Mermaid Effect Chapter 8

 "Kcha—"

Rand pressed the camera's picture b.u.t.ton facing the salad bowl, afterward, he frowned as he looked at the screen. The fish in the photograph is a ma.s.s of an indiscernible blob of white light.

Rand couldn't help but look at the salad bowl in front of his eyes and the fish swam as slowly as any normal fish in the world. Next to the brushed stainless steel salad bowl is his mobile phone, a Ha.s.selblad camera (this is a gift from Vincent), which means in addition to the ordinary digital camera he is holding now, he has already tried three ways to capture a photo of this weird fish— and all three methods have failed.

Every photo, h.e.l.l, truly every single photo that the fish that was photographed in has been covered by a strange blob of white light as if the center of the photos he took had been picked out by someone's fingernails. Rand turned off the flash and tried different focal lengths, but from beginning to end he wasn't able to take a picture of this fish's appearance. He was never a very good photographer, but he also wasn't this terrible. After thinking it over for a moment, Rand finally ascertained the cause: the backlighting on the fish. As the wound of the fish was covered with more and more white film and sealed all the more securely, the l.u.s.ter on the fish also became more and more obvious, it looked as if the gray thing's scales were covered with a mother of pearl sheen. At a few certain angles under the lighting, Rand can see the rainbow-like l.u.s.ter that it emits.

Rand thinks that layer of l.u.s.ter is what caused him to be utterly incapable to take a picture of the fish. He reluctantly put away the camera, then walked back to the computer and shot down a line of characters in the reply box.

My apologies, I can't take a picture of this fish's appearance.

He explained it a bit, but as he expected, the people in this fish enthusiast forum almost entirely took his request for help as gibberish.

Rand is not very familiar with forums or other ways of communicating on the Internet, but when he finished his coffee this morning, he came to the realization that there is no sea in Kansas and this weird fish is a salt.w.a.ter fish.

At first, Rand just wanted to a.s.sist it in returning back, waiting until it's terrible wound got better again and put it back, but now this matter has become complicated. Of course, if he asked Vincent to take a trip back, Vincent wouldn't ask any questions and would get the private plane ready...

Rand shuddered, and he vowed that he would absolutely never want to do it that way.

He found a fish enthusiast forum on the Internet for help, but after he said that the fish survived pretty well in the "saline solution" that was prepared with table sea salt and drinking water, everyone expressed extreme distrust.

Not one fish can do this, just like how no man can survive in a vacuum without any equipment for a whole day... Of course, people can indeed survive in an anaerobic environment for a period of time, a short period of time, nearly ten of seconds or a few minutes, but in the end, they will always die of oxygen deficiency.

The same is true for fish too.

It is absolutely impossible for a real salt.w.a.ter fish to survive for such a long time in salt.w.a.ter prepared with a mix of table salt and drinking water.

Only one person tried to get Rand to send a photo to the forum and ID it for him, but this was also declared a lost cause.

Rand was a bit at a loss for what to do. He sat in front of the computer. After a few minutes, his forum post dropped down and no one would pay attention to him again.

Rand ultimately decided to buy a fish tank to bring back first.

In fact, the easiest solution was to kill the fish, but Rand looked at the fish and couldn't forget that he was the one who took it back from the beach.

If he were to describe it in a funny way, it is that he feels that he may have a certain responsibility for it.

And... Rand looked around this somewhat excessively neat apartment and thought it might not be too much of a bad thing to keep a pet.

He was thankful to Rogers, his chatter made it easy for Rand to find a pet store in the city center. The other side didn't have too much to say about the fish, but Rand still bought the required fish tank, water pumps, and a few other bits and pieces that he needed, and, of course, the most important, the properly mixed salt.w.a.ter salt.

Just like the members on the fish enthusiast forum, the boss also did not believe in Rand's rhetoric at all, what fish that lived in a saline solution for a whole day and ate meat and cereals...

"Ha ha ha, are you keeping a monster?"

The other party mocked him, but this did not prevent him from attentively paying attention to the matter of showing Rand the proper package of salt.w.a.ter salt brand.

The following business could be said to go smoothly, but when Rand went home, because of too many things in his hands he had no choice but to lay down that life-threateningly heavy fish tank. He then had enough ability to fish out his keys from inside his bag.

It is precisely because of this that after he clumsily opened the door, a withered hand easily grabbed him like a witch's claws.

"Huh—"

Rand was frightened. He turned and came to see the person who grabbed him. It was naturally a grizzly-haired elderly lady. She looked like only half the size of Rand, standing there tottering where she stood, her blue eyes that had faded into gray from aging fiercely glared at Rand from behind the folds of her skin.

"Give it back to me!"

She ambiguously shouted at Rand, a black cat who was almost as emanc.i.p.ated as her, yowled and hissed in her arms.

"My apologies, I..."

Rand never encountered such a thing, he completely couldn't make sense of what was going on.

The elderly lady grabbed his hand and had an uncanny strength that was entirely incompatible with her age. He even had the illusion that her fingers would sink into his flesh.

And that cat, G.o.d, the cat looks like it is going to eat him.

"Give me back! Give Corolla back to me! Wahhh... my poor Corolla..."

The old woman continued to shout at Rand, this time he finally clearly heard her words.

"Sorry. I don't know what you mean by Corolla, but I swear I have never touched her."

Rand tried to explain in a panic, but the old woman appeared wholly incapable of understanding what he was saying and bawled with all her might just as she did before demanding for him to return this so-called Corolla to her. And that dreadful cat's fur is raised up, it looks exceedingly horrible. The combination of the cat's hissing and the old woman's yells together, the chaos finally made Rogers open his door and poke his head out.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on here... Rand?"

Rogers knitted his brows utterly perplexed. After seeing the old woman who was in a tangle with Rand, he widened his eyes even more in astonishment: "Mrs. Smith? Rand, how did you provoke her?"

"I didn't!"

Rand shouted out laced with suffering, he then turned his head around in an attempt to communicate with the old woman: "Sorry, I really have not seen your Corolla...... "

"It's useless, Mrs. Smith has Alzheimer's, she is unable to make sense of anything you talk about. And, Corolla is just a cat." Rogers came over, not knowing what trick he used, he easily pulled Mrs. Smith away from Rand.

This action evidently infuriated Mrs. Smith, who shrieked and smacked Rogers's chest, and that cat slid away from her arms.

Rand is trying hard to make sense of what exactly is going on at this time.

"Cat? d.a.m.ned things, I haven't seen any cats at all... Hey, that's my home!"

His words were suddenly cut short, as he looked on helplessly as the black cat bolted straight through the crack of his door and dashed into his house.

Rand went straight in after it and then saw it scuttle right onto the kitchen countertops. The cat now appeared to be twice as big as it was before. It made a sound that seemed to come straight out of h.e.l.l, screeching at the salad bowl on the kitchen countertops.

Oh, his fish!

Rand madly rushed over and subconsciously extended his hand.

The cat's claws directly scratched his hand, and the blood was almost instantly spilled out—before this, Rand never realized that just a cat scratch could cause so much blood.

And, the cat scratch is G.o.dd.a.m.n painful.

Some blood from the cut fell some in the water, Rand didn't know whether the blood had upset the fish. It changed at a formidable speed— an unusually garish and beautiful blue-green spread all over it. Its tail opened, and most importantly, from behind its cheeks burst forth a hidden bright red membrane, it was like a cloak that incessantly trembled.

Right after that, the cat looked like it had just seen a ghost, and the hissing came to a stop, then its tail withdrew back in between its hind legs, and it shot down counter like a bullet and rushed out of Rand's house.

"Hey!"

Rogers, who followed right after Rand, tried to stop it but unexpectedly failed.

After seeing the cat that ran away, Mrs. Smith also went out and began to call out another name in tears, Juana Grey Maria... and then she began to stagger, swaying from side to side and chased after the cat.

Rand covered his hand with the other one and looked at it all with a stunned look.

"Rand! Are you okay?"

Rogers widened his eyes at Rand's hand as if he had stood there and been punched.

Rand waved his hand to try and express that he was alright, but he quickly drew out a mouthful of air because of his movements.

"In fact, except for a little pain, I think it should be nothing too bad..."

"You are bleeding!"

Rogers looked like he was about to faint, but he still helped Rand get hydrogen peroxide and bandages.

"Oh, it's just bleeding, that's all," Rand looked at the wound after the bloodstains had been flushed away by hydrogen peroxide. It was probably about two centimeters long on his wrist - it was not serious, but it really hurt like a b.i.t.c.h. "The old woman... Mrs. Smith... I think you should go check on her."

Rand was a bit worried about that old woman (although her cat was like a lunatic), she didn't look too much like a person who could guarantee their own safety, especially in the case of chasing after a cat.

At Rand's insistence, Rogers had to leave his apartment to check on Mrs. Smith's condition— Rogers promised that he would find a way to call Mrs. Smith's guardian to deal with this problem, but Rand stayed behind in the apartment until he came back and took him to the hospital.

After he closed the door, Rand's soul slowly came back to him.

He moved to step in front of the salad bowl.

(TN: Oh my G.o.d, please n.o.body tell Vincent a G.o.dd.a.m.n word. Keep it shut we don't need a mental breakdown. Also creepy gong fish? I mean he already killed Jerry, we all know Tom's gonna be on the chopping block next lmao.)