Austin started to follow the path back to the park entrance thanks to the help of the cheese crumbs. As he walked, his head swirled with questions.
“What did Anna say to that Eric guy that she didn’t want me to hear?” He thought. “How did she managed to fall in love with a merman with such a temper? How will my parents react to their daughter being a living mythical creature? Is that Anna… Even real?”
He sighed. All he wanted was for his sister to come back home safely, and now it’s like Austin is peering into a magical rabbit hole that seemed to be endless.
Austin’s mind continued to wander until saw that the Aztec coin and the golden rock, that were in his hands, were starting to glow yellow. First the coin and then the rock and then back to the coin again. Austin found this a bit amusing until he noticed that the glow was pulsing at a frequency that matched a heartbeat.
His heartbeat.
It was then that Austin realized that the peaceful looking park was starting to change in the atmosphere. No wind chimes or birds were chirping, everything was silent.
Dead silent.
The once peaceful park now seemed to have its colors more… saturated. The coloring of the leaves, the ground, and even the water were starting to change into unnaturally brighter hues. The park went from its look resembling a romantic painting to a vivid oil painting.
In any other context, Austin would be amazed at the dream-like appearance of the park… But after seeing multiple times what this park and its unknown owner could do to a regular person, Austin panicked and made a break for the entrance.
Austin stared at those cheese breadcrumbs as if his life depended on it. He dared not to slow down and look around.
When finally left that park, Austin was about ready to collapse when he found his car, with no strange changes made to it. He shuffled for his keys and practically ripped opened the car door to rest his aching body and hurting brain on a car seat.
Austin took several minutes to catch his breath. He looked at his phone to see that it was 11 A.M. After everything that has happened, only one hour has passed.
Austin looked out his car window to see that the park seemingly turned back to normal when it came to its colors. It seemed like a regular park again and not a living painting.
Relieved, Austin exhaled a deep and long sigh.
“Fuck me..” He said as he placed his face into his hands.
He came into the park expecting to find Anna, and he left being a living shopping list for a mermaid. On top of that, he was now a target for a park-owning entity that seemingly had an interest in the two magical items he got from the said mermaid. Austin’s brain was ready to melt.
After several more minutes, Austin managed to somewhat keep his mind together. He took a deep breath and proceeded to start up his car. He was going to buy what Anna needed.
He didn’t want to do any of this, but Austin wasn’t going to let his family suffer anymore. The police weren’t going to help. His boss wasn’t going to help. And his sister wasn’t going to stand up and help herself on land. Everything was Austin’s shoulders now.
“Families stick together,” Austin said, trying to look cool as possible to impress himself and nobody else.
Austin drove thirty minutes to a large mall. The next hour then proceeded to be the longest and most stressful hour of his life.
Being a socially inept abled-bodied man and asking a doctor to buy crutches out of nowhere was tough enough on Austin’s nerves but going into a fashion store and being stink-eyed by women as he bought a long red dress, for seemingly nobody but himself to the outside viewer, made Austin want to cringe himself into a raisin.
Mentally exhausted, Austin proceeded to buy a roll of tape and some straps so the coin and rock could attach themselves to the crutches. While there were most certainly better items to hold the two magical objects, Austin just wanted to get out of the mall as soon as possible.
As Austin left the mall and walked in the parking lot to enter his car, he entertained a thought.
After showing her to her family, what if he joined Anna to the sea and became a merman?
It seemed silly at first, but soon Austin started to consider it a tiny bit more. His life on land felt completely stagnant. Other than his family, what did he have to lose by becoming a merman? The life of working fast food to pay off the debt of a college he dropped out of? Living alone in an apartment and eating chicken tenders all night? Forever living a sexless life? Austin tried to find ways to justify his existence on land, but really couldn’t.
If he were to somehow get his family to become merfolk, then there really wouldn’t be anything on land that would miss him… Well, other than an angry boss, of course.
Oh, and maybe it’s possible he could get a mermaid lover like that Aaron guy.
“Oh, what am I thinking? Idiot.” Austin scolded himself and shook his head from his thoughts.
Surely, he shouldn’t permanently give up his legs, and possibly his penis, just because he feels a bit unhappy about his life right now. Surely, life will slowly but surely get better once Anna reunites with her family, right?
Austin sighed and focused on putting the shopping bags in his car and laying his eyes on the road back to the park for the next thirty minutes.
Austin has all the time in the world to feel sorry for himself and whine all day about his life but right now, he had a sister to retrieve and a family to heal.
Upon reaching his destination, Austin checked his phone one more time.
“1 A.M. I still got plenty of time to find Anna, dress her up, put her on crutches, get the hell out of the park, and get her back home. ” He said as he put his phone back in his pack.
Austin took one more deep breath and opened his car door.
“Alright, let’s do this.”