The lab was cold. Always cold.
Eliot’s shoes echoed against the sterile floor as he wandered deeper into the research wing he’d never been allowed to see. His father’s voice from earlier still rang in his ears—
"You’ll finally understand what our work means. Not everything in the world can be saved, Eliot."
He didn’t reply then. He rarely did. Richard Hayes was not a man to argue with. But nothing could’ve prepared him for what waited at the end of the hall.
It was a tank. Massive, glowing faintly, filled with light that danced like moonlit water. And inside it floated a creature so beautiful it hurt to look at him.
Pale skin like porcelain, long silver hair drifting like seaweed in gentle currents. Muscles coiled with strength, arms relaxed at his sides. His tail was dark, nearly black, tapering into crimson fins that shimmered with every shift.
But it was the eyes that trapped Eliot. Ancient. Watchful. Sad.
Eliot stepped forward slowly. The creature didn’t move.
He lifted a hand to the glass.
The merman mirrored him.
Their fingertips met, divided by the cold barrier. Something sparked.
From that moment on, Eliot returned every day.
He brought music. Drawings. Even seashells he’d collected as a boy. Lirien—he called him that, whispered through the glass—began to respond. His eyes softened. He smiled, sometimes. A flick of his fin. A pressed palm. Silent conversations.
Eliot began to dream of the sea.
One night, he stood before the tank, pressing both hands to the glass.
“I wish I could hear your voice,” he murmured.
A pause.
Lirien pressed his forehead to the glass.
Warmth bloomed in Eliot’s chest—like a whisper in his mind. A sensation. A memory that wasn’t his: salt air, waves, sunlight dancing across an endless kingdom of coral and freedom.
They were connected.
They were more than just man and myth.
They were something.
It ended two days later.
Richard caught him.
“You’re falling in love with it,” he sneered. “Disgusting.”
“He’s not an it,” Eliot said. “He’s alive. He’s thinking. He’s feeling.”
Richard’s hand slammed on the desk. “He’s dangerous. And he’s being moved tomorrow.”
Eliot’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean moved?”
“Classified.” Richard smirked. “But tanks don’t last forever, son. And I don’t have time for weakness. Not even yours.”
That night, Eliot returned.
He had no plan. Only a crowbar and shaking hands.
The lab lights buzzed above him. The water in the tank shimmered in moonlight. Lirien rose to meet him, sensing the storm in his heartbeat.
“I can’t let them take you,” Eliot whispered, pressing the crowbar to the glass. “Please, forgive me.”
He struck. Again. Again.
The glass cracked like thunder.
Alarms blared.
Doors slammed open behind him—but Lirien moved first.
He surged forward, eyes glowing with old, forbidden magic. With a sharp cry, he hurled his body against the crack. The tank shattered in a violent wave, water flooding the lab.
Richard was there. A gun in hand.
“ELIOT, MOVE—!”
But the shot fired.
The sound of a scream was swallowed by water.
Eliot floated in the flood, bleeding.
Lirien’s arms wrapped around him, cradling him like something precious. The world was sirens and shouting, but all Eliot saw was the silver-haired man before him.
“You’re beautiful,” Eliot whispered, lips trembling. “I’m sorry.”
Lirien leaned close, his forehead touching Eliot’s.
A surge of warmth. Visions. Not words—but feelings.
Love.
Freedom.
The ocean.
A kiss.
Soft. Gentle. The kind of kiss you only give once.
Then the world turned dark.
They never found Eliot’s body.
Only an empty tank, broken glass, and water laced with blood.
Some say the sea glows blue every year on the same night.
Some say they’ve seen a pale figure with crimson fins resting on coastal rocks, singing to the stars.
Some say he waits—because love like that never dies.
Not really.
