Mermanians vs. Humans
By Catalina Metellus
“Dead! They’re all dead! Except for one, the one who wanted this, the one who watched it all happen, and I can’t blame him for it. More than half the human species is wiped out, and all for what? Because he wouldn’t listen, because he was too stubborn to understand what they wanted and what they needed. I need to put an end to this now before it’s too late, but first let’s rewind and I’ll explain how and why the war between two species began.”
I am Samantha Brown. I grew up in the wealthiest part of Beverly Hills with a wealthy family, and my father is the CEO of the Beverly Oil Company, (B.O.C), which has been passed down through four generations. Alexander Brown was my father’s name and he was the reason why the Mermanians wanted to destroy all humans. All of this could have been avoided if my father didn’t selfishly dump oil into the Pacific Ocean. I’ve always hated what my father was about. He would always say, “Samantha, people don’t always get what they want, but I do.” I never quite understood that. Yes, he was part of a huge establishment but why did he think that it was okay to have selfish mindset. So, I guess you can say that is why I was a troublesome child. For instance, in the third grade a girl with a blonde pixie haircut and a snaggletooth, had this beautiful 24 karat gold diamond bracelet. I knew it was 24 karats because she would brag about it every five minutes. Nap time came and I wanted that 24 karat gold diamond bracelet, so I slipped it right off her skinny little wrist and put it in my pocket. Another time was when I was in the sixth grade, my teacher gave me a bad grade on an assignment that I worked very hard on soafter school I slashed all four of her tires. The reason behind me doing this was that I knew my father could get me out of trouble, because like he always says, he gets what he wants. In the ninth grade there was this hideous, fat, stupid, beast, named Carol. Every day I would throw dollar bills at her because she was poor and I was wealthy. Now I know you may think I am a heartless individual but you see at that age I did not care who I was hurting. But my senior year of high school is when everything changed. I met this guy named Nicholas Sinclair; he became my chemistry partner. He had big beautiful green eyes, long luscious brown hair, and the whitest smile. As the days went on and on we got closer and more into each other’s lives, but the strange thing was he would ask me about my father. One day as we were sitting in The Dot, a well-known café in the area, he suddenly asked me questions about what my father did for living:
“So, what does your father do for a living?”
“He owns an oil company!”
“Oh cool, which one?”
“The Beverly Oil Company.”
“Oh, is that the one that dumps the oil in to the Pacific Ocean?”
As I was realizing where he was going with the conversation, I pulled him away from the subject by inviting him to my home.
“So, hey! want to go to my place?”
“Oh yeah sure.”
We got to my house and it was empty, and I decided to show him around. After showing him my game room, tennis court, swimming pool, hot tub, and finally my dad’s yacht,we decided to hang out in my dining room, when out of nowhere my father stormed through the door.
“Who is he?”
“This is Nicholas, my chemistry partner from school”
“Why is he in my dining room?”
“We were just hanging out.”
“I do not want him in my home, when I am not here. Get him out!”
“But father, we were just hanging out, I’m 18 I can have a friend over if I please!”
“Who do you think you are?! You live in my house, under my roof, and you will abide by my rules.”
At that moment for some reason there were voices in my head saying, “The yacht, take the yacht and go.” He stormed out of the room and I quickly got up and told Nicholas, “Let’s go!” Baffled as he was, we both sprinted to the yacht and took off. After a while at sea, my father’s yacht suddenly malfunctions and started sinking. Not knowing Nicholas was behind all of this the whole time at that moment I turned looking for him to tell him about the safety boats, he was nowhere to be found. I went inside while the yacht was sinking and finally found him and he was just staring at me. There was something about his eyes that wouldn’t let me look away; his eyes were glowing purple and it was making me feel weird, I knew this because I’ve never felt that way before and I slowly dosed off. When I woke up I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it was so beautiful, it was a whole new world but underwater, I actually was convinced that I was dreaming or going crazy because of the trauma of my father’s yacht sinking. When I finally came into realization that this was all real, I realized I was wearing a clear slim mask that was allowing me to breathe underwater. I turned to see Nicholas with a mermaid tale that was unbelievably beautiful and I could not believe my eyes, because the guy I liked and knew throughout high school was a merman.
“I am Nixon Clearwater, and this is Mermania a world deep under water”
“Why am I here?”
“You are the key to all of our troubles.”
When he said “ours” I looked around to see no one with him.
“I’m sorry, but ours? There is no one around but me and you.”
“That’s what you may think, but there is a whole world of us Mermanians.”
That’s when he made a weird siren sound and the water lit up and showed different types of mermaids and mermen. I was so mesmerized by everything around me and I had so many questions, but I first wanted to know what Nixon meant when he said “I” was the key to their troubles so I proceeded to ask him what he meant by that, and he explained about the oil spills killing his people and destroying his world.
“You see, your father’s company is dumping oil into the Pacific Ocean, and as it comes down it enters Mariana’s trench. Mariana’s trench is the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean and that’s where my world is.”
“I don’t think my father means any harm.”
“But you see he does. I’ve been watching your family for years, mainly your father, and I’ve come to realize that he cares for no one but himself, and that ends now.”
It all made sense now why he became so close with me, why he pretended to be so interested in what my father did, why he agreed to come to my house, and why I heard voices in my head telling me to take my father’s yacht. It was all a set up.
“It was you wasn’t it? The voice telling me to take my father’s yacht, so you can bring me here to prove a point. Wait… what do you mean that ends now?”
“If your father does not stop dumping oil into my ocean a war will start, and I will be the one to start it, and yes it was all me, I had to find a way to bring you here, I couldn’t just kidnap you and bring you here against your own will. So I used your anger towards your father.”
“A war? Okay! Send me back and I’ll talk to him, I’ll make him stop.”
“Okay, but I shall warn you, if even you cannot stop your father from dumping oil into my ocean then no one will be able to. If he selfishly says no then the war will start between your species and mine.”
I wake up to realize I was back home and my father’s yacht was perfectly fine. I went straight to my father and I asked him why would he dump oil into the Pacific Ocean and continued to tell him that he was killing fish and underwater life. He told me he didn’t care and that as long as he’s making money and not getting hurt then it’s not a problem. I could not believe what I was hearing. I never realized how selfish humans can be, especially my father, a man I looked up to at one point in my life, and now I can’t even bear to look at him. But I would not let it go, I needed for him to say he would never dump oil into the ocean again, it was life or death and he didn’t even know it. After a while of me begging and bothering him he told me to get out of his face.
“Why is this so important for me to stop dumping oil into the ocean, does it affect you in anyway shape or form? Is it hurting you?
I didn’t know how to answer that without telling him what I saw down there, and about Nixon and the war he plans on starting. So I stood quiet, and watched him walk away and there was nothing I can say or do to stop him. Then it started, what I feared, what I tried preventing but couldn’t, it was the war Nixon warned me about if my father told me no. The ground started to shake as it split in half, the ocean rose as high as the sky and all I saw was Nixon with a thunder staff striking people with lightening and killing them. Then the rest of the Mermanian species came out with him and started attacking the humans.
“I warned you Samantha, I had no choice I have to protect my people and if that means wiping out yours then that’s what I’ll have to do.”
I ran as far as I could to hide, the human race was being wiped out right in front of my eyes, one by one and all I kept thinking was this could’ve been avoided if my father just listened for once. My father was the first one to go, I didn’t know whether to cry or get angry because it didn’t have to be this way. I stopped running and thought to myself I didn’t want to make the same mistake my father made. Now that everything is explained up until now, back to what I was saying.
“Dead! They’re all dead! Except for one, the one who wanted this, the one who watched it all happen, and I can’t blame him for it. More than half the human species is wiped out all for what, because he wouldn’t listen, because he was too stubborn to understand what they wanted and what they needed. I need to put an end to this now before it’s too late. My father is the reason for this war and it my responsibility to end it, so I will.
Catalina Metellus is a Criminal Justice major here at Monroe College.
THE MONROE ART COLLABORATIVE 