It took a clever amount of ingenuity to get Ryan out of the bathroom and somehow, be out with his other coworkers in a semi-circle as they were told to go home for the day, as the office would need some major repair work after what just happened.

According to someone (or at least from what he heard around him), it was being blamed on a power surge in the area, as it had taken out the whole building and not just their shared space in one big hit. He didn't know whether that made him feel relieved...or more guilty.

Didn't matter. He needed out. Now. Dipping out as fast as his newly dried legs could carry him away from Shane, he quickly got his belongings (most thankfully not covered in glass) and got to his car in record time, ending up sitting on his couch huddled in a blanket while some Spanish soap played in the background, still shaken up about everything.

Now, some of you may be wondering right now- "But wait! Ryan was trapped in the bathroom? There's no way he could have gotten out without anyone seeing, right?"

Well just how, you ask, did he get out of that bathroom? Simple. He walked out. On his tail fin. Holding onto the toilet stalls. Yeah, that hurt.

Faced with no other choice on the soaking ground that wouldn't be cleaned for hours and given that his arms were aching from holding the weight of his tail sky-high earlier, Ryan could already see he wouldn't be able to handstand his way out of this one.

So walking (somehow) it was.

It was an arduous (and rather slippery) 'walk' to the nearest hand dryer, his tail fin end parts acting like large clown feet that smacked against the tiles and water helplessly as Ryan clung onto the cubicle doors and walls for dear life.

Upon reaching said dryer, he flipped the blower upside down to face the ceiling and clambered the wall as if he was now Spiderman and not a siren on the verge of being caught and darted, using all the strength he had left to hold his tail above the stream of dry warm air before finally, a great whoosh took over and he was just holding his legs up in the air as if he was about to perform some weird hot yoga move, clothing included.

Clamping down onto the dryer with some force, he used it to fling himself like a slingshot past all the water he could see into the rather dry hallway, hitting the wall with an obnoxious squeaky noise worthy of a comic, flaying all his now functioning body parts to his feet and rushing out before anyone saw him there and sicked his co-worker on him.

So all in all, you could say that life wasn't going exactly going well for Ryan right now.

Turned out being a siren and not having the entire world know it or /wanting/ the entire world to know about it as well, was kind of fucking hard and it seemed it was just going to get harder now Ryan was aware he had powers that were controlled by his emotions.

(Ha, thanks a lot universe. Could have given him a heads up.)

This whole thing was nuts. Just plain crazy. What could he honestly do?

It wasn't like he could ask anybody and he doubted the internet or some southern Californian library had the answers he wanted. He supposed he could ask the cryptozoologist in some way, but the thought of peppering the poor dude with weird questions and possibly fucking up Buzzfeed's relationship with him and his people made him nervous.

Coming right down to it, he knew that he would never get answers until he found them for himself. Which was why he was currently headed for Laguna Beach, surprisingly enough.

"It was a stupid idea, this is such a stupid idea!" His brain was screaming at him, but he still parked his car and walked down to the beach, his heart thumping as the wind blew past his nose and ears as he looked around, seeing that thankfully, there was only a few on the beach itself and no one to see him sneak into a nearby cave to wait for high tide.

He knew he could still get caught, despite everything, but he wanted answers. He knew Hispaniola was too far to swim. Or at least, for a normal person anyway. His research said it would take him at least 20 -30 days or so, but Ryan was of course, not that normal anymore.

Someone inside told him that he would be fine.

Tiptoeing on the sandy floor and slippery rocks housed within his hiding spot, he was careful of any sharp slate or half-buried seashells that he could step on as he hid a bunch of towels he brought with him as high as he could from any water coming in for the journey home, as well as a fake camera he'd bought on Amazon so if all else failed, he could pretend he was doing a photoshoot as a merman and the crew were just packing up and would come back later for him. Something like that.

Humming a song to himself (later identified to be Dory's song from 'Finding Nemo' of all things), he looked out at the horizon as water started to lap at the mouth of the cave's opening and swallowed hard. Why was he scared? He'd never been scared of water before.

Was it because he was different now? Was it because he was afraid that if he dove in, he may never come back out? Was it that Hawaii was like 300 nautical miles away and other than having a compass, he had no clue where he was going or how to get there?

So many questions and yet, as the water started to flow in, he didn't seem to care much. He needed answers, one way or another and this seemed like the best bet, so he took a deep breath, looked around one last time in case he never saw the coast of California again, said a quick prayer in Spanish and ran as fast as he could towards the water before he angeled down and dove in, closing his eyes and letting it swallow him whole-

Then they opened.