You felt your heart racing as you know your time limit is either neither nearly up or simply just up. A mermaid or merman could grab you at any moment and infected you and then you would never leave the ocean.
You love the ocean but not that much as you thought for a moment you felt something, or someone grab your leg but that lasted only a second. Then it was followed by a sharp pain as he slammed your knee into the sand.
You had forgotten to stand up as you reached shallow water, you stand up and look back and saw….
Nothing, just normal water.
You look down at your knee and see that it was slightly red and that in the sand you see where your knee had impacted the it.
“Damn my imagining.” Stated Terry as he walked out of the water and toward his stuff. He dried himself off and prepared to leave.
He never noticed a slightly small cut, not on his leg but on his arm.
He didn’t know that a mermaid had grabbed him only a few minutes after he entered the water. It was a brushing grab, but it was enough.
The virus was within his system and increasing rapidly and worse still he was what scientist would call a super spreader.
He would spread the virus while a human, unaware that whoever he encountered had a good chance of getting infected themselves.
Worse still Terry had a busy day before him.