Pizza was a strange human food. It was a lot of things at once, and Aqua had no idea what to make of the flavours that burst on her tongue. Most importantly, this thing called cheese stretched when she pulled it. She had never eaten anything like it before. Not only was it fun, but it was also tasty.
“Do you like it?”Chewing happily, Aqua nodded. Dawn ate his pizza and watched as the mermaid stretched the cheese until it broke. She was like a child trying to see how long she could stretch the mozzarella before it snapped. He didn’t mind. However, they had to eat and leave quickly.“You can finish the rest of the food,” he told her. “I’m going to shower and find some clothes for you.”Nodding absentmindedly, Aqua continued to eat. She wanted to know if the cheese had a limit. So far, she could only stretch it as far as half her arm. Maybe if she tried hard enough, it would reach the end of her arm, and she could sluIt wasn’t very different from driving a car. When Dawn figured out where the steering and the throttle were, he turned on the engine. The key was still in the ignition where the original owners had left it. However, the boat refused to budge after a certain distance of moving. It took Dawn a while to figure out why.The anchor was harder to locate than the mafia boss thought. These boats were engineered to be advanced and had no manual anchors to throw overboard. Instead, there was a button in the cockpit to retract it.Once that was resolved, Dawn was finally able to move the boat. He didn’t want to run into any of Ricardo’s goons who might be searching in the area, so he ran along the city coast until he reached the end of the pier. These boats couldn’t dock in shallow waters, so he had no choice but to disembark at a different end of the same pier.Stopping the boat was easier than starting it. Dawn slowed the speed and dropped the anchor af
It was close to noon when Dawn decided to exit the highway. It was to a small town he had never heard of before and about a hundred kilometres from the pier he was shot at. It would be a great place to find what he needed and swap to a different car in a more isolated spot. Besides, the Cadillac was starting to run low on fuel.There weren’t many cars in this small town. Most people would be at work, so the mafia boss decided to visit the most way-out hypermart to buy what he needed. For now, he needed to stock up on more food, drinks and some clothes. He didn’t have a lot of money on him even after robbing the fishing yacht. Rich people did not carry with them a lot of cash.The hypermart staff were busy restocking shelves, and housewives were buying their daily necessities, some with young children strapped to their backs. Nobody had time to pay attention to Dawn, so he grabbed a trolley and threw the food he needed into it, along with a carton of water.
It felt weird. Was it raining, or was there a school of fish passing by?Aqua cracked open an eyelid sleepily and noticed that colourful sparkles were dancing before her eyes. She had no idea what they were, but they looked pretty. On instinct, she reached out to touch them, but they slipped past her fingers and went behind her.Bleary-eyed, the mermaid woke up and noticed that something was different. She couldn’t move when she tried to flick her tail. Instead, pain shot through her foot when it hit something solid.“Hng!” Aqua bit her bottom lip and reached for her tail when she noticed something horribly wrong.There was a long fabric covering it, but Aqua could feel it at once. She didn’t have scales beneath the fabric, and even her webbed fingers were un-webbed now.“Huh?”Beside her, Dawn watched the mermaid wake up in confusion. Instead of saying anything, he let the bewildered creature recall last night’
The sun had gone down by the time Dawn found a suitable place to rest for the night. It was rather far from the highway in the middle of nowhere. The dirt road and off-beaten trail told the mafia boss that not many people came by. He parked the sedan a little more to the side so that any trucks passing through in the middle of the night could do so without problems.The drive was less boring ever since Aqua woke up. Ever since he started teething, Dawn did not remember being fed by anyone. However, at twenty-seven, the mafia boss experienced what it was like to eat out of someone else’s hand. Aqua insisted on feeding him while he drove because it was too dangerous to drive with only one hand on the wheel. Besides, she had a very convincing reason for doing so.“I want to see a lot of human land before I return to the ocean,” the mermaid sighed as he killed the engine and wound down the window.The night breeze was cool, but Aqua’s legs had alre
The sun rose as it did the previous day, but Dawn woke up to the sound of someone humming a tune he’d never heard before. It took the mafia boss control not to reach for the gun he’d hidden in the front of his hoodie on instinct.Unaware of the death flag she had just avoided, Aqua continued humming a familiar tune. Watching her tail transform into legs at the crack of dawn for the first time, the mermaid wondered if she would ever get used to it. She took the chance while Dawn was asleep to study her new body parts.Legs were very different from tails. Their bone structures felt more rigid and were not covered in protective scales. Instead, she had a layer of very fine hair on them. More importantly, her anatomy in the lower half was slightly different.Dawn did tell her that if she needed to relieve herself in the middle of the night, she should do it outside. However, Aqua had no idea how to walk. She watched humans do it all the time, but i
“I’ll teach you,” Dawn told Aqua as he searched for something in the back of the car.Hearing those words, Aqua couldn’t contain her excitement. Everything would be fine if they avoided where she tossed the bottle last night. She wanted to know what it would be like to walk and run. Many humans seemed to like running by the sea in the mornings and evenings. Aqua always wondered what was so fun about it. Now that she had legs, the curious mermaid wanted to try.Dawn excused himself for a while to freshen up. He didn’t have much, so he only bought a mouthwash. There were no toothbrushes or shavers. He was spotting a rather nice bristle on his chin that Aqua found interesting.When Dawn was ready, Aqua was already bouncing in her seat. The door was still open on Aqua’s side, so Dawn bent down on a knee to help the mermaid wear slippers. They were slightly too big but not enough to prove a tripping hazard, so he left them the way they w
The sky grew darker, and Dawn cussed when the radio reported a risk of a tornado arising in the area. He could already see the highway police putting up barricades at some exits. There was no way he could pull off a heist in this state now, a bummer.Although it was a shame to miss such a good location for easy cash, Dawn played it smart and left the state. He drove for much longer than he intended and was running low on fuel when he finally was forced to stop at a different town in the late afternoon.Not everything in life went smoothly according to his plans. His father taught him that early in life, and it was a harsh lesson to learn. However, Dawn was great at improvising. He might not be in the best place to pull off a heist, but he might be able to pick a few pockets in the area.If he were alone, the mafia boss would go straight to a small shop with his gun to demand cash from a register. However, he was with Aqua. The mermaid couldn’t be put at risk bec
In just five seconds, nobody knew how to breathe. Dawn couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His eyes were wide behind his sunglasses as Aqua let her larynx steal everyone’s soul with her.He had heard Aqua humming. He had heard Aqua gurgling in her sleep. However, Dawn did not know the mermaid’s definition of singing was literally transforming into an entire choir by herself. Most musicians needed accompaniment for performances. It was very difficult to sing acapella. Most pop stars even required auto-tune to sound decent. How was Aqua doing this?The four men he pulled over over lecherous intentions had their jaws slack in disbelief at the raw gem before them. Aqua continued to sing, and Dawn turned behind. The crowd started to grow quickly, but the mermaid was still clueless as to what was happening.Seizing the chance to slip out of the crowd while he still could, Dawn walked towards Aqua from the side and waited behind her beside a tree in