David awoke with a start. Amidst all the questions he needed to ask himself right now, one took priority:
"H-How am I breathing underwater!?"
It was true! He was submerged in a dank tank. the water may've been clean, but the same couldnt be said for the room it sat in. He forced himself up, and out of the water, and took a startled breath. He relaxed, appartnly he could breath air just the same.
The tank was huge, and the room even larger. The water held space for at least 6 people david's size, but yet... something else was taking up ridiculous amounts of space. Something which wriggled. Confused by the room (and his lack of clothes), David looked about. The room was almost empty, and the tank had four pipes which branched off in different directions, through walls and the through the floor. He wanted to climb out and look further, but... something stopped him. "That mass that's here with me." he thought. "what is that anyway!?"
He tried to free his legs from whatever was hogging space down there. He kicked, and gasped a silent gasp when he saw what happened...
His leg didnt splash out the water, like he expected. A huge, brown-black eel-tail did! It was huge - sea-monster huge! With fright, he kicked again, and the writhing tail swung itself against the tank's wall! Looking down, David saw what took up so much room... his tail was not only impossibly broad, it was impossibly long too! It was surely over ten times the length of his upper body! It wriggled and squirmed like a writhing snake, and, in futility, David tried to grab it to calm it. Shocked by how it felt, David's fin very nearly swung back and slapped him.
"Do not be alarmed." Said a voice. There was a speaker in the room's corner. "The limb you see is yours. Your legs are no more, but with this, the seas shall be open to you. In exchange for this gift, we expecty you to co-operate with our training procedures and regime."
Gift? David looked pestered at the notion.
"Is this not what you've always wanted?" Said the voice. "Are you not a merman now, as you always dreamed of being?"
David considered this. Yeah, he wanted to be a merman, but with a fish's tail, not an eel's! However... the squirming feeling it provided was pleasureable, and he would indeed be able to explore the ocean as he'd always dreamed with it. He stroked his tailfin wonderingly.
"Follow the pipes." the voice came again. "They will take you to different parts of our fascility. Familiarise yourself with them, before making your way to the Hallcore Pool, where you'll be trained in the art or mermaid-swimming."
Unsure, David turned to the pipes - the long, broad passages that led elsewhere. He was to swim as a merman, he realised. An eel merman! His tail gave an unconscious swish, and almost broke the nearby wall down!