Chapter 1: Why such cruelty?

Another joyless day at the lemon beach house.
I force myself to stand, knowing the sheer power of my employers when they are not pleased with me. Chirizu's exploding knife palms and Eiko's ear piercing screech of furor. Two hellish tortures I have been forced against my will to endure more times than I care to count.
The nasty cuts and bruises that still riddle my thoroughly sore tentacles, arms and legs remind me that my wellbeing matters about as much to them as a punching bag to a Kung Fu fighter.
Yet even a Kung Fu fighter would know when his practicing equipment needed a quick clean or some patching up repairs.
A concept Eiko and Chirizu despite being nearly twice my age each, seem incapable of grasping.

Normally my injuries heal well. I am part squid after all and squid's do have regenerative properties so long as their center portion remains intact.
Like Staryu the starfish from Pokemon adventures. Man, I loved that show till Eiko confiscated the remote after bopping me hard in the head with it till I was black and blue for wasting my time on frivolous pursuits that did nothing to contribute to my beach house's profits.
This description of superb regeneration of course only applies to a healthy, happy squid given good care and nutrition.

I've gone without food another three days now. After I by complete accident tipped a glass of water onto a sharply dressed customer that I did not realize till too late was an esteemed critic, he gave our place a scathing rant that took away one of its five stars.
Four of which were only earned thanks to me. My hard work, my friendliness and my heartfelt desire to befriend as many people as possible notwithstanding my brash entry proclaiming my supposed Inkvasion of mankind.
All just a bluster. All just a joke. A joke to make an introverted coward seem like someone bold and outgoing who deserved to be at least tolerated.

I wasn't allowed to go to sleep till three in the morning, and the beach house opens at 6.
I was forced to stay up in the dead of night, scrubbing the disgusting filth of the toilets after some uncaring jerk decided it was as good a place as any to unleash a burst of his sumptuous artisanship.
By which I mean to say, he graffitied all over the already thoroughly unpleasant room like a vandal using hard to clean stains of ketchup and other such condiments.

Steps. Loud, hard, angry steps are coming up the stairs.
I take this as a cue to force my knackered form up and to bestow upon my arm, the most painful pinch with one of my tentacles as I can force myself to endure.
It will be the one energizing motion that can wake me up in my exhausted state before Eiko and Chirizu's easily irked ire is thrown my way once again.

"You're late." Eiko snaps at me as I stagger out of my room in the nick of time as she raises a coil of incredibly sturdy rope, precisely shaped to make a whip.
"Get out there now and I don't want to see any slowness out of you if you know what's good for you. Consider yourself lucky that I don't have the time this morning to dole out your rightful punishment for your sloppiness with all the customers we have coming this Saturday."

She stares me down long and hard even as a stray tear trickles down my still reddened cheeks from the previous beating.
Then she lumbers down the stairs with a final menacing glare.

I steel myself and follow her, wondering how much more money I've made her with my several months of back breaking labor than that tiny window cost by now.
Even if I wasn't exactly on my best behavior that day, it was just a tiny window and I have apologized sincerely.

My tentacles nearly tangle up several times as I hastily construct the meals and I almost stumble over myself to deliver the plates of food to the clueless customers unaware of the ill treatment I receive behind closed doors.
I feel as if my stomach will split open as I force myself to vomit out a puddle of ink for the next demanding patron. It hurts me terribly to do, but the generously paying customers "eat it right up" so I must.
Eiko and Chirizu have made it clear that if a single complaint is made about shoddy service even once more, they are really going to let me have it.
I do not make that statement lightly having already been through what I have at their cruel hands which brook no delay in enforcing the strictest of discipline at my smallest infractions.

My vested interest in history taught me that the slave trade ended five centuries ago.
So then why does Eiko see fit to lash at me with such a crudely constructed whip with such a wicked edge.
The children's right act was enforced last century according to the same history book of human rights and advances in liberty and law.
Yet here I am, twelve years old with no right whatsoever to complain of the horrible way my employers treat me.
I've tried sneaking to the police with my plea for them to sympathize with my plight and the scandalous racket the famous lemon beach house operates in secret behind its increasing streak of wealthy successes.
They ignore me, saying I'm too young to be making such accusations.

Yes, the same rights designed to protect minors from undeserved abuse are now trying to place us into certain doom.

I hear a splash from outside. I do not need to go to look (and frankly am not allowed to on account of the ten long hours remaining before the restaurant closes and I am allowed a brief bit of respite) to know that yet another toxic barrel of noxious oil has been dunked into the peaceful sea.
That the poisoned container with a stench so ugly it could offend a skunk, will sink deep below releasing a trail of deadly gas enough to stifle and kill a vast crowd of sea life including a considerable number of my brethren.

My beloved brethren.

A race capable of complex language, feelings of gladness and sadness and a rich and expansive culture predating even the first true humans to walk the land above us.
With arms, legs and a brain even larger than the dominant species of the Earth "Homo Sapiens". Which I remembered from one of my brief memories of the anatomy diagram I was shown as a youngling back in my home.

A large motor whirs into life as I blink myself several times painfully to recover from this painful thought.
A fishing trawler. Or more specifically judging by the loudness of the deafening din that comes on the verge of shattering my sensitive eardrums, an oceanic fishing emporium with nets enough to empty the sea in the blink of an eye.

Let me make it crystal clear before I go on that I have no grudge against the occasional fish being hunted in a humane manner to be eaten as a safeguard against starvation.
It is nature's way and we squid people have done the same for the entirety of our time alive as a race.
But in the vast quantities that humanity fishes and with the sheer number of spoiled fish being thrown back having found no use in an already overflowing stock of seafood, I can but sigh deeply at such wastage. Such unsustainable wastage that starves my people in the masses, subjecting us to a slow, agonizing death worse than being caught in the same way humans caught fish and being brutally slaughtered to be packaged into a gift shop.

I do not know why mankind chooses this dark path of wasteful overconsumption that is killing the planet day by day.
I hear the fishermen that frequent this eatery sometimes discuss that they are paid based on the number of fish they catch and that they do not give a damn about how they empty the ecosystems so long as they can turn another pretty coin.
That the one who fishes up the most fish gets an award as employee of the month and the respect of all the other fishers.
Coins and attention. Two things' we squid people also crave but certainly not over destroying precious habitats that once destroyed can never be replenished.

This world, this whole world, both the land and sea part of it.
Are dying.
The short sighted, greedy humans just don't know it yet.

I cannot leave this place despite what it might seem.
I have tried before and each time, Chirizu only catches me in the act and stares me down with her venomous glare that silently communicates through mime, the sheer world of hurt I will be in for if I do not accompany her back to my workhouse that very instant.
Her smile is but a cheap ruse to hide her dark intentions.

In the time I've taken to mull over these traumatizing thoughts of existential crisis's, I've slowed down in my work the slightest bit and it does not go unseen by Eiko.
Thank goodness we are in the presence of a roomful of custo...

Ouch. OUCH! OOUUCCHH!

Never mind. She can still nail me backside with a bone shattering kick unseen by the public and give me a glance of daggers that promises yet more stringent punishment if I do not immediately put back the blank smile on my face and haul my sorry ass back to delivering the dishes.

My one wish right now is that Takeru were still here.
I've been such a filthy stinking squid to him but it's too late for apologies now.
Inky tears blur my vision as I vividly recall the hurt in his wounded expression as my final screech of meanness drove away my truest friend since entering the surface world.
All he wanted was to get to know me and my underwater world a little better out of friendly curiosity.
And I selfishly punished the poor child for his niceness.

I know he'd care about saving the oceans if he were still here with me.
But he has left. A school trip, claims Eiko when I ask why he isn't trying to get my attention as he usually would be.
Most likely just an excuse to avoid me after I'd so brutishly bawled him out.
Oh Takeru...

There is not much hope for mankind nor squid kind nor the dying planet that has not much time left thanks to mankind's thoughtless neglect for the seas.

But what can I do?
Is there no one who will help me?
Does no one, absolutely no one care about me and my important cause?

…

Amid an excited crowd grinning ear to ear in unison, sat the forlorn raven-haired younger brother of Eiko and Chirizu.
His eyes were wan and his face crimson moist.
"I'm so sorry Squid girlie" he sobbed even as a deafening guitar riff blared across the court nearly blasting him from his seat.
"All I wanted was to play with you and be your friend".

He had noticed that something was wrong with his usually cheerful and upbeat aquatic companion for quite some time.
Never able to put his finger on what, her sudden full blown tantrum at him a previous few days ago as dark circles pooled over her crimson vision slits had utterly broken him and he had since then never been able to get a full night's sleep wracked with guilt and shame.

Now he would never be able to tell her that he too was no fan of the wasteful negligence of his race and that he concurred completely and utterly with her wise words of wisdom on the importance of the sea.
Her cause was noble and he would be only too glad to join her in this valiant crusade but he could tell her none of that now.

He let off another pained sob as a microphone buzzed a few times to the loudening cheers of the spectators surrounding him, some of which were the fellow students and teacher that had accompanied him to this flashy music festival that he had been so impatiently eager for prior to squid girl's violent blow up. He always knew that his adoring fascination with her alien charms were incredibly one sided but he never knew her to feel this strongly averse to his affections.

He only wished there was a way for himself to make up to her.
Perhaps if she too could be part of this spectacle which would feature three of the most famous musicians currently to inhabit the entirety of the planet Earth.
Their notes were said to be able to uplift even the heaviest heart of sadness and to bring tears to the stony eyes of even statues.
But Eiko had told him that Squid girl was busy today to catch up on extra work and that such a fine festival did not need a delinquent such as her spoiling it for him.

Something about the crassness in his older sister's voice, made him almost want to sock her in the skull with all his might till he forced an apology out of the redhead.
It was only a painful concoction of pacifism and cowardice that stayed his wobbly arm as it tensed even as he finished packing his bag with his books for school and a packed lunch of delicious squid ink noodles made by none other than the pride of the lemon beach house herself.
He had seen her in terrible pain as she forced herself to vomit the black fluid into her signature dish a few times but never thought much of it.
Until he took one glance back as he set one foot out the door to find an abject look of terror as she flashed an empty glance of pure desperation in his direction even as he boarded the school bus that took him far away from her and his home.

He did not know what to make of it, but a horrible sensation of fear possessed him through the rest of the day even as he accompanied his class to their assigned seats of the concert they had brought tickets for some few weeks ago.
Despite how eager he'd been for this, he hoped it would be over soon so that he could go back to squid girl to check if she was alright.
Little did he know...

First squid girl fanfiction.
Thank you for reading. Any and all comments welcome and I will try to update soon.
One thing I would like to say is that I deeply side with Squid girl's cause.
Pollution is indeed tearing our world apart and it is time that someone did something responsible about it like her.