“I always wanted to be a mermaid princess.” Said Sarah’s youngest daughter as she lied in the large bathtub in her parent’s master bedroom. Her daughter’s light blonde hair was now an impossible bubblegum pink and her legs had fused together into a mermaid tale which had a large amount of hot pink and lighter pinks.
“This is amazing.” Said her oldest daughter who was also in the large tub, her hair was now a shade of dark purple and her legs had also fused into a purple and lilac color tail.
Watching her two daughters in a mixture of horror and relief was their mother. She was horrified that her daughters were no longer human and now were mermaids. She was also relief that they were not freaking out and crying but instead playing happily in the water. It was strange how they seemed to accept this change, but they were little kids and just thought it was a game of pretend.
“You need some rest.” Said Sarah’s mother, Mary as she sat on the toilet watching her granddaughters play with their new mermaid tails while not looking down at her own one.
“I know.” Admitted Sarah “Before I go, need a towel?”
“I am good.” Said Mary, her tail was wrapped in soaked towels to keep it moist. The water had been salted with a large bag of salt that a member of the crew had brought now that they were all on lockdown.
The crew came around every so often bringing food, mostly fish now and a large amount of this green liquid which looked almost like a smoothy. Only when a crew member explained that it was kelp mixed in with a binding agent for those who are transformed to drink did they understand. Her mother had a large cup by her side now, she explained it tasted almost like tap water to her.
Sarah walked out of groom into the living room to find her two boys playing with some hot wheels she had allowed them to bring on the cruise. They were still mostly normal, the oldest still had the brown hair of his late father, however clear as day on his lower leg was a patch of green blue scales. While her second son’s brown hair had turned into a neon green color.
“I will be the first to find Atlantis.” Stated the oldest.
“No, I will.” Countered his brother as their mother smiled a bit, the two were also acting as normally as possible.
What Sarah didn’t know and what only a few doctors who were now on the ship were beginning to grasp was that the virus did mental changes as well as physical changes. Across the ship, some people were freaking out while others had already fully accepted and were now enjoying the change.
“We are on the news.” Said her father as he pointed to the TV, it was a live broadcast of a news conference on land.
“Yes, there has been confirmed gender transformation as well as age reductions.” Confirmed the Doctor as another question was asked.
“We can’t give you a precise number, but men are much more likely to change into women then women into men. So far, we have only two cases of that and no one under the age of 19 has changed genders yet.” Answered the Doctor as more questions were raised.
“We are preparing means of transporting those on the ship to an isolated containment area to provide better care and to find a cure.” Explained the Doctor as more questions were yelled. “No, we don’t know how this infection spreads but so far no one has died so we have time to find a cure.”
“Well, I can see the shore now.” Came Kim’s voice from the balcony as Sarah walked out to find her sister-in-law and brother standing on the edge of the balcony looking toward the front to see the shoreline in the distance. That was actually the same harbor they had left just over a day ago, but much closer to the shoreline were two navy warships and what looked to be a hospital ship of some kind.
“I understand the hospital ships but really warships?” inquired Sarah as suddenly from a couple of balconies away came a load voice.
“FREEDOM IN THE SEAS!” came a voice as all three of them turned toward the voice just in time to see a figure, a man by the body type but one with a clear merman tail pull himself over the balcony and dropped headfirst into the water.
“MY God.” Said Kim as her eyes widened in horror. Thinking that the man had just committed suicide she turned away, however seconds later the man’s head came up as he began to swim alongside the cruise ship.
“BROTHERS SISTERS COME TO THE SEA!” he yelled as more people came to the railing. The ships horn blew as suddenly a helicopter, a military one by the look came out of nowhere.
“Stay where you are.” Came a voice from a megahorn on the helicopter, however instead more splashes could be heard as up and down the entire line of the ship more people began to jump and swim out toward the first merman until there was at least 40 to 50 of them.
Then to everyone’s horror came the sound of machine gun fire as someone on the helicopter opened up on the group. There was blood in the water but while the gun did kill four or five most broke for deeper waters or just away.
“This isn’t good.” Stated James
“We just saw people get shot with machine guns of course it isn’t good.” Countered Sarah
“I know that…but now they will lock us down more.” Countered James
“It is worse then that.” Stated Kim “If those people are infectious then.”
“My God.” Interrupted Sarah “This thing could spread.”
“It’s worse then that, the public will hear about it and being the public they will freak out and panic which is bad news for us.” Stated Kim, she worked at a PR firm so this was her wheelhouse. “I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the extreme talking heads on the news start floating the idea of just killing everyone onboard.”
“My God.” Stated James as he looked at his wife, only to look back at the TV. The event they had just seen was already being replayed on the screen, someone with a cell phone had been broadcasting live. Now the scroll along the bottom read “Containment failed, is the Virus now out?”