Mermaid Effect

    In the blistering heat of the central city, the pale, huge moon shines upon the roof of Rogers's simple and crude cabin located in the outskirts. There, that man with the strawberry-colored hair hums a song as he takes care of the body parts. The same moon shines upon the apartment on 72nd Pine St., Rand is still fast asleep in his warm bed. In the kitchen, a fish that emits blue fluorescence slowly swims around in a salad bowl that is a little too small for it, the white film at its tail gradually comes off under the gentle flow of the water. In the room separated from Rand's apartment by a wall, Mrs. Smith's door handle turned.

The old woman's apartment exudes a pungent stench, the foul smell of excrement and cat urine makes the teenagers who slipped through the door, treading softly on their tiptoes, unable to restrain themselves from pursuing their brows. One of the teenagers switched on the light after quietly listening for any sounds in the room.

There were three people altogether, the young Mr. Smith, the grandson of Mrs. Smith along with his two companions, the girl named Daisy, and the teenager nicknamed Stone, their shared traits are their faces painted a deathly white, their jet-black lips and nails, and as well as all kinds of metal piercings adorning their skin. "Mr. Smith" looked at the carpet covered with stains under the dim light and disdainfully clicked his tongue.

"Hey, didn't you tell us not wake up that old bag?"

"Stone" muttered at him.

"She's not here," the young Smith licked his lips and lowered his voice, "If she was here, there would have definitely been terrible snoring. I think the care workers probably took her to receive treatment somewhere, I think today is our lucky day."

"Lucky day? Are you sure that there are any useful things for us in this garbage dump?" Daisy examined her nails and sneered.

"What the f.u.c.k did you just say?"

The boy's whole face became twisted and he rushed forward but was blocked by "Stone" (his figure is as strong as his nickname, very buff).

"Shut up," he issued an order at the two's quarrel, he then tore open the zipper on his backpack and swung the bag on his arm, "We have to hurry up and go take the goods while it's still dark."

After he finished talking, he began to frown as he scanned Mrs. Smith's apartment with his eyes and threw those barely useful things into his backpack— a few tortoisesh.e.l.l dressing boxes, what looked like antique porcelain dolls, a barely usable candleholder...

When collecting these things, his brows were always tightly creased from beginning to end, he obviously could not be satisfied with these things.

The young Mr. Smith said that they could get a hold of some things in his grandmother's house—they were going to sell those things and exchange them for money to buy some "fun stuff" that gives a person a good time, but the current situation is obviously not completely up to their expectations.

When Daisy climbed on the cupboard and tried to pull the silver crucifix off the wall that looked to be a cross made of ebony, "Mr. Smith" let out a curse

"h.e.l.l, if that thing is lost, my grandmother will notice!"

Daisy turned his head and gave him a careless sneer.

"h.e.l.l," she deliberately imitated the tone of his voice. "You didn't tell us beforehand that it would be such a garbage dump here."

A mix of embarra.s.sment and anger arose on "Mr. Smith's" face, and he indignantly turned around. He crudely pulled open all of the drawers in the apartment, but the things that can be exchanged for money are simply pitifully few— even if he is young, he knows that no one wants to take a pair of dentures that have a missing tooth.





"Stone" and Daisy confronting him about this makes for an awkward situation, bringing out a kind of cold indifference and contempt. The teenager almost felt that the two people's gazes were like a rat biting his thumb, making him restless. At this time, suddenly, his eyes unintentionally fell on the sliding window on the other side of the balcony.

He went outside and found the balcony of that apartment over there was shockingly close to the window.

In that split-second, he found an escape for his predicament.

He called his companion over, took out a screwdriver and stuffed it in his waistband, and then hopped over to the window belonging to Rand's kitchen.

Daisy frowned and leaned against the balcony railing, watching the two of them.

"Are you sure you want to do this? This is stealing!"

Young Smith went red in the face and angrily sticks up his middle finger at her.

"Shut up, I know what I'm doing!"

He finished speaking, then carefully pried open the sliding window.

He stretched his hand into the window.

In a place he couldn't see, a very thin wire was stretched taut, just in front of his fingers.

Maybe only the difference of a millimeter, the teenager's fingers were about to run into the strand of thread— the following scene would be extremely unpleasant, dozens of a polymer material thread a.s.sembled together barely a quarter of the thickness of hair would be immediately stretched tightly around his body, he wouldn't even feel pain before being sliced into similar sized chunks of meat, he would proceed to wrapped up and sent into Rogers' collection box via the lever principle, the blood will go to the pre-installed liquid collection box and will be directly irrigated into a drainpipe. Everything will be clean, neat and perfect, in full compliance with Rogers's nickname, "Spider."

However, the boy's hand stopped in front of the thread.

"Hey, do you smell that?"

He knitted his brows and sniffed at his companion.

"What?"

"This scent is really a bit nauseating," Mr. Smith squinted and bent down at his waist. Moving his face closer to the trim of the side window. He thought that he smelled the scent of blood... He didn't know what but he instinctively felt that something was wrong.

Then, he felt a layer of moist and slippery fur at the edge of the window.

The fur became sticky, and it felt a wonderfully heavy, despite the fact that it was actually light as a feather.

Mr. Smith groped around for his phone, his finger left a dark-colored bloodstain on the screen as it slid across the screen.

He proceeded to shine the light of the phone to see what it was that he had touched. It was a cat skin.

There were no bones and no flesh on this cat skin, only a single green eyeball hanging out from its eye socket, spinning round and round in a circle and swinging onto the back of his hand.

"What the f.u.c.k is this—"

"Stone" looked at the thing in Smith's hand with a distorted face, nearly bursting out in swears.

He then saw a beam of blue light emitting from the stink that shot out from the cat skin. For a moment, he thought it might be a prank made by this cowardly and useless companion since fluorescent blue tentacles shot perfectly straight into the teenager's mouth, nose, and ears.