《The dweller under the waters》 Ive seen a mermaid Here in Santa Soledad, a municipality in Baja California Sur, there''s often talk about mermaids. Our parents and grandparents, who include fishermen and maritime transporters, describe them as occasional silhouettes swaying among the open sea waves or enchanting songs that beckon one to lose themselves in the vastness of the ocean. It was the members of ''El Pelot¨®n'' who changed my community''s perspective on such creatures, at least for a while, and initiated a series of events that would ultimately lead to the story I''m about to share with you. ''El Pelot¨®n'' does not refer to any disciplined military group of men, as one might imagine, but rather is the nickname for a bunch of old alcohol addicts whose notoriety makes them detestable among us. They were known for various altercations in our city, ranging from street fights to vomiting in local bars, but the absurdity with which they emerged in September 2019 was as strange as it was controversial. They claimed to have seen a bunch of mermaids resting on the shores of the beach. They described them as unparalleled beauties with voluptuous bodies that were not only kind but even invited them to engage in intimacy after a brief chat. The sensational news, combined with the vulgar details that the elders shared with such relish, was enough to cause a frenzy among the people. Most adults dismissed the bragging of this deplorable group of senile old men with disgust, but teenagers were fascinated by the story, and a hysteria ensued, giving birth to many mermaid fantasies. My fascination with the ocean had nothing to do with my sexual instincts, but the afternoons I spent observing the sea from the pier were ruined by a bunch of hot-blooded teenagers who joined the trend and began frequenting the beach. To make matters worse, they were my high school classmates. I was fifteen at the time. I had to join in the gossip about mermaids to avoid admitting that I enjoyed admiring the sea for its simple beauty. My mind had remained sane until then because my internet access was limited, but it was corrupted a bit after hearing so many wild fantasies about mermaids. Initially, there were about sixty kids visiting the beach for hours. After a few months, they had halved, and within a year, few remembered the matter. However, I got used to spending time on the breakwaters, the loneliest place on the beach, to continue admiring the vastness of the ocean in peace. By the time the 2020 pandemic was at its peak, I still maintained my routine, but now in greater solitude than ever, a time when I spotted a strangely humanoid silhouette swaying in the distant waves of the pier, very similar to the presumed figure of mermaids: human torso and fish tail. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I inquired among my acquaintances about the topic, hoping someone had a similar experience or at least a logical explanation for what I saw, but all I received was mockery. I had other similar encounters but kept quiet to avoid damaging my reputation and secretly investigated the matter until curiosity consumed me alive. The next time I saw something, I didn''t hesitate to step forward to confront whatever was moving in the water. It happened on a Christmas Eve eve, when the breakwaters were completely empty, and a strange movement in the distance caught my attention. As I approached, I could see a long fish tail swaying between the sea surface and its bottom. Its movements were strange but reminded me a bit of how dolphins playfully interact with water in front of humans to attract their attention. I felt immediate curiosity about what was on the other side of the tail, but I didn''t dare to jump into the water to find out. She was the one who presented herself to me. She emerged from the water as if it were natural to appear in front of humans, and we locked eyes. That was the first time I saw a mermaid. Her beauty was truly beyond anything imaginable. Her hair shone in an orange hue, her eyes reflected the harmony of crystal-clear waters, and the curves of her body were as pronounced as the old folks had said. Her appearance was so otherworldly that I could hardly classify her as human, although the attraction I felt for her was so maddening and instinctive that for a moment, I wanted to dive into the water just to touch her. Seeing her beautiful smile and hearing her sweet voice almost enchanted me, but I managed to control my instincts by remembering how repulsive my classmates looked behaving like animals in heat. ¡ªWho are you? ¡ªI asked, kneeling on the shore. Unexpected truths I could see for brief moments that my self-control changed her face, as if my restraint was as strange to her as her existence was to me. She mentioned a name that I cannot pronounce, nor can her nature be reproduced with the Spanish alphabet or any known to man. "Syphilxhs" is the cleanest word I could hear from what her lips uttered, but the truth is that her name consisted of nuances that I could barely comprehend, as they were more akin to vibrations than words. I tried to talk to her, as only my curiosity could overshadow the intense attraction I felt towards her, but the conversation was mostly dominated by her questions about our civilization. She didn''t ask random things and didn''t seem ignorant of human history. It seemed more like she wanted to fill gaps in modern history that she knew nothing about. As a marine creature, I quickly understood how she could be aware of human milestones like the Industrial Revolution; her aquatic civilization must have witnessed advances in maritime transportation, which, from using human force, evolved into being propelled by sophisticated machines. It also made sense that she knew about other events like world wars, which she referred to as the "Great Human Wars," as her people likely witnessed the mobilization of large warships and the installation of sonars on coasts worldwide. From this point on, my encounter with the mermaid becomes strange because she asked about the causes and consequences of the "Third Great Human War." The mere mention of it left me paralyzed, as I could not fathom the magnitude of her statements. The mermaid spoke of a war beneath the earth and in the depths of the water where large man-made machines had been causing explosions all over the planet. She mentioned this believing that my ignorance was temporary and that her explanations would make me remember the great event she was talking about, as it had happened in "recent times." But she fell silent immediately when she saw my bewilderment and understood that I had no idea what she was talking about. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. She then asked about the thick ocean cables that crossed continents. Somehow, she knew that their purpose was to transport information, but she was curious about the kind of uses we humans gave to such an invention. She also intrigued me with her interest in global politics, mentioning great powers like the United States or China and their constant efforts to establish "united government." She spoke about birth control, mass influence, and other topics that conspiracy theorists often discuss, but she had no doubt about their existence; she simply wanted to know what procedures were being "applied to humanity." All her questions fascinated me, and I answered as dignifiedly as possible, believing myself to be some kind of ambassador between our civilizations. Later in the conversation, I tried to get answers from the mermaid about her world, but she refused to share her knowledge. She first wanted me to give her a surface book. She didn''t ask for anything specific, just something I believed would be suitable for her. Its language, complexity, or theme didn''t matter. She didn''t explicitly say it, but I understood that she mastered any human language. The mermaid wanted to read it, and if she liked it, she would return the next day to talk about anything I wanted. The decision was not easy. My book collection was mostly composed of fiction, which seemed inappropriate for someone who undoubtedly wanted to know more about human reality. I also didn''t think it was prudent to share my school science books. The Spanish subject crossed my mind due to its cultural content, both from our country and the language itself, but I finally decided to give her a History of Mexico book that I had kept from my primary school days. I didn''t want to approach the water to hand it to her, so I simply threw it to her from the pier. The book entered the sea as if the water did not affect it, then she smiled at me before submerging again. Father of the mermaids The existence of the mermaid overshadowed all my thoughts for the following hours. What was she? Where did she come from? What was her civilization like? Questions like these kept me so intrigued that sleep was not among my activities. I would lie if I said her beauty hadn''t captivated me. By that point in my life, I had already experienced attraction to some of my classmates, but I had never felt as crazed as I did for the mermaid. Her face, her hair, her body, her voice. I wanted to see her again, hear her again; I fantasized about her more than I care to admit. After many sleepless hours, I questioned if I had acted correctly in front of her. Pride and fear had allowed me to proceed with dignity and reserve, but our interaction had been so friendly that I regretted not having acted more enthusiastically. She spoke with joy and exuded curiosity. I regretted not having jumped into the sea to be with her from the beginning, but then a concern subdued my intense passion for the mermaid. What if it was all an illusion? The next day, I approached her as we had agreed. She said she was satisfied with the book I had offered her and offered me her friendship in return for the gesture I had made. Since then, we spent more time together. Her only condition for meeting was that it be at times when we could be alone, which didn''t seem like a bad idea to me. Her charisma eventually enchanted me, and soon we conversed with as much passion and enthusiasm as old friends would. Our chemistry was such that she asked me to give her a friendly nickname that I could pronounce. "Syphil" was the one I chose based on what little I could hear and understand of her real name. Syphil never wanted to answer my questions directly, but the flow of our conversations allowed me to gather more and more data about her underwater world. Thanks to that, I learned that the mermaids'' civilization was older than human civilization, that they were already on Earth when "the great reptiles ruled the oceans," and that their ancestors had migrated multiple times to the depths of the world to hide from "cyclical catastrophes." Additionally, I made her admit that mermaids and humans had a common ancestor, although I''m not sure if her words mean what I think. Moreover, Syphil admitted that they had powers that could be considered magical, as they had the ability to understand any species and invoke illusions like those that enchanted sailors since ancient times. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. My fear for her was completely behind me. After a few weeks, I dared to swim with Syphil, and she allowed me to touch her body. Out of respect, I limited myself to squeezing her soft hands and caressing her beautiful face, although for a long time, I fantasized about being bolder in those moments. My encounters with Syphil were extremely satisfying in more than one sense but also very fleeting. Later, I learned that mermaids were not interested in humans, but there were exceptions. Some, like her, were curious about our civilization. Others, the rarest of all, felt a morbid physical attraction to other species like ours, and this explained what happened with the old folks on the beach. What she said was already strange, but what she admitted next shook me completely: there were mermaids who liked to hunt humans. On this kind of behavior, Syphil didn''t want to talk much. Her curiosity about humanity fascinated me, so the idea of mermaids devouring humans disturbed me. When talking about her opinion on the matter, Syphil replied with another question. ¡ªWhat do you think about humans eating cows? We debated the differences between her situation and ours because our meat didn''t rival that of other marine creatures like whales. I felt during our conversation that she was omitting information about her people. I tried to push her to reveal what she was hiding, but she ended up explaining it to me in the simplest and most ruthless way she could conceive: humans were like an exotic food. They didn''t eat us for our taste or appetizing appearance but for the sheer satisfaction of doing so. She reprimanded me for some human behaviors that would not be well-received by any other species, and though she didn''t mention what she meant, I couldn''t help but think of all those videos of people eating live animals or torturing them for no reason. I felt ashamed to continue defending my species and accepted her words with a bowed head. The rest of our conversation jumped between various topics about the "surface culture" until one of them prompted her to mention a secret. We were talking about upbringing and its differences between species until she had to admit that even she had grown up under the influence of a "parent." I asked what she meant because until that moment, I had never heard her mention anything about a family. The topic made her uncomfortable. She said it was "The Sea King" and that he was the father of all mermaids, then abruptly ended the conversation as she disappeared into the depths of the waters. That was the first time I heard about what lurks beneath the waters, but it wouldn''t be the last. The temple under the waters Syphil never mentioned her father again, no matter how much I insisted on learning more about her family. A week later, she asked for permission to visit my world. She wanted to see with her own eyes everything I had told her and asked me to give her a tour of the corners of my city. I had no problem with that, but the abilities of the mermaids seemed to exceed any human capacity, and it was strange that they needed our permission for something so simple. Syphil had tried to make it sound like a polite request, but an instinct told me that there was more behind her words than she let me see. ¡ªWhy do you need my permission to come? ¡ªI asked without reservation. She carefully considered her words. ¡ªHumans have more power than they imagine ¡ªwas all she said. I was about to accept, but I had the sudden thought of taking advantage of such an occasion to demand that she first show me her world. At first, she seemed uneasy about the idea, fearing that I wouldn''t be able to understand what was happening in the depths of the sea. However, she accepted enthusiastically as soon as I promised to keep an open mind. I swam alongside her on the day we agreed to do it. I shuddered as soon as she revealed that a kiss from her would be necessary to protect my terrestrial body from the ravages of the deep ocean. She said it with such seriousness that I couldn''t think she had any ulterior motive. It bothered me that something so intimate and exciting for me was so indifferent to her, but I accepted out of pride, as I couldn''t find a dignified way to express my feelings to her. Her red, full lips electrified me as soon as they met mine. Syphil''s actions seemed devoid of any romantic intention, but the emotions I felt in those moments couldn''t be related to mere friendship. Soon, I realized that the effects of her lips on mine were not just a simple bodily reaction, but they also began to affect my mental state, sharpening my senses and endowing me with a fulfillment I had never experienced, as if the health I had always enjoyed were nothing more than a discomfort that she, with her kiss, had alleviated. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Her spell would allow me to absorb oxygen through the skin, clarify my sense of sight in the depths, protect my body from atmospheric pressure, and give me the ability to glide underwater as if flying through the air. I experienced its effects amid an adrenaline-fueled ecstasy, propelled by ocean currents that I created at will as I crossed vast oceanic distances in a matter of seconds. Afterward, Syphil surprised me with another kiss. I wanted to pull away from her lips, hopeful to check if her intentions were romantic, but she held onto me with her arms while her voice echoed in my head. She warned me that her spell depended on my mental state, so any prolonged excitement would be deadly if she couldn''t react in time to save me. Not only did that reasoning help me calm down, but also the brief paralysis I experienced from the surprise of her second kiss. As we descended, Syphil explained more about her people''s knowledge of the sea. The human classification of the marine ecosystem was very different from theirs, as expected. The "Neridion" is for them what humans consider the littoral zone, that coastal area that divides land from the depths, where the most colorful and vibrant creatures abound. Further ahead is the "Undalunis," the largest zone that divides the two most relevant oceanic worlds for the mermaids. Up to that moment, I had enjoyed gliding through the water. The excitement of our kiss and those landscapes that no man could see with his own eyes delighted me like you have no idea. When I spotted some sharks, I instinctively retreated, but Syphil scared them away with a wave of her hands. Then, killer whales approached, larger and more horrifying than documentaries make them seem. They moved abhorrently on the water, not much different from how a large sea serpent would. If I had faced those four horrifying specimens alone, I would surely have succumbed to terror. Syphil managed to pacify them before the stress of the moment broke the spell that allowed me to breathe underwater. I watched them dance around her for a while before they joined the deep sea and disappeared from our sight. From this point on, my journey becomes the horrifying experience that motivated this story. Syphil looked as radiant as the first moment I saw her, but not even her beauty could diminish the horror of the abyss. I know she understood quickly because soon she was trying to distract me with both her gaze and her sweet voice from what lurked in the darkness. I could see flickering lights and strange creatures floating around us from time to time, but the darkness was so overwhelming that only a kind of trance allowed me to move forward in that area. By my own will, I would never have continued on that path of shadows and monstrous silhouettes, among which only Syphil''s bright hair guided me like a small lighthouse. We descended to what I think was an underwater cave and then followed a labyrinthine path to the depths of the earth. Syphil moved with extremely exceptional skill despite the absence of light, making it clear that some sense other than sight guided her through that place. The dweller under the waters We reached an ancient underwater palace, surely older than our species and perhaps older than many others far from our appearance. Thin, luminous plants emerging from the floor gave me clues about the appearance of that place, but the darkness prevented me from appreciating many details, and only with touch could I visualize the strange shapes on walls and floors. Syphil invoked a more powerful glow in those plants, whispering her command in a strange language, until my eyes could see the details of the place to some extent. It resembled an ancient place of worship, but what my eyes saw was beyond human comprehension. The architecture with which that place was built was very different from any known to man. Its three-dimensional, strange, and seemingly random shapes seemed to correspond to a small portion of something much larger, as if that temple had been built to be appreciated not only from the inside or the outside but also from angles and dimensions that no human would be able to visualize. The darkness at the bottom intensified at the same time that a very primitive instinct warned me about something merging with the darkness of the abyss, an overwhelming presence not only because of its colossal size but also because of the overwhelming power that a sixth sense allowed me to perceive. My ears began to buzz, as if Syphil''s magic had ceased to be enough to protect my body from the devastating effects of pressure. All my senses blurred, regressing to the archaic level of a normal human being, starting with vision, which began to replace light with darkness, and then hearing, which began to pick up an incessant roar coming from the bowels of the earth, as if I could perceive, through the water, the tectonic plates of the planet sliding millimeter by millimeter. The Syphil I knew vanished into shadows, giving way to a face and figure shrouded in darkness and oblivious to the beauty with which I had known her. It was at that moment that she uttered the cursed sounds that still haunt me to this day. The horrifying impression of what I experienced afterward completely shattered the spell that protected me from the depths. I felt the black waters of the abyss struggling to invade my lungs, and the monstrous pressure of the water felt like hundreds of arms compressing every inch of my body until it reduced to a fraction of its original size. The next memory I can rescue from my recollections is the intense surf on my body and several people dragging me in desperation, amid diffuse screams and faces of anguish. I didn''t want to make any statements about it, so I can only rely on the details offered by a local newspaper about what happened to me. Bystanders claimed to have come across me on the edge of the breakwaters near noon. A street vendor claimed to have seen me swimming out to sea until I disappeared into the waves around one in the afternoon. Then, I appeared floating far at sea, five hours later, with an intense fever whose delirium had me murmuring nonsensical words, according to the fishermen who found me. Given the verifiable facts and my subsequent nervous state, people concluded that I had acted in the midst of a psychotic state induced by drugs; my tremors and nervous tics were a consequence of some withdrawal syndrome, and the way I avoided questions about it only confirmed the shame I felt for my addictions. People believed this version of events because my few friends were not close enough to me to defend my reputation, and I had no desire to contradict them. I wish to believe that it is the truth and that my experience corresponds to the delusions of a disturbed mind, but my only addiction was books, and the closest I came to alcohol was tasting the mole poblano during the local Independence Day celebrations. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The subsequent investigation I conducted has given a new dimension of horror to my experience in that abyssal hell. There is little in human mythology that referred to the king of the seas as I saw him, but the Mortiscriptorium, written by the Greek prophet Zephyr Nyxios, offered the explanation I was looking for. The Roman Emperor Theonysius I banned that book at some point in the year 390 AD, giving it its abhorrent name to keep people away from its pages while his subjects took care of erasing it from the face of the earth. I was able to find fragments of that cursed book on the internet, although none had been translated into Spanish. In them, I found mentions of The Eight, the deities that man has worshiped throughout history. The eighth corresponded to Jah, later known as Yahweh, now Jehovah, the Christian God whose cult is the newest in human history, as well as others whose existence few humans become aware of. That''s where I found the information I was looking for about what dwells beneath the waters. Just before the climax of my horrifying experience, in that forgotten temple of God, Syphil revealed the name of her father, uttering very strange sounds whose writing in the Mortiscriptorium was composed of a combination of characters that was still difficult to pronounce despite being a translation into Latin. Sliding down the back wall to the floor in front of us, a long shadow snaked until it confronted me with its abominable appearance. Its monstrous head resembled that of a cobra, but the grotesque scales that adorned it suggested that its origin was older than that of all known creatures. Its eyes sparkled with the sulfurous light of the abyss, windows to forbidden dimensions from which seeped a bit of ancient and evil times in which it had been engendered. Its serpentine body undulated like a nightmare made flesh, and its skin, a cloak of lurking shadows, shone in a pale and diaphanous tone that seemed to voraciously absorb the light but that, as it approached, allowed me to see the horrible details of its face, culminating my most lucid memory of that moment with a row of teeth that had not been conceived to satisfy the need for food but seemed to exist solely to terrify those who looked at them. Nhagazharakatl, Dagon, that abominable entity whose presence heralds the end of times in Christian mythology, the Leviathan of the apocalypse, father of the mermaids, king of the depths, the fifth of the eight who have ruled over mortals, appeared before me in the form of a horrifying sea serpent of colossal dimensions. A gurgling whisper emanated from its jaws as we locked eyes, pronouncing its speech in an unknown language that resonated in my mind like the echo of ancestral condemnations. The presence of the Leviathan, as close as the shadow of perdition, challenged not only tangible reality but also the very integrity of my soul. I''m not sure what happened after I fainted in horror, nor do I want to imagine how the existence of what dwells in the abyss defies current human knowledge. I just can''t help but think about Syphil''s true intentions when she approached me at first. I also don''t understand what she said about the true human power or why she needed my permission to step on the surface. Having died in that underwater tomb of ancient times would have been a more merciful fate than the one I face today, as being saved drives me crazy at the thought that my existence is still useful to the horrible entities from the depths and that from here until death they won''t stop pursuing me until they complete their plans. Worst of all, even with everything I''ve experienced, I can''t stop thinking about Syphil, as her beautiful image haunts me every night, and her sweet voice begs me with screams to return to the sea. The terror of what I experienced that day has been enough to prevent me from being dragged back to the addictive elixir of her lips, but the attraction I feel for her is so strong that I don''t know how long I can remain sane before throwing myself into the sea to look for her and betray humanity to serve new and hideous causes.