Chapter 6
There was nothing but darkness. Erik floated in darkness and felt water all around him. He could not or did not want to move. There was no current, wherever he was, so he was still, his tail drooping downwards in an arc. Or perhaps upwards. No way to tell. Erik did not want the stillness to end so he was almost resentful when he felt fingers grip his shoulder and pull him through the water.
He felt stale air hit his face and realised that he had broken the surface. A voice rang out, loud and sharp in his ears.
'Erik! Wake up, wake up!' a female voice shrieked and he shut his eyes tighter.
His assailant shook him and he reluctantly opened his eyes. A faint light shone from… somewhere. Or everywhere. It wasn't very clear and his eyes still felt bleary. He blinked a few times and looked at a very panicked Mimmi, who had clearly been crying. Her eyes were very red and swollen.
'Mimmi?' he asked her quietly. He felt extremely weak and he realised that wherever he was, there was a ceiling and no obvious way out. Mimmi had dragged him to some kind of ledge and had one arm resting on it while she used the other to hold him up and tread water, her fin swishing back and forth beneath the water. He felt it brush his own tail now and then.
'What happened?' he asked, struggling to remember what had happened just before now. His head felt heavy and he couldn't understand where he was.
Mimmi shook her head sadly.
'Don't you remember?' she asked him.
Erik shook his head, but his brows furrowed in thought.
'Erik, don't you remember him?' she said, a sob escaping her.
And just like that, he did. He remembered seeing his father. His father. He remembered trying to stop him from hurting Ondina. And then he was here.
'Ondina!' he nearly screamed and his voice echoed through wherever they were.
A prison cell, he thought. His prison cell. It was now their prison cell, his and Mimmi's.
Mimmi grasped his arm tighter and he twisted out of her hold, grabbing hold of the ledge himself.
'Erik, what happened to Ondina? What happened after I…?'
Her face was twisted in terror.
'She came into the chamber,' he found himself replying. 'He saw her. Evie was there, too. He said something about using her to test something out.'
'Erik, what happened?' she whimpered.
He shook his head sadly. 'I tried to stop him. And then there was a flash and…'
'And you were here,' she finished for him.
He nodded.
'Where is here?' he asked her, not really expecting an answer.
'I think it's a cage,' she replied. 'I swam the perimeter after I woke up. It's not too big and there are just walls on all sides. She reached up to the ceiling and her fingers brushed it. 'It doesn't go too far up, either. Or too deep. There's this ledge and that's about it.'
Erik felt panic rising in his chest. This wasn't a nightmare, this was real. They were trapped here and the only way out was for somebody to release them. Not just somebody. His father, or perhaps Zac, who was basically a zombie. The panic choked up his throat and he let out a little involuntary whine.
'Mimmi, what are we going to do?' he asked her, feeling tears well up behind his eyes, feeling as though the walls were closing in on him.
She just shook her head.
'We do nothing,' she replied. 'We go nowhere. This is it for us.' Her lip trembled and before he realised what he was doing he had reached out and embraced her. She glanced up at him briefly and began to sob audibly into his shoulder. He shifted slightly, uncomfortable at this sudden closeness between him and his… his sister.
'Mimmi,' he said, pulling away from her slightly. 'You're my—'
She stopped crying for just a moment and smiled wanly at him. 'A few weeks ago, I didn't have any family. Now I've got two brothers!' Then her face crumpled again and she shook herself.
'There's no food,' she told him solemnly. 'How did he survive for so long?'
Erik shook his head. 'Maybe this place is designed for this. I don't know, Mimmi.'
She took his hand and gave it a squeeze, then dove under the water and curled up at the bottom mournfully.
Erik wished he could sob into her shoulder the way she had sobbed into his. He wished he had never agreed to come to the damned merman chamber. He wished so many, many things. Wishing was all he could do now, after all.
A/N: A very short chapter for now, but I'll update soon. Enjoy for now!
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