Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 599

The Mermasian Macau
Islamic Kasim Tuet Memorial College, Bibi, Aysha - 17
“Today is a very special day for me, because I’m going to Macau for the very first time! I’ll get to taste the
real, original and local egg tarts, I’ll get to see the gambling culture, and also, I’ll get to see the Parisian
Macau! It will be so much fun and I will probably enjoy myself fully.” That was what I, John Spears, was
thinking as I was sitting in a car on the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge at exactly 8 a.m., not knowing
that a catastrophe was waiting ahead of me, with a big, creepy smile on its face like a Cheshire cat in
Wonderland.
I texted my friend, Zachary to tell him about how unlucky he was for missing this epic Macau trip. He was
so unlucky that he had detention after school every single day, just because he got 49 marks in his math test!
Mr Norris is surely determined to correct his clumsiness come hell or high water.
As I was thinking of pressing the “SEND” button, a black cat suddenly appeared on my phone screen. I
thought it was a glitch in my phone and just as I was about to reset it, the cat disappeared and my phone
went back to normal! Strange... for nearly a minute, I was confused but I soon shrugged it off. A while later
however, I noticed that my personal driver, Raphael was looking in the rearview mirror intently. ‘What’s
wrong Raphael?’ I asked him, and he nervously looked back at the road. “I...uhh...I thought I saw a wide
Cheshire cat-like smile in thin air,’ he replied. “Behind the car.” That creepy smile, the glitch in my phone
with a random black cat appearing? Must be bad luck. ‘Hey, Raphael, could we possibly turn back to Hong
Kong? Because maybe I don’t want to go after all…’ Right as I said that, the bridge started shaking—first
slightly and then it got more severe. The next thing I knew, the bridge was falling apart! The car was falling
too and the last thing I saw was the sea and a figure poking its head out of the sea.
When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was the beautiful marble blue ceiling. Then I noticed the IV drip.
I felt like I was lying on a hospital bed, but at the time, I didn’t realise that the bed was floating in midair (or
that I was in an oxygen bubble). I heard muffled voices and it sounded like they were arguing. ‘That’s a
human! Are you crazy? Keeping HIM safe? Ting Ting, please just let him drown like his driver! His driver’s
dead! Why save him? These humans ruined our natural habitat by building this damned bridge!’ ‘I know but
like…there is something different about this one…I just have a feeling!’ Ting Ting replied.
I felt like I was punched in the gut. ‘Raphael … he’s gone? He’s dead?’ I thought to myself. As if I was
hated by life itself, the mermaid-like creature heard me breathing and blinking (she had super perfect⁠—no,
she had more than super perfect eyesight, hearing and sense of smell, which I also found out later on.) She
swam towards me and as she swam, her beautiful long red tail (along with her matching red Cheongsam)
swished back and forth in the clear blue sea. I focused on her face, which was very pale. Her eyes were fullon
black and her black hair was tied up like a character in a historical Chinese drama. She saw me looking at
her face and smiled. When she smiled, I noticed that she had little fangs; they weren't fully developed yet
and I was horror-stricken by this. Coincidentally, one of my biggest (irrational) fears is girls with fangs, and
Ting Ting was a girl—well, a mermaid—a Chinese mermaid perhaps? But she looked like a girl… As I was
having a mini war in my head about whether I should be considering her a girl or an “it”, she abruptly asked
me if I was okay.
I was taken aback by her kind voice, but when I looked over her shoulder, I saw her relative (possibly her
dad I assumed). He was a grown fish and man with a long, gracious, black tail and he wore a black
Changshan. Later, I noticed a ton of them, all in colorful costumes with matching tails. There were unicorn
colors and darkish colors and marble-ish colors among them. I quickly realized that the dark colored
merpeople were (as we humans like to call them) “the bad ones”.
‘Are you okay?’ Ting Ting asked me again. ‘Huh? Wha-? Oh, yeah I think I am?’ ‘Okay, so I am going to
tell you where you are, what you’re attached to and how we found you. Don’t freak out though.’ ‘Uhh….
Umm… what more do you know?’ I asked her, but she ignored my questions and continued. ‘So you’re in
Merzhukong, a kingdom which is right in the middle of, you know, the Greater Bay Area. We found
you—yes, I mean the entire community of merpeople on this coral reef found you—knocked out. Oh, and