A Mermaid’s Guide to Survival in the Apocalypse – CH11

Chapter 11: Summoning the Mermaid

How could a frail, scruffy child carrying a bulging bag of nutrient serums down the open street ever slip by unnoticed?

Xia Yu turned around slowly.

The very first thing that hit him was the stench. A thick, suffocating wave of mold rolled over him—foul, sour, and rotten enough to churn his empty stomach.

He had no idea when this nightmare had started trailing his steps. Had it caught sight of him back in the shattered dispensary? Had it picked up his scent somewhere along the alleys?

Whatever the truth was, the creature had shadowed him straight down into the drainage system. And now it had followed him all the way to their hideout to wipe them out together.

“Run!”

Xia Yu lunged through the threshold and threw his whole weight against the heavy door, trying to slam it shut.

The towering shape was far too fast. A massive force slammed into the panel from outside just as the latch was about to catch, wedging it open by an inch. No matter how hard Xia Yu dug his heels into the floor, the crack refused to close.

The putrid, decaying smell poured through the gap, making both boys’ eyes sting and water.

“Push! Shut it!” Mi Dou yelled, throwing his shoulders into the metal slab.

The bear-type mutant possessed strength far beyond any ordinary child his age—stronger, even, than many full-grown humans. Yet for the very first time in his life, Mi Dou learned what it felt like to be completely overpowered.

Without Mi Dou, Xia Yu would have lost his footing in an instant. Even with both of them straining with everything they had, the gap steadily widened.

They were hopelessly outmatched.

Bang!

A massive, mold-encrusted hand hooked around the outer lip of the door, shattering any last hope of forcing it closed.

Xia Yu stared at the limb in sheer horror. It barely resembled a human hand at all. He could not even count the fingers; they looked more like clusters of raw, swollen flesh, sprouting from the palm like fungal growths that only mimicked the shape of digits.

Worse than the deformity was the rot. Spreading patches of grayish-blue mold were woven into sickly green flesh, shifting and pulsing under the surface like a massive, ripe abscess. It looked as if the faintest prick would tear the skin open, leaking toxic fluid that would spread mold wherever it splashed.

What do we do?

Xia Yu’s thoughts scattered in panic. Fighting back was impossible. It was only a matter of seconds before the creature forced its way through.

In that case…

“Take Mo An and run!” Xia Yu shouted, pointing toward the back wall. “The vent grate! Rip it off and crawl through with him! Don’t leave the medicine behind!”

“No! I’m not leaving you!” Mi Dou gritted his teeth, digging his bare toes into the stone floor. He refused to abandon his friend. “We push together—”

“It’s no use! That thing is way too strong!”

Xia Yu desperately wanted to keep pushing too. He wanted to drive every monster away, find a warm, quiet corner, and sleep until the world fixed itself. But reality had crushed that simple wish to dust. This broken world was crawling with things capable of tearing him apart.

Mi Dou still wouldn’t budge. In sheer desperation, Xia Yu kicked the boy hard in the shin, knocking him backward onto the floor.

“Run!”

The second Mi Dou’s weight left the door, the metal slab flew back against the wall.

A tall, elongated head wrapped in fuzz pushed through the opening, looming straight over Xia Yu. Spores and mold began to crawl along the metal edge, creeping toward his trembling fingers.

Xia Yu was terrified. His chest locked up with panic. Yet his small hands never let go.

Mi Dou scrambled up from the floor, his bear ears pinned flat against his messy curls. He knew he could not waste the precious seconds Xia Yu was buying with his life.

Dashing over to the low ventilation shaft, he gripped the metal grate with both paws.

He pulled once. The screws held fast.

He pulled a second time. The frame bent.

A third time. A fourth.

Channeling every drop of bear-mutant strength in his small frame, Mi Dou gave one final, furious heave. The vent cover tore free with a screech of bent metal.

Without pausing to think, he lifted Mo An and slid the large egg into the dark pipe first. The bundle vanished down the slick, downward slope, disappearing into the depths.

Mi Dou turned back to grab the sack of medicine, and his gaze snapped toward the doorway.

His heart seemed to stop dead.

Is Xia Yu… dead?

The towering entity had swallowed Xia Yu whole. It looked as though the boy had fallen into a thick mass of living gelatin. Grayish-green mold coated his small frame from head to foot, completely obscuring his facial features.

The creature was still absorbing him, drawing him inward like an insect trapped in amber. Xia Yu could no longer breathe. His hands and feet were pinned tight within the sticky mass.

He could feel the spores crawling across his skin. Out of the corners of his vision, dark green blotches bloomed across the backs of his hands, threatening to sprout into the same grotesque fungal growths.

Yet through the murky, semi-translucent slime, Xia Yu could still see Mi Dou standing by the open vent.

Mo An was already through. They were safe. Mi Dou just had to jump.

I’m sorry, Professor Wang. I guess I couldn’t keep your promises after all.

The mold thickened across his face, creeping over his silver pupils until the room faded to gray.

He felt a sudden pang of regret: he should have taken one last good look at Mo An before this happened. He should have locked the image of his little fish in his memory forever. Even if he dissolved into this monster… he wanted to remember what the egg looked like.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, the haze began to thin.

The dim room came back into focus.

The creeping mold suddenly retreated from his skin, washing away like dye rinsed from fabric. The thick, gelatinous mass binding his limbs dissolved, releasing its grip. Fresh, cool air flooded his burning lungs.

Xia Yu gasped desperately, coughing as his survival instincts flared back to life.

Was this some cruel game? Was the monster toying with its prey, giving him just enough breath to drag out the terror?

The thought sent a fresh shudder down his spine.

Then his knees hit the hard floor.

He had been expelled. The monster had spat him right out. Every trace of mold on his skin vanished into thin air.

Before he could process what had happened, he felt himself being hauled backward across the tiles.

Mi Dou had not run away.

The boy simply could not stand by and watch his friend die. He had lunged forward with their scrap-metal bar, stabbing blindly at the towering shape. The blade had sunk deep into the creature’s side without drawing blood, but somehow, the monster had still released Xia Yu.

This was their only opening.

Gritting his teeth, Mi Dou shoved Xia Yu headfirst into the open duct, grabbed the canvas bag, and dove in right behind him.

Xia Yu’s world tilted into a frantic blur.

He tumbled down the slick, steep shaft at breakneck speed. By now, he was convinced this was no ventilation pipe—it felt far more like an industrial trash chute.

The feeling of freefall made his stomach lurch. With nothing to grab onto, the two boys were hurled through twists and turns, sliding around sharp bends until they shot out of the darkness and crashed headlong into a mountain of soft debris and waste.

They landed one after the other with a dull thud. Mi Dou came down squarely on Xia Yu’s back.

“Ouch!” Xia Yu yelped, nearly squashed flat.

“Ow, ow, ow… my head,” Mi Dou groaned. A large purple knot had already formed on his forehead, but his arms were still locked tight around the medicine sack.

Shaking off the dizziness, Xia Yu scrambled upright. He took in the damp surroundings, grabbed Mi Dou by the arm, and hurried toward the bundle that had rolled a few yards away into the rubbish.

“Is he okay? Please tell me the shell didn’t crack!” Mi Dou pleaded, struggling onto his wobbly legs.

“Let me look,” Xia Yu said, his voice tight with dread.

They had landed in soft trash, but an impact from that height could easily have ruptured the membrane. If the seawater leaked out, Mo An would perish before he ever had the chance to hatch.

Xia Yu unknotted the bloodstained coat and turned the egg over carefully, checking every inch of the smooth shell.

Miraculously, only the previous surface scuffs remained. The membrane was completely intact.

Yet Mo An himself looked terribly weak. The boy inside lay limp within the fluid, showing no movement at all.

“Quick, hand me a needle!” Xia Yu reached behind him.

Mi Dou fished a fresh syringe from the canvas bag and slapped it into his palm.

Xia Yu took it without hesitation. There was no time to ponder why the mold-creature had let him go; keeping Mo An alive was the only thing that mattered.

With his previous experience guiding him, his hands moved with practiced speed. He tore off the seal, tapped the cylinder, pushed the plunger to bleed out the air, and drove the needle cleanly through the top of the membrane.

“Mo An, don’t be scared,” Xia Yu whispered, his face pressed close to the shell. “Drink it up, okay? Eat well and don’t be afraid.”

The pale yellow serum dispersed into the clear fluid, swirling gently toward the boy’s neck.

One dose was not enough.

Xia Yu tore open a second syringe and pierced the membrane once more. The tiny punctures functioned as life-saving conduits, funneling pure energy into the fragile embryo.

He emptied five syringes in a row before finally setting the tools aside. Only then, trembling from exhaustion, did he sink back onto his heels to catch his breath.

“Mi Dou, are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?”

He crawled over to Mi Dou, immediately noticing the egg-sized lump swelling above the boy’s eyebrow.

“It really stings,” Mi Dou muttered, rubbing his brow carefully. “Ugh… we finally found all that good food, and now we had to run away from it. What do we eat now?”

“It’s okay! I think we made it into Power Plant Number Three!” Xia Yu said, looking around at the massive concrete pipes and rusted iron railings. “Let’s rest here for a bit, then keep searching. A huge place like this is bound to have another pantry. We’ll find more food!”

Mi Dou looked at Xia Yu’s earnest face and smiled, his bear ears perking up slightly. “Yeah! We have to stay positive.”

“Exactly,” Xia Yu nodded with a grin.

The two boys sat side by side on the floor, letting their breathing slow before setting out along the drainage walkway once more, completely unsure of what lay ahead.

After walking for a while, Mi Dou tilted his head and asked, “That was so close earlier… why did that monster spit you out? I stabbed it as hard as I could, but it didn’t even flinch.”

Xia Yu shook his head. “I have no idea… maybe your hit really did hurt it, and it got scared! I should really thank you for saving me!”

“Haha, don’t thank me!” Mi Dou chuckled, puffing his chest out. “You saved my life first, so of course I had to save yours. That’s what friends do!”

After turning it over in his mind, Mi Dou decided that had to be the reason: the mold-beast looked terrifying, but maybe it had a low pain tolerance.

Xia Yu nodded along. It sounded reasonable enough; otherwise, there was no logical explanation for why a predator would let its meal go.

Having cheated death once again, the dark cloud hanging over them seemed to lift. They were simply glad their luck had held out one more time.

Still, many questions lingered in Xia Yu’s thoughts.

Why was entering the power station so critical? And why did Jingwei keep vanishing?

Artificial intelligence was supposed to be integrated into everyday life, available every second of the day to assist people. But Jingwei flickered in and out like a ghost.

Could it be that Jingwei was also running for her life? Was she dodging the network, hiding in shadows and only surfacing when the signal was clear?

The boys followed the water channel for a long time.

Luck favored them once more. Deeper inside the facility, they discovered a route leading toward the plant’s core.

A colossal blast gate stood across the corridor, towering five or six meters high. Forget Mi Dou—ten bear mutants working together could never have forced that slab open. The only way past was through a grated water channel running beneath it.

“Let’s sit down for a minute. I really can’t walk another step…” Xia Yu wheezed, leaning against the damp wall. “Look, there’s a small service hatch over there. Let’s see what’s inside.”

“Good idea. We need a break before we figure out how to swim through that gate,” Mi Dou agreed.

They walked over to the side door. It was unlocked; Xia Yu pushed it gently, and the latch swung open with a quiet creak.

“Woah…” Xia Yu rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

It felt like walking into another dream.

It was an old staff break room. A metal shelf held dry rations and sealed water containers. Best of all, a small, clean cot sat against the far wall. Some maintenance worker must have lived here during long shifts before the world changed, leaving everything behind.

Xia Yu rushed inside, instantly claiming the space as their new base of operations.

First, he stashed the remaining nutrient vials under the bed frame. Then he helped Mi Dou lift Mo An onto the mattress.

“This is wonderful! We can actually sleep in a real bed tonight!” Mi Dou cheered, collapsing happily across the edge of the mattress.

“Yeah, this room is perfect. All three of us can squeeze on together,” Xia Yu agreed.

He knelt beside the bed and loosened the bloodstained coat wrapped around the egg. Pressing his face flat against the cool membrane, he peered anxiously into the fluid to see how his friend was doing.

Why wasn’t he moving yet? Was he still sleeping? Had he fainted from hunger again?

Or…

Xia Yu refused to let the worst thought enter his mind.

“Mo An? Can you hear me?” he called softly, tapping the surface. “We found a cozy safe room. We have a bed to sleep on now. Can you hear my voice?”

A soft, muffled noise echoed from within the shell.

A small bubble rose through the fluid, drifting upward until it popped against the inner ceiling of the membrane.

At the same instant, a pale, delicate face turned upward into the light.

Through the translucent layer, Mo An looked straight into Xia Yu’s eyes.

Xia Yu held his breath.

For the very first time, his call had reached the mermaid.

Another bubble wobbled to the surface.

This time, Xia Yu recognized the sound: Mo An was hiccupping.

He was full.

“You’re okay!” Xia Yu beamed, gently patting the side of the egg. “I brought back tons of medicine! There’s plenty for you to drink for days!”

He leaned in closer, studying Mo An’s features with fascination. “Why are your eyes solid black? They look so different from mine.”

Inside the fluid, Mo An could only hear muffled, warbled echoes of Xia Yu’s voice. His vision remained hazy and indistinct. His ink-black pupils had not yet formed their protective tear film—it was simply far too early in his growth cycle for his eyes to be exposed.

He truly had lost consciousness from starvation earlier. But now, with the influx of rich nutrients, his strength was returning. For the first time in memory, his belly felt pleasantly warm.

Hic.

Mo An let out another soft hiccup, flashing a row of small, razor-sharp teeth.

He had no idea what had transpired outside while he was asleep. But down in the fluid, he had already begun testing his tail.

A sharp tugging sensation sent a ripple of pain through his lower body.

Mo An wanted to hatch ahead of time.

So, bracing against the pain, he began flexing the soft tail fin he had never used before.

A Mermaid’s Guide to Survival in the Apocalypse