As Anna struggled to process the weight of never being able to have sex regularly as a mermaid, her human brother was more than fine living with no mate.
Austin was a simple man who lived in a simple apartment for a simple life. In the day, he flipped burgers to a bunch of customers that he would forget the names of almost instantly after serving them. In the night, he sat down on his computer and spent the night browsing the internet, looking for something to entertain himself with until he was tired enough to go back to bed and repeat the cycle.
There was a point in his life where it seemed he was striving to do more. As a kid, Austin wanted to become an astronaut. The idea of going up in the cosmos and challenging mother nature seemed amazing to him. As a kid, he was told by his dad that the sky was the limit but Austin wanted to be above the sky.
As time went on and Austin trudged through high school, he started to realize that maybe he bit off more than he could chew. He couldn’t pinpoint what caused specifically caused him to lose interest in becoming a space explorer, something just… went wrong.
Austin couldn’t pass basic geometry without relying on cheat sheets, he was bored doing research on bacterial cells, his handful of acquaintances changed majors, and processing the steep cost of a bachelor’s degree in biological science led to heavy sense of disillusionment that prompted him to drop out of his university after only one year.
One horrible fight with his parents later, Austin now lives alone in an apartment - Paying the bills and debt statements with his fast-food job at age 24.
Austin couldn’t find too many words to complain about his situation. He liked the peace of his empty apartment, even if it was filled with cans of soda and empty boxes of chicken.
Austin felt… Alright.
In the past year, he had found himself browsing an imageboard dedicated to discussing, arguing, and joking about the supernatural. Conspiracies, mythical creatures, and even the state of the universe were not safe from being regular topics. As a science drop-out, Austin found himself right at home at the site and browsed it every night.
About two weeks ago, an anonymous user posted about his friend, named Aaron, suddenly going missing. The user had no idea how to even find him. His phone and other belongings were still at his house, everything intact, but Aaron seemingly disappeared from the face of the Earth.
The board tried to help for a while, but the lack of any leads or new details lead to the Aaron case being cold before the board went back to being normal a few days later.
For the next several days, Austin continued to browse the board, not taking anything too seriously. He considered his life typical of the average modern 20-year-old, he had no reason to believe something major could suddenly come into his life.
But it all changed one night when Austin heard his phone ring, he was surprised to see that his mother was calling for the first time in years. He put his phone to his ear and his eyes widened when he heard sobbing from the other end of the line.
“Austin, Anna’s university just called. She’s gone!” His mother cried out.
Austin’s blood ran cold. His little sister, gone.
While he hadn’t contacted Anna recently, he knew that Anna had no reason to simply disappear like that. She was a young eager girl who loved fantasy and mysticism, as opposed to Austin’s fondness for logic and truth. Unlike her brother, Anna chose a more down-to-earth major and passed her first year with ease. She was about to complete her second year as well until Austin got the call from his mother.
Austin said nothing has he hung up. Suddenly, the case of Aaron was starting to creep back into his head.
The past week would be hell for his family as the investigation went on. No signs of foul play, her belongings were intact on her dorm, besides her cell phone, and there were no suspicious fingerprints to be found. Gone. Anna seemed gone.
The case would’ve gone cold, too, if the police hadn’t decided to try to track the GPS signal of Anna’s phone, which was last picked up around a park.
As soon as he heard the case update, Aaron called in sick for his work and drove up to the park. As he was about to park, Austin found a single police officer in his mid-50s standing outside of the park’s gates, not doing much at all.
“Hey,” Austin spoke.
At the sound of his voice, the officer jumped a bit and turned around to face Austin. “Oh, hello there. Are you… uh…”
“Anna’s brother? Yes.”
“Oh yes, the older brother… uh…”
“Austin, my name’s Austin.”
The officer nodded. “Oh yes, Austin. Listen, I’m Officer Trueman, one of the leading investigators of your sister’s case and it seems that we found a lead here.”
Austin sighed in frustration. “I know that. I just want to know why you were just standing outside of the park other than… you know… Investigating it.”
Officer Trueman nodded again, “Yes, yes. Well, you see, our forces haven’t found the search warrant to get in.”
“What do you mean? It’s a public park, get in there!” Austin growled.
“Hold your horses. This isn’t any old park, it’s actually private property!” Officer Trueman replied.
“Wait… It isn’t a public park?”
“No siree. It used to belong to a nice fella’ who used to do magic tricks back when I was a lad. Haven’t seen him in a good ol’ couple of decades. I just wish I knew his name.” Officer Trueman snapped his fingers. “Oh, I know! His name is...”
Austin paused as he saw the officer’s eyes suddenly go completely white for a minute before blinking and turning normal again.
“Oh no, I think I must’ve forgotten.” Officer Trueman said as if nothing happened. “It’s probably in the records somewhere. Anyways, you stay out of trouble young man!” The officer said he patted Austin in the back and went back into his car.
As Officer Trueman’s car drove out, Austin looked back into the “park” and stared at the gates.
Austin knew there was no reason the police could ever find a search warrant anytime soon if they can’t even say the owner’s name without becoming essentially zombies for a minute.
Austin planned his options. Should he slip into the property and find Anna right away? Should he try and meet with the owner? Is it even worth going in right now and consider waiting until he’s more prepared? How about going on the board and posting about his case? Maybe an old friend of his could help?