about two humans that were more defenceless than infants for days, if not weeks.

Karl saw me in thought and swam off, looking around for anything that he could feed the two humans above. I just lingered there for a few moments, being conscious of the fact that I should be making myself useful but unable to think of anything that I could do to help. After a few moments of just sitting there I inhaled, before smelling something familiar in the water.

A low growl left my throat before I could even process it, one of instinct as I tracked prey through the water. Even without my teeth and my claws I was still an apex hunter, and I had found something I was interested in pursuing.
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1200 words