Disclaimer: Don't own DP.

Thanks to amiraphantom, TrustyFoxy, Invader Johnny, Kiomori, Vin, Guest, DeathBright, Jesusfreak124, MahoganyShadow, DPN2012, too enigmatic 2 b urs, Dracoya, funnybombninja, Phantomgal66, MushuFireLorde, Savirox, and bookworm23821 for reviewing last time!

Sorry for the late update. Real life happened. :(

This chapter is rated T for violence and non-explicit references to nudity.

Beyond the Depths

Chapter 3: The Double-Skinned One and His Not-Food

For a time, neither of them moved. The merboy's breath were quick puffs against her slick neck, his now-warm body pressed against hers, his long legs twisted about hers. They both trembled in exhaustion and surprise.

The sounds of the nearby massacre still shook through the walls.

The boy pushed himself up with his strong arms, and he fell sideways in a disjointed twist. As he hit the floor, he realized the full extent of his transformation. He looked down at himself, and a human cry tore from his lips. His blue eyes were wide as he stared at his blunt and separated fingers, then at his fully-human, finless legs. He looked up at Sam in consternation and fear, rubbing his neck that was now devoid of gills.

Sam sat up shakily, just as confused. She almost didn't even catch that she was staring at a naked boy now, who suddenly seemed to care no more for his immodest predicament than he did of the fact that a massacre was still happening only a short distance away.

The boy tried to move to his hands and knees, thinking back to how he had seen humans move with their legs. Then he tried to drag himself up, but the flimsy and foreign weights instead of a solid tail terrified him. He felt uneven on the knobby joints called…knees?

Sam looked over at the steak knife that had fallen in their fight, her shaking fingertips grabbing for it. The wooden handle was a cold, dead weight against her palm. With the merboy's strange transformation, she was now at an advantage, and so she forced herself to stand despite the pain. She limped forward, her ankle bleeding, but her grip was tight on the knife with an instinctive need to survive.

The boy tried to hiss; it didn't sound right coming from human vocal cords. It sounded sad and fearful like a moan. But the fearful look in his baby blue eyes—so human—made Sam hesitate. The scratch across his shoulder was sluggishly bleeding red instead of that strange green. There were dark bruises swelling about his throat—the human equivalent of her attempting to choke him by pulling on his gills.

He looks…totally human.

She lowered the knife, eyes wide. She couldn't kill him now that she could see his emotions. "Just," she whispered, voice breaking. "D-don't. Don't follow me."

He breathed hard, as if struggling with his own lungs, and stared at her in some depressed, confused defeat. He nearly collapsed onto the floor again, his strength waning. Okay, his body seemed to say, even as he looked away from her. I won't.

She began to step forward on her pained ankle, the thought of limping out the door becoming harder and harder with each step. Her heart was pounding. Everything felt heavier on her body, as if her muscles were pushing against concrete. Tears streamed down her face.

Was it the poison?

But before she could limp forward more than a few steps, something crashed against the walls outside. Another merman—fully grown, muscles bulging—suddenly hissed from the door, its face twisted with bloodlust.

Sam cried out and moved back, raising her knife. Although the merboy had been larger than herself, this merman was even larger. Her heart nearly stopped. Oh my god.

The merman that had tracked them down the hall was various shades of green. Its long, powerful tail looked like nothing more than twisted vines, and dripping seaweed hung from the angles of its body. It turned its nearly inhuman, beak-like nose towards her. Its red eyes swept from Sam and her knife to the trembling boy on the floor.

Then it hissed at Sam, and it began to drag itself forward with sharp claws, mindlessly destroying the tiles.

The boy tried to click out a language desperately, perhaps to beg for help from his own kind, but his vocal cords failed him. The merman's neck snapped to him, and its red eyes tracked the boy. Instead of concern, no recognition registered on the merman's face, and he hissed at the boy, baring his fangs.

The boy's eyes widened with great fear. Oh no—

The creature instead lunged towards the boy, who gasped in surprised, his arms barely managing to raise up in time to stop the merman.

Sam's heart stalled again as she watched the merman's sharp teeth bear down on the boy's arm. The once-merboy cried out with an agonized gasp of pain as his kin locked its jaws on his arm. The sound of the boy's ragged tenor voice was so human, it echoed with the cries of the other victims in the distance.

Sam's heart stopped. "Ohmigod," she breathed, voice strangling with fear. Thick, red blood welled down the boy's arm as he collapsed in a hard fall beneath the merman, his head painfully smacking against the floor.

She was watching something—someone—die all over again.

Her mother's and father's faces wavered in the back of her mind.

In a split decision, she lunged forward. She stabbed the steak knife deep into the seaweed-merman's neck and wrenched hard. Its jaws unhinged in a muffled cry, tearing away from the boy's arm to rush at Sam. Then it seemed to recognize that it had been mortally wounded. Some kind of pain—an awareness?—twisted its face into something more human. It stumbled at her feet, and thick blood began to pool down its throat.

Its limbs relaxed and twitched in the silence, the seaweed leaves falling limp in the dips of sea water. Then its glow began to flicker, and the light of its body died into silence as well.

For a second, Sam's mind fragmented. She'd killed. Her arms shook. She'd just killed something. A living soul.

And for what?

Her breath hitched as she looked to the boy she'd instinctively protected. His blue eyes were still wide towards heaven, face pained and dazed as his limp body quivered. The fingers on his mauled arm twitched with strange movements, as if the merman's bite had destroyed his nerves.

She half-thought to leave him there—he was not really human, whatever he was. He had tried to kill her, whatever he was. His poison was still infecting her. But something in her heart balked at the thought of leaving him there to bleed, afraid and confused.

Whatever he was.

Hesitantly, she dropped down beside him, the ripped shreds of her dress fanning out and soaking in the blood from the merman and the boy. "Come on," she whispered. Her whole body was beginning to hurt in ways she'd never imagined. Tears began to blur her eyesight, distorting his image. "We gotta get out of here."

She touched his shoulder, surprised to discover that he radiated heat—like a normal human. With a wince of pain, she locked her arms beneath his shoulders and tried to lift him up into a sitting position. His human muscles and bones were heavy.

Something registered in his dazed expression as he suddenly began to help her, using his uninjured arm to steady himself. He winced, inhaling sharply at the pain that radiated through his body. Hitting his head had made the room spin in ways he had never felt before. But then his blue eyes landed on his fallen kin—Sam's steak knife still sticking straight from its neck, the glowing green blood now reaching in rivers towards them both.

He stared at the merman as if he'd just lost a family member—and perhaps he just did. He looked terrified and frightened as he instinctively pulled his injured arm towards his stomach in a cradle. Tears of pain streamed down his face. "Ngh," he cried. The tone was a simple tenor, not unpleasant. "Ngh!"

He looked back to her, his expression so lost and confused that she swallowed hard. Sam was unsure if his expression was from physical pain (did merfolk feel pain the same way?) or from emotional pain (what emotions did they really have?).

She knew at some level he understood her. "C-can they smell us?" she whispered, debating if communicating with him was worth the risk of rising his ire. "Are others tracking us?"

His face twitched in pain. All he could smell was his own blood and that of the merman's. Both were a strange metallic. But he shook his head, even as tears ran down his face. His kin must have followed the water trail he himself had left behind, for merfolk did not have noses like the sharks when out of water. The stale and dry air out of water stifled that ability.

It didn't mean another couldn't curiously follow the water trail and find them.

He began to breathe uneasily, realizing that he could be hunted again by his own kind. The thought stretched horror across his vulnerable features.

Sam took that as a sign that they were not yet safe. So she grabbed onto the boy's uninjured arm, throwing it across her shoulders. "We gotta get out of here," she said, wincing as she braced herself. Then she began to stand unsteadily, nearly crying as she took on his weight and hers. She couldn't leave him behind now that she knew he was being targeted by his own kind. The boy tried to drag himself up to a stand as he saw her stand, but his legs were weak, and he shook on his feet, leaning heavy on her for support.

He did not question her, a sense of thankfulness overwhelming her as he realized that now they were allies. He blinked away the strange tears that blurred his vision.

How strange that his once-food was helping him against his own kind. Did this human have memories? Did she not remember that he had tried to eat her? The puncture wounds of his arm were bleeding profusely in a river of red that had already begun to drip down his fingers and onto the human's shoulder and back, and yet she seemed capable of ignoring that as well.

Just what were humans? And he was beginning to wonder, what were merfolk?

"Come on," she said, voice strangled as she re-shouldered his arm and tightened her grip on his sharp waist. She sounded breathless, a weird wheeze corrupting the pleasant, feminine sound of her vocal chords. "Just…step with me…?"

He nodded once, grimacing through his tears as he tried to mimic her movements. Slowly, the two of them limped forward.

She dragged them through the wreckage of the door and down the hall, eyes wide and sightless. Screams of humans still echoed off the walls. The probability that the two could be spotted by wandering merfolk from the door was high enough. They needed to get totally out of sight, and fast.

Her limbs were shaking. She no longer knew if any of this was real, if she were truly still alive, if this being holding onto her was truly human or still animal enough to eat her. With the poison pumping through her system, and with her blood loss, she feared she would not make it much longer. So she stumbled them to the first door she found, and she reached out with shaking fingers, praying that it was not locked. The doorknob turned easily. Oh, thank God.

Upon opening the door, she realized the room was a walk-in linen closet full of clean table clothes and napkins—most likely supplies for the ballroom they'd just left behind. She pushed him into the closet, and he collapsed against one of the shelves with a breathless yelp, and she dove in beside him, shutting the door after them both.

They were both very silent as they sunk to the floor in a disjointed stumble of limbs. Only one small, emergency light flickered above the towels and tablecloths. It cast eerie shadows over them both, and the screams of the massacre on the surrounding deck echoed even into the linen closet. And so the two of them huddled together instinctively, sudden allies in the midst of darkness.

It was the first chance the boy had to cognitively acknowledge just what his kin had done to him. "Ngh," he cried helplessly as he lifted his injured arm to inspect the damage, swallowing hard at the deep puncture wounds. He tentatively licked his bloody fingers to rid taste the strange human blood, then his face twisted, and he stuck out his tongue in disgust. His bare ribs—pressed up against him, Sam noticed how far they stuck out, how emaciated he was—expanded and contracted in short, quick breaths, almost as if he were struggling to breathe in enough air. Perhaps he was going into shock.

She supposed they'd both seen better days.

With a grimace, Sam leaned forward, pulling back the shreds of her long dress to reveal her injured ankle. Her whole foot was shining red with blood from the puncture wounds of his bite, and she felt a strange disconnect staring at it. Was that her foot? Was it bad if she could no longer feel the pain? Or was that maybe a good thing, because she was pretty sure she'd be screaming otherwise?

A few of the shallower puncture wounds looked dark, as if they'd begun to coagulate, but some were still freely bleeding. In fear, she grabbed a black cloth napkin from beside her and folded it into a triangle, wincing as she pressed it against her bleeding ankle. She tried to tie it tight, realizing that she could not afford to lose any more blood—or she'd risk passing out. She was already starting to get woozy and sedated. Or maybe that was the poison.

The boy watched in tentative interest, still cradling his injured arm. He supposed the object the human was using was perhaps like seaweed, which was what he would usually use to wrap up injuries. It did not look like seaweed, though. Just as she no longer looked like food. And he no longer felt as one with the merfolk.

She looked over at the boy sitting in awkward angles beside her, blushing at the realization that he was still naked and completely unaware of it. "Here," she said, wincing as she reached up and tossed a tablecloth at him. "Cover yourself with this; I'll tie up that bite on your arm in a second."

The boy looked at her, wide-eyed. He nodded slowly, but he was unsure if he really understood her command. He lifted the cloth from the floor with more force than necessary, and he blinked in surprise at its feather weight. He tentatively eyed her again, glancing quick at her ripped dress and the way her legs were exposed but her middle wasn't. He draped the tablecloth around his waist, then he looked back up at her for approval.

Why did she look so relieved suddenly? What did humans feel they had to hide on their bodies?

What was he, anyway?

He patted his legs through the tablecloth, tilting his head. Then he looked over at her legs and hummed, his voice raising up, almost in a question.

Sam looked taken aback that he appeared to be wanting her opinion on something. "Don't look at me," she whispered dryly. "I have no idea what happened. Just cause you look human doesn't mean you are."

He looked not entirely unhappy at her response. Perhaps this new form of his was not permanent. Maybe it was just some kind of…ability that his tribe simply did not use. He winced at the nerve pain that suddenly ran down his arm. If his kin's response to his transformation was any indication, he could understand why they would not take a human form.

"I'm Sam, by the way," she said, looking away. "Now that we've almost killed each other, I figure you should at least know my name."

He looked down at her tied ankle and bit his lip. In this new form, his teeth were still a bit sharp, but more squared and most likely unable to shred as they once could. Hard to think that he, in his hunger, had lashed out at this strange creature that had seemingly forgiven him.

And she was offering him her title? Her name, by which all other humans addressed her? (They had names?)

He looked up at her in a curious awe. Sam. Her title was simple, a configuration of syllables that by itself would not translate well back into the mer-tongue, for human language was so open and low in the throat. He wondered if the name "Sam" held any special meaning to it—if humans were truly intelligent enough for metaphor and abstract concepts. But he supposed, having seen her bind her own injuries, that humans were not so mindless as he'd been told. And if Sam was so adamant on covering the body, it was possible that humans had some kind of unspoken culture that included abstract concepts.

She held her hand out. "Give me your arm," she said plainly, trying to hide the waver in her voice. "We need to stop you from bleeding out too."

He blinked, then tentatively raised his injured arm. She slowly reached for him, as if afraid to scare him with sudden movements. His bloody fingers still twitched uneasily from the damage the merman had caused, and he flinched when Sam's warm hand lightly grabbed at his wrist to steady him. His lithe, corded muscles reacted to her, skin to skin. He could feel her warmth, her heartbeat not unlike his heart, pounding hard—

When she pressed a black napkin to the bite wound, the boy flinched again and squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head away from her to hide his pain. Unbidden tears welled in his eyes, and he bared his teeth in an instinctive reaction.

She hesitated, nearly letting go in fear. She did not want to make him feel as a caged animal. But he forced his lips together, hiding those still-too-sharp teeth. He did not try to pull his arm away from her.

She figured that was enough of a green light to keep going.

"…This, uh, could get infected really easily," Sam said, trying to wipe away the blood to see just how shredded his arm truly was. It didn't look good. The boy's muscled forearm had puncture wounds around the sensitive inside of his elbow. The beak-like mouth of the merman had been sharp with a double row of teeth.

She wrapped his arm in a tablecloth, struggling a bit with the size and folds. "It's not really meant for tying," she whispered in frustration. "So you're gonna have to keep pressure on it. Got it?"

He nodded, watching her pull away. He clasped onto the cloth around his arm and tightened his grip, grimacing. He could feel the wet of his blood dampen the strange material.

"Okay." And then Sam leaned back, allowing herself to feel dizzy. The adrenaline of being hunted had begun to wear off, her concentration breaking. For the first time, she began to feel her lungs struggle. Sweat glistened off of her temples. "Okay. We're good."

The merboy-turned-human glanced at her with worry, realizing that this human was hiding something wrong with her health. The Sam he had pursued upon the deck had carried no scent of sickness, nor did she look as ill as she did now.

In the flickering light, Sam raised her arms. The bloodied claw marks upon her skin were now a dark purple and swelling. Fear pumped her heart harder. "Shit," she breathed, leaning her head against the wall and closing her eyes. She wanted to cry again, but she had no more tears. She was too exhausted to cry.

The boy glanced down at her arm, blue eyes widening. Oh. He'd forgotten that he'd scratched her. His poison was designed as a defense mechanism to slow attackers and prey. Usually, his prey was dead before now—he'd been taught that clean kills were the best kills, and he'd grown used to slicing or using brute force to save prey from suffering. But here Sam was, suffering a slow and painful death. Because of him. And he didn't even want to eat her anymore. Not food. Sam.

Sam's pink lips pulled back into a grimace as she inhaled shakily. Her chest began to heave strangely, and her limbs began to quiver. The poison was leeching into her major organs, as her constant movements and pounding heart had increased its spread.

Okay, maybe she had tears to cry after all.

She squeezed her eyes shut, her tears dripping down her face. "N-not good," she whispered, shuddering. If she didn't get help soon, she would likely get worse and worse until…

He tilted his head as he tentatively reached out to her. "Ngh?" he asked, pointing to her arm. He did not entirely understand how humans worked, but he imagined that their blood pumped similarly to how his, er, usually did. And if they were similar, then perhaps his idea would save her life.

Her bloodshot, tired gaze turned to him. A sad smile twitched her lips. "Yeah, looks like you're still k-killing me, huh?"

Maybe I'll see mom and dad soon after all.

But he no longer wished for her death. And he did not know how to convey that beyond carrying out his idea. His long, tapering fingers wrapped about her elbow and wrist. He leaned down, his black hair falling into his face, and he pressed his lips against her skin.

Sam's eyes widened, and she nearly jerked away. "What the—?" A terrible fear rocked through her. Perhaps he was going to eat her alive, chomp down with those still-sharp teeth and tear her to pieces. But he held her gently as he made a sharp noise at her, like a grumble. His blue eyes raised to her, narrowed in a way to say, Stay put.

She stilled, swallowing hard. And then he looked back down, and his warm, wet tongue swept over her wounds.

Even in her haze, her face reddened. "Uh…Um." Her voice was tight with embarrassment and confusion. "W-what are you doing?"

The boy's eyes raised to hers, the sharp lines of his face tinging a strange green, as if in a blush. Then he lowered his eyes, and he ran his tongue over her poisoned claw marks again. As an inherently toxic being, he knew he could negate the poison within her. Back when his claws were first growing, he'd nicked himself often and suffered the same, mild symptoms until he licked his wounds. He had never licked someone else's wounds, though. The action was intimate, something that lovers or family usually did for one another—not for complete strangers, and certainly not for humans. But he knew he had little choice if he wanted this human to live.

He only hoped that his poison and his immunity would still work in this strange body of his.

The taste of her blood was metallic and harsh, and his nose scrunched as he licked her wounds again (how did his tribe ever convince him that humans would be appetizing?). But slowly, her arm began to relax in his grip, the muscles unwinding back into a natural rest. He was relieved by the softening lines of her body, which told him that her pain had lessened. Her breath rose and fell more steadily, and her eyes were closed in relief as she rested her head against the shelves.

He pulled away and gently lowered her arm to her side. The purplish hue to her skin was gone, although the deep scratches were still red and inflamed. "Ngh?" he hummed to her, tone upraising with a tentative question. His too-big eyes, still bloodshot with pain and drying tears of his own, were wide with apprehension.

Sam opened her eyes and clenched her fist tentatively, realizing it no longer hurt to do so. "It's better," she breathed. "What you did—it helped."

Her other arm was still trembling, the claw marks angry and puffed. The boy's jaw set with guilt, and he tentatively reached for her other arm. This time, she did not resist him but watched curiously, eyes wide, face flushed, as the merboy licked her wounds again.

"…This is the weirdest first aid ever," she whispered jokingly. She tried to keep her shaking arm still for him, now that she knew he was not trying to kill or eat her.

He did not seem to quite understand 'first aid,' but he understood the gist of her comment. If only she knew what it all meant in mer-culture.

"Do you have a name?" she asked tentatively, feeling a bit more confident now that she knew he would not eat her. "Do your people name each other?"

The boy mulled over her question, and then he nodded, unable to provide more. Her language was as familiar to his mind as his own fins, but he knew his tongue would stumble over it helplessly, just as his new legs stumbled with walking.

In the human tongue, his name translated to 'Phantom,' for he was as dark and silent as the shadows themselves, hardly a slip of a being when the waters were black. He supposed his title also carried a double meaning—he was easily overlooked, nearly invisible to his own tribe. He found himself in awe that this human would even want to know his name. That she would acknowledge him so.

The sound of a screech from the hall echoed loudly, and both of them flinched. And without thinking, they scooted closer, leaning heavy on each other. They knew the other person was their only ally. If they had to fight, injured as they were, they would have to do it together.

Their shuddering breath mixed in the air as the overhead lights flickered. In the moments that passed, nothing happened. The screeches from the hall door lessened, as if whatever had considered entering the ship decided against it.

Sam closed her eyes, feeling tears run down her face. She couldn't take this kind of insanity. "D-do you know when they'll stop?" she whispered, looking back at him. "Is it almost over yet?"

The boy himself appeared just as terrified and uncomfortable. He knew how powerful the Hunger was, and he still felt it, even though he was no longer one with the merfolk and had discovered the taste of human blood was disgusting.

Most likely, his kin would continue to revel in their feast until their stomachs forgot the pang of the Hunger. Which they had felt for a long, long time.

Sam seemed to understand his hesitance and the caged lines of his shoulders. The hope died in her eyes as she turned away, sinking into herself with depression. "I don't wanna die," she whispered with a broken voice. "I don't want to kill anything again. If they find us—" Her breath hitched.

It was all too much for her to handle.

She suddenly couldn't stop crying. It's my fault mom and dad are dead—I killed—I could still die—why is this happening—

And something about her breaking spirit swelled a strange protectiveness within the boy, for it reminded him that this human had a soul, and that he owed her a debt for saving his life. If any of his own kin entered the ship and tried to satisfy their Hunger through her flesh, he supposed he would try to protect her as long as he could. They would not recognize him anyways, for he appeared as human and as injured as her.

And so he nuzzled into her bare shoulder to comfort himself and her. His soft black hair was like silk threads against her skin. Not food. Protect.

A/N: I'm not sure yet where this story is heading. Please review with any thoughts, requests, critiques, etc. Thanks!