Eliza collapsed to the rock-hard ground, her mind far too frantic to consider the damage to her knees. She buckled her head and hid in shadows, every blink opening wide and closing tight; with each cycle, she prayed her vision would return her somewhere else, on dry land with a bright sun. Somewhere far from the ocean, willing to give up the sailor’s life for good if it meant escaping this nightmare.
But there was no waking up from the real rain drizzling onto her, or the smack of waves against the rocky shore. Eliza understood her reality all too well, that she was currently cowering beneath a heap of shipping containers, hiding from that monster. The fullness of that creature could still not be comprehended, only limbs and sections that flashed in her memories, and that name clawed into her memory: Clo.
“I wonder where she went off to~” the mermaid sang, her huge voice whistling over the whipping winds. That chime-like tone inflicted stillness onto Eliza, but when light cracked into her crevice, her head jerked upward; the container above her was moving away, plucked by fingers longer and wider than they were. Like lifting a battery, it was effortless for Clo to take the container and set it aside, revealing above Eliza a haunting smile that drilled into that skyward expression of shock. “There you are~ You’re not very good at hiding. Or, maybe I’m just very good at finding? Hehe…”
Eliza did not stay to be taunted. Upon being exposed, she shrieked and made a dash forward, unconcerned with the direction so long as it meant getting away from Clo. She scrambled onto another shipping container which bridged onto a hill, her footfalls drumming against the hollow vessel. Before reaching its end, the container jittered with movement, forcing Eliza to jump for her destination. It was a tumbled landing, but she avoided being picked up by Clo, who was left with a container largely emptied of its contents.
What few boxes and scraps remained in the container were poured out alongside whatever water had seeped inside. Eliza did not look back at Clo as the mermaid reviewed what it held, just as Clo was seemingly not in any rush to try and stop her. She slid down a slick side of stone and tripped in her haste, slipping into a surprise pit -- another shipping container, its broken entrance pointing upwards in the way it had fallen there. Eliza squealed as she fell, landing among a floor of small boxes; a difficult place to find her footing, but a less dire surface to crash into than unforgiving steel.
Unfortunately, it mattered little how she fell into such a trap. It quickly drained Eliza’s heart of hope, that she was cornered in the container. It was only a moment later that her prison shivered with movement, followed by the sounds of metallic grinding and earth being shoveled loose. She was being lifted, acutely aware of where the giant fingers were pressed against the outside shell; Eliza feared that pressure and what it would mean to have it applied to her bare and beaten body.
Eliza’s window of vision swirled sickeningly as she was carried away, as if her container was picked up by the docking cranes she was familiar with. It took much less energy for Clo to handle the container, however, as evident by the curious smile that eventually eclipsed the outlook of the sea. Eliza trembled deeper into the mound of boxes, a scream of a gasp escaping her when she felt the monster’s breath flood her surroundings.
A cold, icy eye filled the window, peering within the capsule-like container. “You didn’t get very far,” Clo teased, her words riding up Eliza’s spine. “So maybe it’s better to stop trying. You’re going to hurt yourself, and I won’t be able to do much about it.” Though still tinted in that playful tone, Clo spoke sincerely with her words of caution. Eliza even realized the depths of her warning, that an injury sustained there on the rock island would spell death for her -- but, how tender and nurturing could a giant mermaid be?
Eliza vocalized her worries, stuttered aloud like an insane mantra: “Y-You’ll just eat me… You would… j-just swallow me… and that’d… th-that’d be the end of it…”
Clo chuckled. The one prying eye squinted with amusement. “I would have to, if you got hurt,” she admitted, “so let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. I’ve had plenty to eat at this point~ What I need you to be for me is a good pet. Hmhm, you didn’t forget about that, did you?”
In her fluster for survival, the thought of becoming a pet to this sea monster had indeed fallen from Eliza’s concerns, but now that it was reminded to her, it inflicted a hollowing sensation. Her humanity had been belittled this low, that she was scurrying away like a pitiful animal into a corner, desperately avoiding the inevitable reach of a far superior being. With her back against the far wall of the shipping container, all she could do was kick and push to keep herself from slipping down that slick incline. The boxes of items once intended for delivery were slipping down that slope, tumbling away into that encompassing image of Clo’s smile. A little shake, and a wave of crates and bags cascaded down that behemoth body.
Eliza whimpered as she pinned herself into a corner, her arms and legs pressed tight into the walls and floor. As exhausted as she was, she knew this struggle would not last forever -- she knew from experience, a feeling that she found frighteningly familiar. After a blink and a breath, Eliza remembered being in this position before, and the darkness that followed. The cavernous mouth of a mermaid, the intoxicating humidity of her breath, and the daunting depth of a throat...
The drift of water was calming as it moved around Eliza. Her fingers and toes curled while the rest of her body relaxed in a dormant state. She sighed, the corners of her lips kissed by splashes of water -- a taste that made her giggle weakly. The sloshing of water was accompanied by the busy movement of people, but she could tune them out like another layer of ambience. It was another refreshing day at the beach, a place in Eliza’s youth where she could dream about the open sea and imagine sailing alongside its plentiful waves.
A stomp shredded her delusion, a footfall that crashed too near to her ear. Eliza blinked awake, startled by the sparking lights overhead, the sudden clarity in voices booming and shouting all around her, the uncertain sense of gravity. There was a metallic whine, like a beast’s roar, that instinctively pumped her with adrenaline. Yet, before she could stir and make sense of the chaos, she was grabbed by the armpits, pulled upwards and aside until her legs could stand for themselves. A fellow engineer had helped her to her feet, one of several sailors that had packed into the cramped corridors, the minimal space tightened by the flood of water at their ankles.
Eliza shook her head. What she expected to be a wild nightmare was still very much her reality, and that slip into unconsciousness was an illusion of peace. She cursed under a cough, wishing that the very engineer that had aided her had simply left her to drown instead. Anything, she thought, to return to that mental paradise.
Another metallic wail scattered that defeatism. Eliza used pipes along the walls to steady herself; she was making the decision to live, at least for as much of a choice as she had. Though she accepted there was little chance of her making it out alive from this dire situation, she willed to press forward, if only towards that wistful idea of her being the one to report the sighting of a giant mermaid out at sea.
“Push!! Push!!” The most adrenaline-fueled of the sailors were stacked against a heavy door, grunting as they pushed themselves to force the way open. Behind that door was a torrent of water keeping it closed tight, gallons that had poured into the ship during Clo’s playfulness. It was the only way forward from where the dozen crewmates were stalled -- what they had assumed would be a shelter inside the Generosity was in fact a flooded maze of the interior they once recognized.
It appeared hopeless that the door would ever budge enough; the minuscule-sized gap they could force would immediately spit at them with the water on the other side, propelling them back like a counterattack. Eliza staggered up to join them, unsure if her ragged body would offer any help, but suddenly, the ship jolted downward, and so too did all the water inside shift with it. The crew was blasted off their feet -- though the shift in water was now enough for them to push forward into it, the inwards flow rammed into them relentlessly. Sailors that could not latch onto something were drained down the long hall, into the depths of the Generosity that had already been taken over.
Eliza was fortunate to still be braced into the set of pipes, her arms tangled between them as water kicked out her legs from under her. She was able to join the few that could continue forward, but she did so looking back at those who fell, those that sacrificed themselves. With no time to search for survivors, she carried forward, joining the crowd as they scaled through the drenched corridor.
As more and more water continued to claim the inside of the ship, it became a race to exit onto the deck. The route they chose to follow was determined for them by how the ship happened to be angled, the doorways which were accessible versus those that were already flooded. Loose cables and toppled items became obstacles to overcome, turning their territory against them. Legs were snagged by coils of rope and wire hidden under the water, but in the rush that they all were in, those that could not continue forward were trampled over, treated like just another hurdle. Even Eliza, who dreaded leaving her crewmates behind, was forced to push past a fellow engineer as the water behind them crept closer and closer.
When an exit outside was finally in reach, there was no delay from the leading sailors to bash into the door and fling it open. The howling winds poured inside the opening, but at least it was not more water that the ship was taking on. Finally able to escape the encroaching flood, Eliza and the others flushed themselves onto the deck. They were met with fellow survivors that raced towards the most forward point of the Generosity, but what fetched their attention most immediately was the teal-tinted wall directly across from them, a monolithic stretch of a stomach that arced over the vessel. Those expecting to gawk upwards to the peak of this mountain would instead only find the creature’s breasts dangling above them, their enormous outwardness hiding whatever expression she had.
Judging by her lullaby-like humming, all could assume that the mermaid was no more stressed than she was before. Clo was content with how the chaos unraveled in her grasp, quietly enjoying how the humans’ vessel broke apart under her contact. She allowed the consequences to happen as they were bound to, entertained at how much destruction can come about while she did nothing more to encourage it. It was according to her unreadable whims that the crew was permitted to live as long as they had, but with so much of the Generosity having been torn and sunk, what fraction of it was left earned the fullness of her malicious attention.
“Mmm, so this is all that’s left… I expected a boat this big to last a little longer~” Clo discussed with herself as she surveyed the bow segment of the Generosity. Beside her were the sinking remains of the other two fractions, plumes of smoke rising from the wreckage while dots of containers bobbed between them. Stragglers at sea swam to these little islands of debris for refuge, but the waves made by Clo’s movements swept away whatever safety there was to cling to. Idly, a whip of her tail crashed into the middle fragment of the vessel, striking it down along with the crew that had been abandoned there. “Perhaps I got carried away. I’ll have to savor what I have left~ We’ll have a lot of fun in these final few moments, huhu~”
A flicker of mischief flashed in her eyes, though no one beneath her could see that expression for themselves. If they had, they could have predicted the next wave of chaos she would create, but all the same were they helpless to prevent her. Deciding to test the bow’s durability, her hands gripped the opposite side of the ship, her fingers crunching through the steel exterior while sailors scattered from their sudden appearance. The ship bobbed hard into that direction as she leaned that way, causing the survivors within to stumble into the ship’s tilt. For many, with nothing to catch themselves on, they were thrown overboard, left to the mercy of the vicious waters as cargo from the deck fell in after them. Huge containers plummeted into the ocean as carelessly as snow brushed off a windowsill, and Clo urged it to happen, giggling as she watched the tiny boxes topple over the edge.
“Oh, it isn’t heavy at all anymore!” Clo remarked, maintaining that steep tilt the bow was forced into. “I suppose that’s what would happen to a ship that’s been cut down to size. In fact, I wonder if it’s possible for me to…”
Her comment trailed off, but the act was tried; leaning further forward in a hunch over the bow, Clo reasserted her grip lower into the hull, her webbed hands cupping effectively around the steel exterior. She was going to lift the final fraction of the Generosity, with the intent of keeping it intact -- as much as she could, at least. To do so, she needed core support, and so the ship was pressed in a hug tight against her abdomen. Her chest curved over and around the upper decks, that impressive bosom swallowing the bow’s bridge and ruthlessly ripping apart the utilities stemming from it. The remaining frontward shard of the once-great vessel existed under Clo’s arced pose, its grand weight about to be tested.
All the while, the final collection of survivors rioted in response to the many consequences of Clo’s fun. Her amusement was made ever evident by an insistent giggle echoing above as her shadow eclipsed them. With her abdomen bluntly colliding into the side, each bubble of laughter was fully noticeable as her gut spasmed fluidly for all to witness. They fled to the opposite half of the ship, but were flung back the other way as Clo’s arms pulled hard on the hull, a jolt-like tilt that the infrastructure suffered deeply from. Nearly all were unable to find balance as the ship rocked about randomly, and Eliza was among those being tossed and thrown across the drenched decks.
“Hup… Hmmm! It’s a bit awkward, but I definitely can~” Clo’s assessment was spoken joyfully, but it was a haunting and perhaps final warning of the imminent destruction. The sailors on board had already assumed the worst was unfolding, but as the bow’s movements suddenly steadied, it was clear that there was still more to endure. The crew sprawled out in the chaotic warzone that the Generosity had become, bracing themselves anywhere they could. Their time was short as Clo’s tail pushed her to another side of the ship, angling herself for a better way to lift the bow.
The cacophony of the crew’s groans and the ship’s collapse was muted to Eliza as she tread against a current of flooded water. All she heard was the crashing of the water and the winds whipping around her. She trudged up a flight of stairs to the upper deck, exhaustion weighing her down as much as the seawater soaked into her uniform, yet she pushed onward. Though it promised little salvation, the bridge appeared to be the final holdout through Clo’s curiosity, and so Eliza glared at her destination, driven to reach a door that had broken open earlier in the encounter.
Regardless of that determination, a force yet compelled Eliza to glance back behind her, if only once to witness the carnage. The deck’s angle was steepening against her, urging her to succumb to gravity and the storm of water, to descend into what was swallowing the remainder of her crewmates; the mermaid’s bust, two whales of flesh that hammered into the deck as Clo rose the vessel from the ocean. Her grasp around the halved-Generosity was like a hug with the topside of the ship pinned into her chest. It was there that Eliza’s peers fell, limp bodies bouncing atop the mammaries and slipping away to their fates -- some washed aside into the ocean, while others caved into her cleavage, vanishing away into its depths. It was impossible to hear their cries as they dwindled away, the sounds of the bow tearing apart too loud for even Eliza to imagine how they screamed.
But Clo’s voice reliably boomed above all of the metallic whining and snapping, soft and giggly as her tone was. “Ahah, it’s all cracking apart~” she teased. “Is this as strong as humans can make their ships? This one’s falling apart because I hugged it~” She huffed and shook the ship higher into her grasp, gradually straightening the curve in her back as more of the deck was smothered against her bosom.
Eliza was tripped by that shockwave that ripped up and down the ship, catching herself from a slippery fall by making a last-ditch scramble for the bridge’s door. Her own weight pulled down at her as she tried to climb up, but as Clo steadied the ship against her, Eliza had her opportunity to kick a leg over and roll into the inside.
Immediately, the engineer fell into a wall of the room, stumbling into a corner where every other loosened item had gathered over the course of the attack. Lights barely flickered with inconsistent life, casting haunting shadows that flashed for moments around Eliza. She made only enough sense of her surroundings to determine where she next had to reach in order to survive -- a foggy, faraway goal that she hoped would justify this turmoil.
The ship was still being tilted harsher in that angle, limiting the time Eliza had to work with. In a daze, Eliza trudged forward, clawing at whatever she could to scale the floor. Her goal glowed ahead of her with an overlay of emergency lights that still functioned: the complex control table, a wide array of buttons, dials, and meters that spanned around the captain’s seat, which was nailed into place. Eliza threw herself onto that chair, thinking she could use the chance to catch her breath, but a hard shudder in the ship’s structure took that prize away from her.
“Come in close, everyone~ You’ve got nowhere left to go now,” Clo chortled, staring straight down at her chest where clusters of diminutive humans piled up alongside debris and splashes of water. Unlatched freight struck her breasts with their full weight, yet all the same bounced off her skin and plummeted into the water, regardless of whoever was taken down with them. It was a rain of terror accented by her low laughter; “This is everyone’s last chance. All of you should come out now~ Hehe, this poor little ship doesn’t have much left to it…”
That grim warning bled into the bridge where Eliza struggled to hold her position in the captain’s swivel chair. The message was direct and clear, yet she was unsure what to do with it. Where was there to go outside the Generosity? Would she try to swim in the perilous sea, or would she try to climb that monster’s size until she’s found? Like the slope in the ship that still steepened against her, all options seemingly funneled into the same messy conclusion.
A terrible sound approached Eliza, earning her attention down to the back of the bridge. It was a thrashing noise that accompanied the rest of the chaos too fittingly, rhythmless and crude. It was more of the ship tearing apart, but the added sinking sensation drew a visual of what was happening. Eliza guessed correctly that Clo was dragging the Generosity down her body, surely swallowing the deck, cargo, and cabins into that cavernous cleavage. The monster had announced it before that she was merely hugging the vessel, and so was this her embrace, gradually smashing the deck apart with her tits while the fat spread smoothly around everything else.
Soon after, it was upon Eliza. As the noises of destruction crept closer, muffled through the steel walls of the bridge, a darkness eventually claimed the porthole windows. Eliza saw a glimpse of that teal-tinted skin rising up towards her from the outside, rising up like any flood of water would. It was those behemoth breasts responsible for carving up the deck as Clo held the ship near-upright against her torso, and they continued to do so, unphased by the utilities and railings that snapped against them.
Had Eliza held any hope of simply leaving the bridge, it would have been dissolved after the breasts pressed past all the doors and windows. After so much had been wrecked and ruined, there finally came a relative peace -- the whine of steel bending tragically against itself still droned on, but Eliza heard worse from the ringing in her ear, or those bubbles of giggles that bellowed high up where that creature was surely smiling.
Up, Eliza thought, staring through the cracked window that overlooked the bow’s point. She could see clearly up to the gray clouds, the one source of light that Clo’s chest had not conquered -- yet. It was the only salvation, for Eliza predicted well that the bridge would soon be destroyed. Putting together the last of her stamina, she balanced herself using the captain’s chair and the control panel around it, gaining precious height that allowed her to reach the window. She turned her head away from the glass as she rammed her elbow at a point that seemed weakest. One strike, then another -- the cracks of the window branched farther, so Eliza struck again and again, eventually getting shards to break apart and fall past her. A hole had been made, and after breaking more of its edges to widen it, she could make the painful climb up onto the outer wall, her grip straining against the sea-slicked surface.
On either side of Eliza, bulges of teal skin bobbed. They rose like rounded walls around the front of the bridge, their fat squished between the deck and Clo’s body. Eliza paled to these mammaries, cowering as their great weight slowly shook in place, like two waves patiently waiting to crash down. They were awe-inspiring by themselves, but Clo’s full size was even more striking, stealing Eliza’s breath when she turned and gawked at the giant’s shoulders, her neck, and that coy expression.
It enfeebled Eliza to realize that the sea monster’s eyes were not actually aimed at her, those pool-like pupils focused on the bow of the ship. She was not seen or noticed, her trials to have reached this peak of the Generosity unknown to this god-like being. For this moment in the whipping, open air, Eliza studied Clo with unprecedented quality. She observed the smallest nooks of details amplified in front of her, so close to the mermaid that she was compelled to reach out and touch the endless skin -- indeed, she hobbled towards one bulge of a breast and leaned into its plushness. It was real skin, smooth and slick to touch, chilled by the seawater yet too huge to be affected by the temperature. Even after collapsing onto her boob, Eliza still went undetected, a fact that shrunk her spirit.
It was, after all, her only option -- the only tangible option. Though this beast had devastated a crew of dozens and wrecked an entire shipping vessel, it was all by her design, communicated inarguably by her teasing announcement, her playful methods. Clo was not a mindless animal hunting some prey, but a willing actor choosing how to entertain herself. She spoke language fluently and picked apart the crew according to what enthused her, and so that was Eliza’s gamble: forfeit herself to the inevitable and pray to this divine serpent that she might shed some mercy.
The disadvantages stacked steep against Eliza, as Clo had no ping of interest towards any one human. She viewed them all as a collective, heartless to their individual ordeals, finding fun equally between the essentially faceless sailors. They were a resource, and with the vessel having been segmented and set to sunk, that resource had been depleted. Specks of limp bodies dotted her bosom in some places, but they weakly fell to the wayside as her body swayed; no longer did she feel tiny tickles where survivors made efforts to push away her bountiful body, or to squirm through its pressure. Where her interest and smile lingered was on the ship itself, the final fraction crumbling against her skin as the hull collapsed inward by her hug. Clo snickered, knowing soon that her fun here would end, and she would dive into the ocean to collect whatever trinkets spilled from the cargo.
“Is that everything? No more?” Clo asked tauntingly, her glare curving towards the people she spoke for -- the stragglers swimming in the aftermath, clinging to familiar pieces of debris against the rocking waters. The fins of Clo’s tail swept side to side to keep her balance, unintentionally terrorizing the sailors as it heartlessly rammed through them harder than any boat could. “In that case, I’ll finish off what’s left~ It was fun while it lasted!”
Clo huffed, her arms constricting tighter, her chest pumping outward. The constant whine of the hull broke into a screech as its metal crunched under her grip. At the tip of the bow, she saw the deck break apart and collapse into itself, never meant to endure such a pressure or angle. She felt the crumbled insides of the ship shift, almost enough to tickle her again, but that thrill had already passed. The cabin pressed between her boobs was one last point of interest for Clo, watching it intently as the building was submerged into her cleavage. To her, she saw a softness envelope the structure, but as the walls popped and the ceiling flattened, the sheer strength of her chest was unquestioned.
The bow was about to be halved by that embrace, until Clo exhaled and loosened her grip. Before fully committing to the ship’s destruction, she caught a glimpse of movement at her chest. Small and wiry, it scrambled up a pinch of her breast, clambering up it in flails. A human, she figured, but not a corpse like the others -- springing with life all by itself, it fascinated Clo, who could only guess at what adventure the human had gone through to survive so long.
Eliza had nearly avoided being flattened when the wall-like breasts suddenly swamped her from all sides. She had been pushing into the flesh, calling up at the mermaid in vain, when the flesh pushed back, threatening to consume her. There was no time to think: she leaped onto the breast in front of her and frantically clawed at the skin in a desperate climb, but her speed was not enough. She screamed as the two weights collided, slapping her between them, spared only by their inherent softness. Captured in a flood of flesh, Eliza swam towards the surface, fighting against the growing pressure until she had undug herself out into the open air again.
What greeted her was no light at the end of a tunnel, but what her vision instead cleared to lay on was a gigantic face angled down at her. Eliza shuddered up the round hill of Clo’s breast, kicking and slapping at the fat without remorse in order to push ahead. She crept forward fast, still afraid that the cleavage was closing in around her, but as she analyzed the expression hanging overhead, it dawned on her that she was being observed back -- she had been found, locked under the mermaid’s stare.
The winds swirled around Eliza in her dazed state, their howls discouraging her from trying -- broken down and desperate, she tried nonetheless. “Let me live!!” she screamed skyward. “I just want to live!! I can’t keep going-- please!! Please…!!”
Eliza pleaded with all of her diminished strength, heaving after every shout to refill her lungs. Atop the uneasy softness of Clo’s breasts, Eliza always fought to maintain her balance, lest she stumble and fall to the sea far below; after latching onto pinches of skin, she would swiftly raise her arms and yell again, a manic prayer that needed to be understood if she was going to live.
It did not go forgotten by Eliza just how tiny she was compared to Clo, however. It was a reality that anchored her hopefulness, that she was but a mite begging for mercy from something far grander than her. Her role in life had completely shifted; no longer was she a dedicated engineer working within a proud shipping vessel, but instead a mere speck that wished to be saved, a greedy endeavor when so many like her perished against the mermaid’s immenseness. Eliza prayed with the last of her humanity, offering it to Clo in exchange for living on without it.
Clo found herself stalled amidst the bodies flailing or floating around her. Fin-like ears flickered at the sides of her head, whisking away any water that would muddy her hearing. She heard it more clearly then, that squeaky piping from the human dotting her breast like a mole. With a keener look, Clo saw how this tiny woman waved at her, boldly begging for her attention. She grinned, thinking of how easy it would be to blow the lowly human away with just a breath, to send her spiralling back onto the bow before it was crushed, but other ideas played with her creativity behind that enraptured smile.
Utilizing any ounce of energy that regenerated within her, Eliza continued to claw up the hill-like breast, pushing through her exhaustion. Moving up and away from all the destruction was her only priority, even if it meant smacking her arms against the slicked skin to earn miserable amounts of progress up the gargantuan body. In mid-thrust upward, the slope she was ascending suddenly jostled; the entire terrain bounced with movement that threatened to swing Eliza away. In her fit of screams, she could not determine why the world shook the way it did, and whatever guess she would have made was assaulted by an explosive, metallic crunch behind her. That dense sound and the crumbling that followed signalled the end of the Generosity’s bow; with a squeeze of an embrace, Clo casually strangled that final fraction, the metal bending into itself before falling apart into the sea. If any thoughts lingered of somehow returning to the vessel, they were soundly dashed from Eliza’s options, stranding her where she was -- the mammary of this unstoppable, giggling creature.
Clo’s arms relaxed, unleashing the piles of debris that had piled against her down into the waves. “It’s gone~” she taunted in a husky hum. A twist around her revealed that no major part of the ship remained afloat; in its absence was a thick pool of oil marking the Generosity’s demise, a substance which Clo was splashed with like a hunter covered in blood. “Human ships are always so much fun~ but they never quite last long enough…” Her chest was boasted forward as she stretched her arms with pride, relishing her overwhelming victory over the desolate scene. When her glacial eyes next opened, their coldness was aimed at a specific splotch on her breast, a speck not unlike the flicks of oil on her great form. “Mhm~ Not like you, however. I wonder where something like you spilled out from…?”
Amidst her fading vision, Eliza’s waning life was brightened when Clo’s mention of her rang over her body. You, that exact word uncovered a glimmer of will in the engineer, while simultaneously hollowing her sense of self. Heavy with seawater, Eliza’s head flung upward, marveling at the dizzying image of a giant’s stare weighing down on her. She shuddered, but her grip refused to loosen.
A chuckle from Clo produced a tremor that shivered what she studied. “... Oh? Are you actually dead?” she pondered aloud, her amusement waning. “Was I mistaken? Mm, can you move still…?” Her grin itched back into place as she brushed a finger into her breast, her pad being wide enough to cover over the tiny body latched to her. The digit firmly pressed down, submerging Eliza into the fat before curling beneath her and forcing her to come with the tip as it delicately balanced her atop it.
Despite being bullied into a new location, Eliza’s adrenaline had been emptied out of her veins. Sputtering water and weakly lifting her limbs, she signalled as much life as she could towards the gigantic eye. The pupil, big as it was, twitched unabashedly with interest as it scanned the diminutive form, nearing so close that Eliza feared the eye would devour her -- it felt as much was happening, her entirety being absorbed into the mermaid’s focus. And as heavily as Clo’s stare beamed onto Eliza, so too did Eliza silently stare back.
Sloppily positioned on the fingerpad, Eliza soon felt her body slipping down the curve of wet skin. In a gasp, she flailed and kicked herself back into place, scurrying towards the fingernail and propping a leg against it for support. Her grip was naturally tighter than ever, reapplied with a new vigor -- but that tightness was questioned by an eruptive laugh bellowing from above.
“Hahaa! Oh, no! You’re so precious spasming like that~!” Clo explained through her giggles, attempting to do little to control her outburst. Her lips continued to quiver afterwards, finding humor in Eliza’s huff of vitality in response. “And the way you’re hugging my finger, hah~ You must be terrified. Do you even want to live after this? It might be better to just…”
Eliza began springing with movement to say otherwise, sensing the tentacle-like fingers of the hand bending into position. She sparked into an argument, flipping forward to yell at Clo, but she was smothered before she could speak, suddenly squished between the pads of fingers brought together. The fear of being crushed so pathetically was frighteningly real, but the pressure that was actually applied was instead forgiving -- strict enough to pin her completely, but very shy from outright popping her. Like this, Eliza could still push and punch at the fleshy surfaces consuming her, but there were no odds at all she could overpower the mermaid’s playful pinch.
“Should I do it? Should I do this quickly…?” Clo asked her, her fingers pulsating with small spikes of intensity. “Everyone you came with has already given up, you know. You should want to join them~ Being alone in the ocean isn’t much fun, believe me. Mm, why else do I come out to play with your little ships?” Her gaze softened, from a mild glare of superiority, to a blink of reflection. She was honest with her own perspective, that though she flaunted herself as a massive destroyer, she was ultimately picking fights with beings innately weaker than her, relishing a thrill that was relatively shameful.
None of these emotions dawned on Eliza, not while she struggled to keep the digits from completely crushing her. While Clo swirled with thoughts, her fingers slowly slid against one another, idly spinning the engineer between them. Then, when a decision was made, Clo’s grasp was released, exposing her captive laid limp on her fingertip.
“Little human… Mmm, don’t give up just yet,” Clo hummed, drifting aimlessly in the water as she remained above the shipwreck. “I can tell you’ve struggled a lot just to get here. Huhu, I imagine you must really adore me, to have strained yourself like this. I’ve decided that your resilience should be rewarded.” Her face, already so huge, grew larger still in a boost closer to Eliza -- so close her breathing whipped at the drenched body. “You want to live, don’t you? That’s why you’ve fought so hard. You can be left alive, if you come with me… Heh, you’d become something like a pet. You wouldn’t be harmed or tormented, no, no. Something I can watch over, return to…
“Of course, you’re free to turn down this offer,” Clo continued with a sly edge to her tone. “But it would be a waste, right? Everything you did to survive, only to die out here, like all those others. Would those other humans answer differently? If I gave them the chance to live, would they take it?”
Eliza shivered intensely, exactly as Clo had planned. The gravity of this choice drilled into the engineer as she waved through consciousness. Itching at her to decide were the ghosts of those that had perished, those that, unlike her, had been swept into the misfortune of destruction. The lives that grabbed her hand to pull her to safety, the lives that forced open pathways to flee a drowned fate -- gone, behind and beneath her. The crew of the Generosity had been nearly washed away by this mermaid’s whim, and it was yet another whim that promised her refuge.
Before the question had been posed, however, Eliza knew her mind had been settled, having committed to this pitiful destiny when she was just an unacknowledged speck stuck on the teal skin. It was no less despairing to accept this deal, a bargain for her life that would sentence her to the role of being a pet.
“Mmm? Have you thought it over?” Clo buzzed, eager to move along, if her grin was anything to judge. “Hoh, you seem convinced you deserve it… but I’m not so sure. Something so small, it’s also hard to trust… Can you be trusted, human? If you truly want to be my pet, then choose that life for yourself… and crawl into my mouth. Otherwise,” she giggled, “I wouldn’t be able to swim very well and still keep you safe...”
It was then exposed to Eliza, cutting her confusion short. Opened wide like a grand tunnel was a portal to a dark, living realm. An exhaust of a breath steamed from those parted lips, casting a warmth that hugged Eliza’s stunned shape and lifted her forward in a chill. Teeth sharp enough to pierce any hull dutifully lined the red cave, each fang glistening from the saliva that behemoth of a tongue was constantly releasing -- that very monster rolled out before her, practically pointing at her, presented as a bridge from Clo’s finger and into her maw. Whipping Eliza for hesitating was an outgoing gale of a breath, caused by the mermaid giggling at her captive’s skepticism.
Strands of spit clicked and a low hum resonated from the throat’s depth; in the paused moment, it was all Eliza could hear above the sloshing waves of the longspanning ocean. The fingertip was an island of isolation, a symbol of her hopelessness, while the fiendish tongue reached out to her, an opportunity -- the only opportunity -- to survive this emptiness.
Against a rage of instincts telling her otherwise, Eliza crawled forward, sliding her body to the end of Clo’s finger and finally onto the tip of her tongue. The reality shocked her as spit seeped between her fingers, the distinct sloppy texture of the tongue resonating through her arms as it responded to her weight. It took convincing herself to drag her legs behind her in order to continue; when she was too slow, the tongue surprised her with a curl inwards, launching her farther up its length as she squealed a dry gasp.
Barely any light made it through to this living cavern, and what little there was became shut off from Eliza as the gate-like teeth closed. Gravity seemingly shifted as Clo’s jaw closed and moved, pushing her captive into tumbles up and down her mouth. Tickled by that sensation, giggles rang like church bells over Eliza, and she was plunged into this play where Clo’s tongue battled her -- not unlike a smaller version of the serpent she was. To the rhythm of the mermaid’s amusement, the tongue swirled and curved in the mouth with dexterity despite its size, slathering the engineer in saliva that made her even easier to manipulate.
While Clo was entertained, it was a dive into hell for Eliza, regret immediately burning at her for having accepted this circumstance -- walking right into the beast’s mouth -- but there was a despairing acceptance in her heart, that she was in her place; an inferior being, so low on the scale of power, devoured rightfully by the better beast. A childhood had been invested dreaming of riding upon one of the massive ships that anchored at her home harbor, and while draped over a fence of teeth, she realized how little her life had meant, how fooled she was to believe her passion was of significance.
A deeper blackness consumed Eliza, laid dazed flat atop a tongue that had fallen still. The motions of outside could be felt, that incredible speed that matched the mermaid’s incredible size; certainly, Clo was swimming submerged into the ocean, carrying her pet elsewhere. Appropriately did a sinking feeling conquer Eliza on this mysterious voyage, as though her soul itself was being dragged to the mermaid’s destination to play out her given role.
A melody carried her away, both to her place, and into slumber. It was Clo’s hum that vibrated the mouth’s air, a tune difficult to decipher against the washing waters outside and the gurgling echoes of what was inside. But once Eliza’s ears took to the melody, it captured her, bleeding into her lowly, wondrous dreams…
Eliza was without a voice as she fell. Not a scream left her as the open air surrounded her, the shipping container’s slick ledge having vanished from beneath her. She was the last thing left inside to be dropped, caught in a trance that made her just as still as the crates of items that fell before her. The storm of memories had flooded back to her, those flashbacks of the Generosity’s demise leagues more terrifying than a singular fall.
The surface Eliza struck so soon within her plummet was a welcoming grasp; Clo’s hand was in position to catch her, as intended all along. Her body rolled into the pit of a teal-colored palm, skidding into a puddle of seawater that pooled in the wrinkles of the giant’s hand. Eliza began to lift herself, but a sudden motion of the arm slammed her back down as she was carried up into Clo’s gaze. Her head turned towards those piercing pupils, keen as to how they dilated with interest in her -- it should have spun fear in Eliza’s core, but there was nothing there to swirl inside her, a void in place of her self-interest.
Clo’s eyes neared closer, overtaking the image Eliza could comprehend of her face. “There you are~ my little human~” the mermaid sighed, her pleasant voice speaking above the crunching of earth that her mermaid tail drove through within the islet. Her head tilted with interest, stray ropes of hair swinging across her stare as they chased that motion. “Ahh, I almost can’t see you in my palm like this, hehe~ Mm, it’s so tempting to want to clench my fist for some reason…” The thought breezed through Eliza and broke her into a visible shiver. Clo chuckled, and she continued in a whisper, “Don’t worry… I shouldn’t scare you like that, now that you’re mine… I’m sure you’re scared enough as it is, mm?”
Eliza shuddered again, not because of a threat or pain, but because of her hushed volume. No longer was Clo’s voice bellowing like that of a god’s, instead carefully adjusted to her -- an impactful voice regardless, but brought to Eliza’s level, a consideration. A small, near-meaningless gesture, but it relaxed Eliza like a drug, an instant effect that effectively leashed her to Clo.
This slide in demeanor did not go unnoticed by Clo, who muffled a giggle of delight. She moved Eliza to be level with her chest, nearly clasping the woman against herself, as she maneuvered her huge body back onto the stoney beach. Her tail met the water with a natural-born touch, slithering beneath the waves until much of her tail was submerged. Clo was in position to dive towards the horizon’s cloudy sunrise, but as with before, her possession needed to be stowed safely away; her tongue was tickled by the suspense.
Eliza was caught staring out into that ocean vista when Clo’s speech shook her. “Human~ Oh, that doesn’t ring well at all…” the mermaid began. “I’ll think of a name for you -- something small, of course, hmm~ A new name to set off into a new life, right? Your boat is at the bottom of the sea, and your crew-- they’ve settled my appetite.” Clo giggled, stroking her satisfied stomach with a brush of fingers. “That life will be far, far behind you… My den is deeper still into the ocean, an island no human I’m aware of has ever reached. That will be your home~ And anything I salvage from those tiny containers, I can let you sort through that! Are you looking forward to this life? If you’re loyal and listen well, I promise you’ll be treated kindly!
“So then… shall we depart?” Clo continued where Eliza was too stiff to respond, only just then blinking with alertness. “If you are, then I’ll have you climb onto my tongue~ I’m sorry, but it’s the only way I can swim~” Her joyfulness betrayed any real sympathy, but Eliza was unphased. Having deeply accepted what she had agreed to, when the tongue was then upon her like a cliffside of red muscle, she took to climbing it as commanded. Once Clo could feel the pinch of a grasp on her tongue, it snaked back into her mouth, Eliza carried along with it.
All over again, Eliza was consumed by walls of pink and the atmosphere of fresh saliva. It was the same environment ripped from some hellish landscape, yet it was very different. The oppression was absent; the tongue did not wrestle her fatigued body, but cradled it, bent around her so that a dip in the muscle pocketed her. When she moved, the tongue did not fight back or react with whipping blows; it was always slow, perhaps sudden at times, but particular to how it flinched to Eliza’s touch. As welcoming as the mouth was on this second voyage under the water, Eliza kept still, quiet, and patient.
And as the vessel of a mermaid dove deeper and deeper, her humming began again. It was chilling and comforting, intimidating and loving. Above all, it was hypnotic. With legendary effect, it cleansed the thoughts of the weary and lost. The Generosity, its crew and its tragedy, were gone, and now forgotten -- diminished to a dream that drove the sole survivor into gratitude for being the mermaid’s pet.