He didn't exactly know how long it took him, or even how many times he breached the surface to make sure that he wasn't being followed or just to check what was above him, but suddenly soon enough, his head rose above the water to reveal land.

Very familiar land.

There was a chill in the air around him as he looked out at the rocky shores of a land mass facing north in front of him and somehow, felt almost certain that he'd reached Hawaii someway, somehow and almost couldn't believe it. Yet, here he was.

Honestly, all the islands were pretty, including Hispaniola, given that it was so close to the Bahamas and such, but it just... had such a different vibe to it when Ryan and Shane first came here and stepped foot onto its sandy exterior from the ferry.

He had suspected early on in their walkaround that some of those vibes could possibly be because the country next door to their filming location was synonymous with voodoo and death and spirits with traditions that were rooted so far into the land that even just being looked at passive aggressively could bring a curse to your whole family, but as he swam around the shore looking for the entrance to that pool, it was just...heavier than before.

It seemed that the water around the islands also reflected this, the quite dark azure blue for this seemingly late or rather early hour deepening to some kind of midnight black where it lay stagnant or gently nipping and rippling around rocks, sand and sea life.

It reminded Ryan almost, to his chagrin, of the West Virginia night sky when he and Shane went hunting for Mothman, how they'd laid themselves down on a hillside near their motel in the grass and saw the stars though a canopy of oak and spruce trees, blazing white and multicolored shapes and patterns against a black backdrop.

He hated woods when a passion (because, fucking bears duh), but that night it hadn't seemed so bad to be near them, given that Shane had talked about the forest near his place as a kid for most of the time (Ryan may have nodded off here and there) and how it "shaped" him.

God only knows just how, given it just made him seem just that little more demonic.

He would have dwelled on the whole water thing longer, if it weren't for the appearance of a bright red light, blinking from just above the sand in the water beside a hallowed looking cluster of rocks, seaweed and barnacles that seemed to give way somewhere. Could it be?

Dipping his upper body back down into the water to see better (and he seriously meant that), he started dusting the sand away from the light with his webbed hands, before he suddenly swam back in almost shock at what was revealed.

There, sitting unbroken and somehow still recording despite being chucked around and spit out, was the GoPro. Strap and all. He almost wanted to do a somersault right now.

He could literally say a viewer found it and shipped it back to him if anyone asked, no one would have to know how he'd found it again. Sara would most likely thank him as well, maybe even treat him a little better because he'd saved the editing team some of her scorn.

Quickly collecting up the equipment like it was a newborn baby, he cradled it to his chest with one arm as he started to slide his free hand over the dip in the rocks, feeling for something that would guide him in the right direction. If there was an opening back into those caves, it had to be here. The camera wouldn't have been in this spot if there wasn't.

It took a couple of minutes, but eventually after some poking and prodding at the rocks to see if any would give way, his hand slipped through into a much colder feeling tunnel of some description, under a wall of thick, brown seaweed. Bingo.

Pushing some of the seaweed out of the way, he flattened himself against the sea bed and shimmed into the tight crawl space like a snake would and not a fish, traversing the narrow entrance with his arms pinned to his sides before it finally opened back up and he was then faced with the familiar looking rounded pool bottom that had almost managed to take him out for good those couple of days ago.

He'd actually fucking made it. He didn't know whether to feel elated, shocked or sick. Maybe he'll just go with all three options for now, to cover everything.

Now onto the next problem to solve: How the hell to get out of this PTSD inducing pool with a tail as long as your normal human body. At least he didn't have to worry about being graceful, no one in a 15 kilo radius had x-ray vision (or did they? He needed to stop thinking about all this Voodoo stuff, people most likely already thought he was insane after this morning's embarrassment) as he started to swim his way up into the shallower water.

Attempt #1. Here we go.

Ryan was panting by the time he managed to get a foothold on a rock to step up and out of the mouth of the cave into the misty dawn. Stupid mermaid cavern. The damn thing had been so slippery that Ryan now knew what fish felt like when they were turned into sushi (and vowed to not eat said food for a while, just thinking about it made him green around the gills. Ha, gills!) and a hell of a lot more.

It took about 7 attempts on his part to get him on shore and another several to dry himself given there was no sun to even speak of down there, brushing sand from his legs and stuffing the GoPro into the pocket of his sweatshorts as he looked around.

The island, even in the light of dawn and not the cover of darkness, was still quite pretty. The water (well, some of it) was pretty clear, the coastline was a mix between brown and cream colored sand and palm trees as well as sharp rocks and boulders dotted about around it.

No wonder it had seemed like a mythical hiding spot where mermaids might exist.

Right now, however, he was kind of starting to regret coming here, as while he'd really wanted answers, he still had no idea how to find them. He still felt the pull he'd felt that directed him here from the water, the rope that tugged at the inner seam of his chest and figured, if it already had gotten him ehre, it was best to follow it more.

Keeping himself as clear headed as possible, Ryan started walking...and walking...and walking...in fact, he'd walked for so long, his newly dried legs actually started cramping as he stepped over rocks and terrain. Guess the swimming had really taken it out of them in some way, no matter their visibility or even shape.

Honestly, he'd kill for a Shane joke right now, but he shook his head. "God damn it Ryan-" he muttered to himself quietly. "Stop thinking about that bonehead."

If he'd been a video game character, little love hearts would have floated up from his head and popped like little balloons above him and he hated that's what he'd become now. Shane was his best friend. Best /friend/. Nothing more, as always. He could live with it.

Having stopped once his thoughts took over, Ryan briefly looked up to take stock of where he was and squinted, seeing what looked like another cave in the distance. Christ, he was turning into Indiana Jones now, not a Disney Princess. Clearly that's where he needed to go and despite wanting to, he didn't resist the pull and moved with it, only to stop and gasp.

The cave was much bigger than the entrance back to the mermaid pool and covered in the same white, green and blue speckled crystals he'd seen before in the same cavern, only in this place, they gave the inside a soft, rather radioactive looking glow.

They cast a wall of light into the left hand side of the cave where it curved off and down to somewhere, illuminating a flowing script of some kind on the wall, the carved and obviously ancient looking handwriting filled with letters that Ryan hadn't ever since before in his life, and could not even begin to translate.

He went to snap a few photos of it, but of course realized he didn't have his phone on him, having left it with his towel, however far his home was from here. Despaired, Ryan almost turned around, but remembered the GoPro as it slapped against his knee and took it out, pressing the record button and holding it vlog style in the direction of the wall, squatting down so the whole wall was in shot before speaking.

"Okay, so I'm...currently in Hispaniola right now and I decided to do some exploring away from Shane and the crew while they set up for the night shoot and I found this."

He knew that this was bullshit and yeah, while he had that night left the crew and Shane to set up without him, he hadn't wandered too far. However, he knew that should he take this camera back to Buzzfeed to grab footage from it, he needed to make it look legit.

Filming for a few more minutes to make sure he had the whole of what was written in the rocks for later analyzing on his own, Ryan quietly said another prayer (the same one he'd done that afternoon he'd dove into the water, a protection prayer taught to him long ago by his grandmother and mother that had been passed down for years), bowed his head and turned his back as he walked back in the direction he'd been pulled from to find the pool again.

Maybe he might have a grandpa nap before he left, however. After all, this did count as his morning workout now.

Turns out, being gone a very long time without talking to people who you normally talk to everyday or at least, every second day, can make more people quite concerned.

Crashing back into LA's shores at sunset wasn't in the plan of course, given he'd hoped he'd be back a hell of a lot earlier, but that nap he'd had on a rock in the sun on his way back to the cave had been worth it. He might have gotten a little pink because of it, but given his normal skin colour, it was barely noticeable.

Clambering out of the surf as best he could, he shimmed up onto some rocks and watched as the waves pulled themselves back out of his spot, almost feeling a sad ache at the thought of having to leave it, but you know, he's human. Still, somehow.

After getting dried and able to stand, he hastily collected his things and hung the towel around his neck as he walked barefoot in the powdery Laguna sand, unlocking his phone.

There were a flurry of emails, Slack notifications and messages, so much so that they started lagging his phone after a few moments, but in-between the pings, there was a number.

30. 30 hours. It had taken him 30 hours to reach Hispaniola. Swimming. With a tail. A task that would have taken an average human 30 days only took him 10% of the time.

He almost shivered at the very thought. That was...he was scarily fast if that was accurate, but before he could really think about it properly, his phone jumped from his fingers as it rung shrilly and he cursed underneath his breath as he fumbled to pick it up from out of the sand and clean it off with his towel as he walked about to his car, sliding the green phone icon to the right and holding it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Ryan Bergara, jesus fucking christ! Where the fuck have you been?" Sara. Shit.

"Sara, hey. Sorry about yesterday, I just needed some time to blow off steam, plus that whole glass thing that happened. I turned off my phone for a while and just...uh…"

Ryan peered towards the horizon as the sun mirrored itself on the ocean. "...went for a walk and stuff. Tuned out and everything. Didn't mean to worry anyone."

"Well, Ryan, you better walk your ass back into the Buzzfeed office tomorrow morning at 8am sharp, because not only are people freaking out after your performance yesterday as you are so cleverly eager to point out-" Ryan grit his teeth in irritation as Sara continued." -but turns out that Dr. Mesa, the cryptozoologist you and Shane wanted to film with, is coming to California for a conference and has freed up an hour-long window so you and Shane can get your B-roll. This is the only op that you have with him for almost a year, so straighten up."

"You got it, boss." He practically had to hold himself back from insulting her, as his mother raised him better, but it didn't mean he didn't think about it for a moment. Or several.

"Good, now get a move on and for the love of God, please call Shane back. He's having heart palpitations and keeps blaming himself for you going AWOL."

Sara hung up after that and Ryan almost wanted to hurl the phone into the ocean in front of him, but settled for tossing it into his passenger seat as he pulled the car from it's parking bay (thankfully without a ticket on it) and drove back to his apartment.

Roland obviously hadn't been home since that morning given the spare key was still out when he checked, so he used his own to let himself in, GoPro he'd retrieved from the island ending up next to his laptop on his desk to be viewed later with a careful eye as he slowly sat down on the couch and tried to make sense of everything.

Okay, so. He could swim fast. Like, really fucking fast. Could even possibly give Sonic a run for his money, literally. He could make water move, depending on his emotions. If he was calm, it was controllable. If he was sad (as he found out the other day after watching a stupid clickbait cat video), water would run out of anything it could. If he was mad, it was not and worse, if irate, it was like a geyser.

He could breathe almost creepily well underwater, had gills, didn't need to hold his breath or have his chest tight. He didn't get too exhausted or lightheaded and the water almost felt like swimming in lemonade to him, the fizz of bubbles and airy feeling on his skin hard to forget.

All simple things to talk about, yet never logical by modern day standards unless you wanted to end up in some high staffed hospital psych ward with a loser in a nightgown.

Shaking his head, he pulled out his phone to fire off a text, sighing as he watched it send.

Giraffe Dad

Hey bonehead. I'm fine, stop freaking out over there.

Ryan! f***. Where were you!? I was calling like all day, man!

Just like I said to Sara, I needed some time to chill out. I'm not mad at you.

Wouldn't be surprised if you were.

Well, I'm not, so stop blue balling yourself. I was just having a bad day.

Sorry, it's just everyone was freaking out.

You kinda scared the whole production crew, little guy.

Christ. I'll have to apologize to them tomorrow. Did Sara tell you about that?

Yeah. Looks like the episode's going to go to air earlier than planned.

Well, look on the bright side.

Means we have more time to talk with Steven about that project we're thinking about doing.

Yeah, it does actually. We're meeting at your place for that still, right?

h*** yeah we are, unless Steven decides to treat us to dinner.

It's good to have dreams every now and then Ryan-
-but this a serious coversation about starting our own company.

Hey, let me have my dreams, Mister Dream Crusher.

Anyway, now that we've established I'm still alive-
I need to get back to doing actual work now my head's back on straight.

Oh, I see how it is. I thought you loved me, Ryan.

Bite me, a******. 😒 I'll see you tomorrow morning, okay?

You got it, little guy. Sweet dreams! 🌙

Rolling his eyes, Ryan just chuckled with a small smile before resting his phone on the arm of the sofa and flicking the sports channel on. Nothing like basketball and various other college sports to get your mind off of your mermaid problem and your best friend problem.

Even if both aren't leaving him alone anytime soon.