Oliver waited and he waited and he waited. He looked down and could see that his whole tail was now grey. He looked at his arms and recoiled when he saw that they were shorter than they were earlier that day. He swam around and watched the TV. The only thing that told him that Hunter was late was when the sky started to darken. He tried to come up with a reason for why Hunter or his parents hadn't come back, but he couldn't think of one. It had been a horrible, long day for Oliver and now it looked like it was going to be a horrible, long night of waiting. He started to get tired, but forced himself to keep swimming to stay awake. He did this for a long time as well, staying up long into the night waiting for someone, anyone to tell him something. But no one came, and, like the night before, he didn't notice as he drifted off to sleep.
Oliver woke up the next morning. He was still swimming. He just began to swim, it was what he always had done. He couldn't remember anything else. He saw something that was torn on the bottom. It wasn't moving. He mindlessly attacked it, ripping it apart with his hundreds of razor-sharp teeth and swallowed the pieces. Then he just kept swimming. He could hear noises outside, but he didn't pay any attention to them.
While what used to be Oliver was swimming in it's pool, a group of people approached the house in a white, nondescript van.
"This is the place." One of them said.
"Okay, let's get this done." said another. Another opened the back of the van and pulled out a very heavy bag with something inside.
"What's in the bag?" asked the first man.
"It's on a need-to-know basis." said the third. "And you don't need to know. You don't want to know."
The bag was very heavy, so two of the men had to drag it to the backyard. There was definitely something struggling inside of it.
"This order came from the head office, right." said the first man.
"Yes it did." said the second man. They began to drag the bag up the stairs to the top of the pool. The thing in the pool saw them, but didn't care. Once the men got to the top of the stairs, they set the bag on the side of the small deck.
"Good riddance." said the third man, and kicked the bag into the pool. The bag hit the water, and the thing in the pool picked up it's vibrations. It began to swim up. This thing was sinking. It was squirming and struggling. The thing began to move closer. A hole appeared in the bag. Something sharp had made it. Hands came out and made the hole bigger and whatever was in the bag climbed out.
Hunter kicked his way up to the surface, gasping for breath. He was in Oliver's pool. What had happened? He had been knocked out at the head office building and...... Hunter looked down to see a great white shark in the pool beneath him. It was swimming in circles.
"Oliver..." whispered Hunter. He tried to get to the deck but the shark grabbed hold of his pant leg and pulled him under the water. Screaming, Hunter turned to the shark, which was biting his pant leg. It was caught in the shark's jaws.
"OLIVER!" screamed Hunter.
The shark stopped. It's prey had made a sound that sounded familiar. But it didn't matter.
"OLIVER! IT'S HUNTER!" screamed Hunter. "STOP! THIS ISN'T YOU! STOP"
What his prey was saying was very familiar. The shark ripped off a piece of the pant leg and lunged.
Hunter grabbed onto the shark's dorsal fin. The shark couldn't get at him. It swum around at top speed trying to get it's prey off.
"YOUR NAME IS OLIVER!" yelled Hunter, whose face was beginning to turn red. "YOU'RE A HUMAN! YOU'RE NOT A SHARK!"
Not a shark? the shark thought.
"IT'S HUNTER!"
Hunter?
"DON'T LET IT END LIKE THIS!"
Hunter?
"PLEASE NO!"
Hunter. The shark stopped. Hunter was his friend.
Hunter swam faster than he knew he could up to the deck and climbed out of the pool, falling backwards onto the deck.
Oliver. O-li-ver. Oliver.
Hunter reached into his soaking wet jacket pocket and pulled out a wet syringe. It was still intact. He pulled the cap off and dove back into the water, falling towards Oliver. Hunter landed on Oliver's massive back and, hanging on to Oliver's dorsal fin, stuck the needle into his thick shark neck, pressing down on the syringe. Oliver began to twist and try to get Hunter off his back again. Hunter injected the fluid into Oliver. He pulled the syringe out and let go of it. it landed at the bottom of the pool. Oliver lunged towards the surface and Hunter let go, flying out of the pool and landing with a thud on the deck. Hunter laid there for a long time until he heard a voice.
"Hunter?" said Oliver.
Hunter tail started wagging as he turned over and saw Oliver's grey but human head sticking out from out of the water. His eyes were still black, his teeth were sharp and he still had gills, but it looked like he was breathing.
"Oliver!" said Hunter. "It's you!"
"What just happened?" said Oliver. "Was.....Was I a....shark?"
"You sure were." said Hunter. "You tried to eat me!"
"I did?...." said Oliver, thinking back. "....I did! What did you do to me?"
"I injected you with the anti-virus." said Hunter. "I stole it from the lab where they took your parents. They found me when I was trying to get out and they tried to feed me to you."
"The anti-virus?" asked Oliver.
"It's the cure to the retrovirus they injected us with. They have a small supply of it in case some kid has an allergic reaction to it." said Hunter. "But I'll tell you all that later. Are you okay? You can breathe, right?"
"Yeah," said Hunter as his gills closed. "I can breathe." He slipped under the water to look at himself. His skin was still shark grey, but his legs and arms, although webbed, had returned. He also noticed that he could use a bathing suit as well. He put his arms behind his back and felt his dorsal fin.
"I'm still sort of a shark." said Oliver. "But I'm sort of human as well. I'm pretty hungry, too."
"So am I." said Hunter. "Can you get out of the pool?"
Oliver swam over to the side and slowly climbed up onto the deck. He flopped over beside Hunter.
"I can't feel my arms and legs." said Oliver, his gills closing.
"That's because you haven't used them since two nights ago." said Hunter. "I'll go see if your parents have any more chum. You could use some clothes as well."
"Wait." said Oliver. "Couldn't I just have a sandwich or something?"