Phantomverse Stories

The Mer-Phantom (part 1)

(This is not my art)
It was the eve of my planned escape and I was trying not to have an emotional breakdown.

This was mainly because I only had this endeavor planned for five days, and there were a lot of flaws in my plan that weren't destined to ever be fixed.

To try to calm down, whenever the endless experiments and tests drag me under, I usually try to talk to Mr. Piranha.

My red-bellied companion is the only living creature I ever talk to, because the other scientists and researchers in this facility aren't really the chatty type.
Wait, let me rephrase that. They wouldn't be caught dead talking to me. I am subject 23. Subject 23 is not the chatty type. Why on earth would you think Subject 23 could actually hold a conversation with you?

I feel a particular kinship with Mr. Piranha because he is Subject 22, and he is pretty much exactly like me except reversed. Larger than normal likely due to containing some human DNA, Mr. Piranha basically looks like a normal fish except he has blue human eyes. He also hatched out of an egg from his perfectly normal mom Ms. Piranha (there was never a husband in the picture).

I, on the other hand, look somewhat humanoid. Face, nose, eyes, arms, sure, that wouldn't contrast with what a typical person would look like. But my ears? Ho boy, don't get me started on those. They look like flippin' fins!
Add that to a shock of white hair, webbed and clawed hands, gills, sharp fangs, and a handsome covering of black and white scales, you'd barely notice the fishy tail thrown in.
If Mr. Piranha is called unusual, I would definitely be called freakishly unusual. Abnormal. Atypical. And what other words that all sound like I ate something.

So there I was, frantically swimming around Mr. Piranha's and my primary holding tank, the freak freaking out.
Usually I'm pretty careful not to hit anything with my tail, but I was too busy practically doing somersaults around Mr. Piranha to ease my anxiety to concentrate.

The tank wasn't  beautifully decorated or anything like that. It only had gravelly sand covering the floor with huge bunches of fake coral and seaweed that weren't very secure.
Knocking a huge clump of coral over, I continued to relay my worries to Mr. Piranha, who winced as I almost ran into the glass wall of the tank again.

What if the plan doesn't work? I conveyed with a shake of my head. Mr. Piranha twitched his dorsal fins, meaning that he didn't think I should worry, or that he wasn't worried. Either way, it was at least a little encouraging.
But as I continued to swim more and more worries came bubbling invasively up into my brain.

When I get out what do I do? What if I get caught before I even escape, what will they punish me with?

I spun around quickly in shock.

What about you?!?

I can't say we ever discussed it, but in the thousand times we've gone over the plan, Mr. Piranha never said or even implied that he'd be making the escape alongside me. I'd just assumed...
I exasperatedly ran a webbed hand through my hair. Then I glanced back at Mr. Piranha, and then I felt a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I had never seen Mr. Piranha look so sad. He glided over to me until he was only inches from my face, and I could easily count all ten teeth jutting out from his underbite.
He bobbed his head a few times, and I shook my head, my throat tight.
He either had said that he wasn't important, or that I was more important. Both of which many the same thing and weren't true.

Gently he nudged me with his nose, and I hugged him back tightly, scrunching up my face as my throat grew tighter.
I gazed deep into Mr. Piranha's blue eyes.
I hope he knew that I meant, I'll come back for you.

Maneuvering his pectoral fins, he propelled himself backward and gave me a sad toothy grin, underbite and all.

And I was sad and angry and depressed and furious and lonely.

Mr. Piranha was probably the only thing those stupid scientists got right. Maybe somewhere in their overly logical and mathematical brains they realized that they wonderful little subjects needed support and a foundation, so they wouldn't keep dying (literally Subjects 1-21).

So before I came along, out of the goodness of their hearts, my white coated companions created Mr. Piranha to not only make sure I'd have a companion, but to also make sure I was even possible.

Other people probably would think twice about dumping baby-me into a tank with a 4 foot long piranha, but it worked out great, after all.

Here's a fact: male piranha "out there in the wild" defend their eggs with their life.

Obviously that applied to me though I'm pretty sure I wasn't a piranha egg when we first met.

But the point I'm trying to make is Mr. Piranha is an amazing person. And yes, I say that with full knowledge of the word "person."

Without a doubt, Mr. Piranha by his actions alone is way more of a person than these scientists, who have committed multiple crimes against all twenty-three of their charges. And the biggest crime of all would be creating them.

Mr. Piranha would always tell me not to think like that, but private thought has no witnesses other than the thinker of those thoughts (wow that was a mouthful) and yes, I value being alive as much as anyone else hopefully, but I'd  rather be alive in a better way.

Less of a freak, with no tests or experiments.

I didn't deserve to be born this way.

Mr. Piranha didn't.

None of the twenty one before us did.