Jenny swam around in the darkness, unable to calm down enough to sleep. Her life had taken such an unexpected turn...who could have expected that she would end up as the main exhibit of an aquarium! She was a teenage girl, not some mermaid!
And yet, a mermaid she now was. It defied all explanation.
And now she was going to be put on display, like some kind of animal. For people to gawk at. What was going to be expected of her? Was she supposed to smile, wave to the cameras like nothing was wrong? Fat chance!
She tried thinking of a way to communicate with people, to let them know she was a captive...but short of banging on the glass, she wasn't sure of what she could do. And for all she knew, they would just assume she was some mindless fish, with an animal brain. The aquarium could spin this however they wanted, and then punish her for it later.
She drifted in the water. She felt like crying, but wasn't sure how. She was already underwater.
And then she eyed the bottom of the tank. Where the gravel and rocks were.
Well.
Perhaps all wasn't lost.
She swam down awkwardly, unused to swimming with a tail. It felt so wrong, but she tried to keep her mind calm. She grabbed some of the bigger chunks of gravel, and a few rocks, and then returned to the top of the tank, eyeing the glass above her.
She hurled her arm back and threw, but it was hard to get any weight behind it. She grunted, and the rock bounced off the glass. She aimed again, more carefully this time, and then threw.
CRASH!
The center glass piece shattered!
She quickly ducked underneath the water, avoiding the glass, and then swam up again, eyeing the hole. She reached up, but she couldn't reach the glass.
Now what was she going to do?