A Mermaid’s Guide to Survival in the Apocalypse – CH3

Chapter 3: My Little Fish

Xia Yu could not run very fast.

He had always been thin and frail, and he had only just come off the operating table. He had woken up without even having a chance to eat, and his feet were completely bare.

The floor was slick with moisture. Half the time, he could not tell if the puddles he splashed through were water or spilled blood. He could hardly even tell which way he was heading.

The dark corridor stretched ahead like a gaping maw, waiting to swallow him whole and grind him into dust—along with the heavy mermaid egg trailing behind him.

The egg was far heavier than Xia Yu had imagined. It had rested in silence for so long, and even now, there was no sign it would wake anytime soon. Wang Qin’s white lab coat wrapped around it like a protective net, holding it together surprisingly well.

Huff. Huff. Huff…

Over the shrieking alarms, Xia Yu’s ragged breaths sounded painfully loud. His mind had gone completely blank. Everything was gone except one single instinct: keep running.

At long last, a door appeared ahead.

It did not open.

The thick barrier remained tightly sealed, blocking his path. It was almost the same as handing him a death sentence.

Behind him, the robots were closing in. They moved with terrifying speed, their glowing red eyes trailing through the gloom like haunting shadows.

“Open… open up! Please, open the door!”

Xia Yu dropped to his knees, staring up desperately at the surveillance camera mounted in the corner. Its status light glowed red, meaning the system was still operational.

He still could not understand why Nuwa had suddenly turned so cruel. She was supposed to protect people. Now, she was killing them. So many lives had already been taken. Yet barely half an hour ago, she had been chatting with him so kindly, even saying she had saved The Little Jellyfish Song to her memory banks.

Xia Yu was completely out of breath. His legs shook so violently he could barely stay upright. As the cold, rhythmic clank of metal footsteps drew nearer, he had nothing left to do but hammer frantically on the steel door, praying it would give way.

Then, just for a split second, the camera’s lens flickered blue.

It shifted back to red almost immediately, but the door began to move.

The dead end had turned into an escape.

Because Xia Yu had been leaning his whole weight against the surface, he tumbled forward the moment it slid back, landing hard on the floor. His chin smacked against the metal deck. Feeling no pain, he scrambled right back to his feet and bolted forward.

There it was—the elevator!

It was barely a dozen meters away. That had to be the lift Professor Wang had told him about.

Xia Yu sprinted toward it, but a strange lightness on his shoulders suddenly made him freeze.

He had forgotten something vital.

The egg!

He had left the massive mermaid egg behind in the corridor. Panic had seized him so completely when the door opened that survival was the only thought in his mind. He was only a terrified ten-year-old; how could he possibly keep track of everything in a nightmare like this?

The moment he realized his mistake, he spun around.

The red lights were already right at the threshold. A digital warning was flashing above the entrance:

60 seconds remaining until sector self-destruct.

Dozens of scarlet points bore down on the room. Any one of those mechanical units could tear him apart in seconds. Xia Yu had been through countless surgeries; he knew that losing an arm or a leg would not kill him. But he had no idea if he could survive being shredded into pieces.

The fear of death washed over him again, cold and suffocating. In his mind’s eye, he could almost see his own broken body lying on the floor.

He turned back toward the lift.

In that brief second, self-preservation won. If he could just slip inside, he would be safe. He could scan Professor Wang’s access band and ride it out of here.

Yet after taking only two steps, his feet stopped.

That egg had been his only real companion for years. In this cold, sterile facility, there had never been anyone his own age. Aside from Professor Wang, the only voice that kept him company had been Nuwa.

The X-Series was considered useless. Xia Yu had long since accepted that this was his lot in life—to be wheeled into operating rooms whenever the researchers needed parts, waking up to find hands, feet, or organs taken away. He had thought his life would simply go on like that forever.

Then the egg had arrived in his lab.

At first, it had been much smaller. But every time Xia Yu walked up to the tank, the floating shape seemed to drift a little closer to the glass. Through the clear pane, it felt as though they were looking right at each other. They had never talked; or rather, Xia Yu had talked to it endlessly, while it had never answered back.

Even so, it had stayed by his side for four whole years.

Now it had grown so large. If he left it behind, would it be scared?

Probably not. People had always said the creature inside would never hatch—that it was just an overgrown mass of tissue soaking up nutrients. Maybe the life inside had never even developed a mind of its own.

Still… it would die.

If he didn’t save it, it would die right here.

“Ah! Stay back!”

Xia Yu whipped around and dashed back toward the doorway, shouting through his tears to force some courage into his small frame. By the time his hands caught the edge of the lab coat, the robots were only a few paces away.

He gripped the bundle tight and hauled it backward with everything he had, not caring about anything else. He scrambled back to the elevator as fast as his legs would carry him.

The band! He had to scan the band!

Xia Yu leaped up and pressed his arm against the sensor panel.

The reader flashed to life instantly.

[Welcome, Professor Wang Qin. Good evening.]

A mechanical chime rang out, and the heavy elevator doors slid apart.

Xia Yu dragged the egg inside.

Close, please close, hurry!

He slammed the door-close button again and again. The heavy panels finally began to glide together. Xia Yu let out a trembling breath of relief—until a sharp blade punched straight through the seam from the outside, carving a half-meter slit through the metal.

The steel tore open with a screech. Through the widening gap, Xia Yu saw those chilling red sensors glaring at him once more.

His eyes darted frantically across the interior, spotting the emergency button on the panel. The trouble was that every control had been built for full-grown adults. No one had ever thought a small child would need to reach them.

Even on his tiptoes with his arm stretched out, his fingers fell short of the Emergency Ascent switch.

The steel door buckled further. It would not hold for more than a few seconds. The robot cutting through shoved its head into the cabin, followed by a jagged metal arm.

Time had run out.

Without thinking, Xia Yu crouched low and sprang upward with all his strength.

His fingertips slammed hard against the red switch.

The elevator shuddered violently. The floor dropped beneath him, tossing him to the side before he could find his balance. Professor Wang’s access band slipped from his slender arm, clattering against the metal deck.

After a rough jolt, the lift surged upward with terrifying speed. The robot wedged halfway through the gap was caught in the moving frame; the shearing force snapped its head clean off. The severed mechanical skull rolled across the floor and bumped to a halt right by Xia Yu’s feet.

It was moving so fast. Xia Yu had never felt anything like it. His body felt practically weightless. Soon, a sharp ringing filled his ears, and waves of dizziness pressed down on him.

There was no joy in having survived. Only cold fear and confusion.

The elevator was carrying him away from the research facility, but he had nowhere to go. The world outside would be even stranger, even more dangerous.

In that quiet moment, the last of Xia Yu’s strength gave out. In barely fifteen minutes, he had lived through more terror than his mind could take in. All he could do was curl up tightly against the egg beside him—an egg he wasn’t even sure would survive.

Without salt water, would it dry up and die?

As the elevator cabin continued to hum, Xia Yu wrapped his arms around the bundle and closed his eyes in exhaustion. From this moment on, he was the only one it had in the world.

It was his little fish now.

The egg rested quiet and cool against his chest. The white coat wrapped around it had turned a mottled dark red, soaked through with the blood from the hallways below. It looked like a large cocoon, or perhaps a strange, living seed.

Its pale blue membrane continued to pulse slowly, as if searching for moisture and air. Where the shell was thinnest, the faint outline of a young boy could be seen floating in the amniotic fluid, curled protectively around a soft tail.

His eyelashes twitched softly. Beneath those closed lids, his eyes seemed to be developing rapidly, waiting for the first glimpse of light.

Nobody knew how long the ascent took before the elevator finally slowed to a stop.

For a moment, Xia Yu wished it would just keep going forever. As long as it moved, he was safe. No machines could reach him here.

Yet hope was as fragile as a soap bubble; one light poke, and it was gone. Every lift had a final floor, and now he had reached his.

[Top floor reached. Thank you for riding, Professor Wang. Have a good day.]

The automated voice chimed, and the doors slid wide.

The world outside looked completely different from the nightmare below. The lights shone bright and clear. The floor was spotless. There were no rogue machines. No fallen bodies.

Everything was utterly silent.

For a brief, fleeting second, Xia Yu wondered if the past hour had just been a terrible dream. Maybe the world was still normal. Maybe nothing had gone wrong at all.

Then his eyes fell on the silver access band by his feet and the crushed robot head lying nearby.

He had to stay sharp. This was no dream.

Xia Yu did not dare let his guard down for a moment. He picked up the band, sliding it back up onto his upper arm, and kicked the metal head out of the way with his bare foot. Then he turned back to the bundle.

His little fish.

The white coat was stained deep crimson now, but at least they had made it out of the lower levels.

Xia Yu hauled the egg out into the corridor. There was only one long hallway ahead, leaving him no choice but to follow it. He wanted to call out to see if anyone was around, but the fear of drawing another robot kept his lips sealed.

He walked for nearly fifteen minutes. To his tired legs, those fifteen minutes felt like hours.

Finally, another set of heavy doors appeared ahead.

EMERGENCY EXIT

The glowing sign spelled out the way. This was the surface exit.

Xia Yu’s arms had gone completely limp from dragging the weight. There was no denying it: the egg was too heavy to haul like this if he needed to move quickly. He needed a better way.

So he made a bold choice. Instead of dragging it across the floor, he would carry it on his back.

He adjusted the blood-stained coat around the shell, carefully fastening each button. The hem hung far too low, so he folded the fabric up and buttoned it in place to create a snug pouch. By the time he was done, the egg was tucked securely inside.

Only then did he notice the steady trickle of blood coming from his bare feet. They were badly scraped from the rough floor.

“Good thing I don’t feel pain,” he muttered softly, wiping a smear of blood away with his hand. “That’s pretty lucky.”

He could not afford to waste time. Turning his back to the bundle, he squatted down and hoisted it onto his shoulders. The empty sleeves of the coat worked like straps; he pulled them forward and tied them tightly across his chest.

Finally, the weight lifted from the floor. The egg became part of him.

“It’s okay. It’s okay…”

Xia Yu stepped toward the emergency exit, whispering to himself.

“I’m way down in the deep ocean… I’m just a little jellyfish. Don’t be scared, I’m just a little jellyfish…”

He was terrified, and humming his little tune under his breath was the only way he could keep his feet moving.

Even with the sign saying Emergency Exit, there was no real safety waiting outside. Unarmed and small, he was about to step beyond the only walls that had ever sheltered him.

He raised his arm and tapped Professor Wang’s access band against the lock.

With a heavy hum, the massive barrier lifted. A sudden gust of open air rushed in, catching his messy hair. The breeze felt cool and damp—the breath of the outside world, pulling him forward into a harsh new reality.

Only after the wind settled did Xia Yu open his eyes.

He had pictured the world outside a thousand times in his head. Now he saw that not a single guess had been right.

This was the world. A place he had never seen, and knew nothing about.

Endless structures of steel and concrete stretched into the distance, their irregular shapes glowing with neon washes of blue, violet, and crimson against the dark sky. Towering digital screens beamed overhead. Thick webs of cables ran between the towers, forming strange, elevated roadways far above the streets.

Fleets of aerial vehicles drifted through the sky like a river of light, darting between the towers. Some took off smoothly, while others dropped like stones, smoking and crashing into the city below.

Alarms and horns wailed from every direction. People stumbled through the streets; others ran blindly through the glow.

The disaster had not stopped at the facility gates. The machines were purging everything out here too. Every towering skyscraper looked like an enormous beast waiting to swallow anyone who drew near.

Xia Yu stood frozen by the doorway, completely at a loss. He did not know which way to run.

He could not linger here. A few yards away, a patrol drone with an angular frame was already turning its sensor array in his direction. It would spot him in seconds.

Even without a plan, he had to keep moving. He needed to get away, find a hiding spot, and make a safe little nest.

A faint ember of courage flared in his chest.

With the egg secured to his back, Xia Yu turned away from the street patrols and hurried into the shadows. He had to live. And his only friend had to live, too.

Courage slowly pushed away the cold dread. His rushed steps broke into a steady run.

With every small bounce of his stride, the egg on his back began to emit a soft, pale cyan glow—a light it had never shown before. The web of blue veins along the shell grew vibrant, pulsing gently in rhythm with the egg’s breath.

Inside the clear fluid, the boy’s lashes fluttered faster and faster, as if he were breaking free of a long slumber, preparing to open his eyes to the world.

The small fin-ears behind his head spread wide like delicate wings, trembling softly in the warm fluid.

On this day, Mo An heard the sounds of the living world for the very first time.

A Mermaid’s Guide to Survival in the Apocalypse