A Mermaid’s Guide to Survival in the Apocalypse

Mo An and Xia Yu—a merfolk and a jellyfish hybrid.

Set in a cyberpunk post-apocalyptic world, this is the story of two little guys stumbling their way through the end of civilization and trying their best to survive.

(Also known as: Two Unlucky Kids Take on the World)

Xia Yu was a test subject who grew up in a research institute. For as long as he could remember, everyone in the laboratory had called him “Little Jellyfish.”

Jellyfish DNA had been spliced into his body, leaving him unusually insensitive to pain. He could turn parts of his body transparent, and even regenerate severed limbs.

He had never resisted his fate. Day after day, pieces of him were removed according to schedule. He thought his life would continue like that forever—until one day, the robots awakened, and the research institute fell.

The humans who had once turned scalpels on him collapsed, giving him his first chance to escape. Just before the institute entered its self-destruct sequence, Xia Yu couldn’t bring himself to leave another X-Series subject behind and carried Mo An out with him.

A mermaid who had spent six whole years incubating inside an egg without ever showing the slightest sign of hatching.

The world was no longer peaceful.

Machine warfare, the rise of aberrant species, natural disasters, genetic mutations… any one of them could kill the two children.

Ten-year-old Xia Yu fled through acid rain with Mo An in tow. He had no idea whether Mo An would ever hatch, but abandoning the egg never once crossed his mind.

Until one day, when Xia Yu was captured by modified humans while trying to trade for an expensive dose of nutrients for the egg. They threw him into a waste-processing plant, intending to dismantle him—and the one-meter-tall egg finally stirred.

Little Jellyfish was stupid.

But no one was allowed to hurt Little Jellyfish.

That was the only thought in Mo An’s mind after he slid free of the egg.

A Mermaid’s Guide to Survival in the Apocalypse