One Thousand Tears_a dystopian mermaid tale

by Pauline Creeden

  She swiped at her face, irritated with the tears she found there. She nodded once and then returned her glare at the man with the bullhorn, wishing she could stop his heart with the water magic she had.

  "The winner of this trial is Joanna Marks. She reached the shore first, with a time of eleven minutes, forty-four seconds. I'll get to her prize in just a minute." He looked over at the rest of the crowd before continuing. "The four initiates who have failed the trial need to please step over to this side. Liam Held is considered our first failure. Adelaide Shore is our next failure."

  At the sound of her name, Adelaide tensed. Both Nathan and Jo gasped.

  12

  Blackness crowded the edges of her vision. The bullhorn man was right. She and Liam were the last on the shore, as Jo had already told her. This meant that Jonas was right too. She had failed. The trial had beaten her. She wasn't good enough. What was she going to do now that she'd have to live out on the street?

  "The other two failures are, Grace Spellman and Kellum Dodd. If the three of you could please stand over to this side?" Mr. Custis gestured to his right.

  Adelaide followed the other two toward the stage. Jo and Nathan both offered horrified, sad faces. Scotty looked at her with an apology written across his features, and then turned his glare at the bullhorn man. Adelaide took her place next to the other two on the stage where Mr. Custis had indicated. She didn't want to look up at the faces of the crowd in front of her, but a bit of laughter caught her attention. Annette sneered at her and laughed so hard she doubled over. Then stood up straight and leaned against the friend she stood beside. Even if she didn't have a bruise coloring across her nose and cheekbones, she would have been a hideous expression of a human being.

  Shutting her eyes against her indignation, Adelaide took a deep breath and calmed herself. Letting the breath back out between her teeth, she waited to hear the final verdict and wondered if she'd get a chance to say goodbye to her friends.

  "Now if the winner could please step forward, too? Joanna?" The bullhorn squawked again after he said her name and set it to his side.

  She stepped up onto the stage, looking mournful rather than excited to have won. Guilt overwhelmed her facial features and her posture. She didn't even look up and meet eyes with Adelaide or the other losing initiates on stage.

  The bullhorn man set a hand on Jo's shoulder, holding a playing card in his other hand. "Congratulations. Now we'll tell you your prize. We're giving you a chance card. This means that you can choose one of the failures to return to the trial and continue forward with the testing. Will you choose a male who is not competing for your spot, or a--"

  "Adelaide!" Joanna yelled, jumping forward and grabbing the card in bullhorn man's hand. "I choose Adelaide."

  She rushed over and slammed into Adelaide, gripping her tightly around the waist. The girl beside Adelaide, Grace, began to cry. The two were escorted off the stage by the black armored guards.

  The world spun around Adelaide. She'd been saved again. She'd thought she'd lost, but the corporation had kept her in the game by a technicality again. Either she was extremely lucky, or someone was looking out for her. Could Jonas have that much clout that he could influence the games? She looked over toward the guards. One of them could have been Jonas, but even if one was, he didn't seem to have any sway over the games. So why was she continuously being saved? Adelaide wrapped her arms back around her friend and squeezed her tightly. She shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but rather accept the situation for what it was, a gift.

  As Adelaide stepped into the barracks from the hallway, a foot shot out, hitting her across the front of her calf, and causing her to stumble in her step. She barely caught herself using the foot board of the nearest bed to help her from face planting on the floor.

  "Watch your step, Sewer rat," Annette's voice called down in a sing-song way from above her.

  She turned around and glared at the girl and then made a fist and lifted it up toward the girl. The girl's eyes grew wide and she took a step backward at the look of malice that Adelaide gave her. With a nod and a sigh, Adelaide rolled her eyes and dropped her hand. She turned around and started toward her end of the barracks, where Jo sat on her own bed, eyes wide and worried.

  Annette called to her back, "That's right, Sewer rat. Keep walking. Better yet, crawl back into that sewer you came out of and—”

  Her words cut off the minute Adelaide stopped walking forward. As if the girl suddenly realized she didn't want Adelaide to turn around and come back, Annette stopped talking and made a shuffling noise behind her as she and her lackeys scooted farther away.

  A sigh escaped Adelaide's lips again as she continued forward and then plopped down onto her bed. Jo came over and sat beside her. "See, that's why I came over here with you. Annette seems to draw everyone to her like she's a queen bee and tells them all who to talk to and what to do. That's why none of the girls talk to you... or me."

  Adelaide shrugged against her blanket. "Doesn't matter."

  Jo laid down next to her. "I'm glad you came out for the trial. I don't know what I would have done if it had just been me and Annette's crew here."

  After scooting over to offer more room for Jo, she took a deep breath. "Thank you for saving me today."

  Jo laughed and then propped herself on her elbow to look down at her. "You're kidding, right? I saw you. You were way out ahead of me, but you stopped because of the faulty life jacket. I heard someone saying that they purposefully put four faulty life jackets randomly in the bunch to make the trial harder for some than for others. You could have just ripped your jacket off and kept going. You swim better than anyone I'd ever seen. But Scotty said you stopped to save him. And you tried to save Liam."

  "And Annette."

  "What?" Jo's eyes grew wide.

  She shook her head against her pillow. "No big deal. Her life jacket was faulty too."

  Jo laid back down on the bed next to her. "Maybe you should have just let her drown."

  Adelaide chuckled. It felt good, lying next to Jo. She almost felt like she was lying next to her mother and they were talking together like they used to when she was a very young Mer. Her heart ached in her chest at the thought that it wouldn't happen that way again. She missed her.

  "So four of the life jackets were defective. Hmm. It can't be just a coincidence then that Mr. Custis said that the last four on the shore would have failed the test."

  "Definitely not coincidental."

  The intercom overhead rang a strange attention-getting tone. Jo sat up on the bed, and Adelaide did as well, looking around. Were they going somewhere?

  A voice came over the intercom. “We are now down to eight female initiates and seven males. At this time, we will be combining both groups into a co-ed barracks. The females will remain in their barracks, where they will be joined by the males."

  Some of the girls let out happy hoots and hollers. Jo's eyes grew wide and excited. "Nathan's coming."

  Adelaide's heart fluttered a little. She clenched her jaw. Yes. She was happy that her friends would be closer and safe, but why did her heart flutter when she heard Nathan's name? No. It wasn't supposed to do that.

  "Additionally, we will take a break tomorrow and have a social dance in the afternoon. A masquerade," the voice on the intercom continued. "You all deserve a chance to get to know each other better. Be advised that you will only have the morning to get prepared for the social. Anyone who is not prepared by noon will not be allowed to attend."

  Just as the intercom shut off, the boys entered the barracks to continued hoots and hollers. Annette sauntered up to the group and said, "If any of you boys want to intermingle with the girls, we can relocate some of our sleeping arrangements."

  Adelaide shook her head.

  Jo rolled her eyes, stood and started toward her bed across the aisle. Smart move, since if she didn't claim her bed, she might be stuck with someone else taking it. From down the aisle where the boys were determining whi
ch bed to take, Nathan's eyes met Adelaide's. Her heart stuttered in her chest again. Her hands fisted. How could her fickle heart betray Jonas for a boy she'd only known now for three days? But as he made his way toward her, Scotty and Gerald right behind him, she knew that he had some sort of effect on her.

  As he drew near, Jo jumped out and grabbed hold of his arm. She pulled him toward her bed. "You have to sleep next to me, Oppa."

  Adelaide lifted a brow. "Oppa?"

  A bit of color rushed to Nathan's cheeks. Jo gushed to explain. "It's ancient Korean for big brother. My mother used to call our Uncle Hoyt that. They were both half-Korean. Nathan and I are one-quarter."

  Adelaide nodded. "Oh. Okay."

  Jo leaned in. "It's also an affectionate term. Sometimes girlfriends call their boyfriends Oppa, too."

  Nathan's cheeks turned redder as his gaze glanced across hers. He spun on his heel to face the other direction and set his pillow on his bed.

  "But Nathan's never had a girlfriend, because he's--"

  "Jo!" Nathan called out, snagging his sister's head in his arm crook again. "That's enough out of you. Maybe the smell of my arm pit will shut you up."

  Jo beat against his arm playfully, making gagging sounds.

  Scotty threw his pillow down on the bed next to Adelaide, and plopped himself down so that his knees were touching hers as he faced her. A wide smile spread across his face. "Looks like we'll be seeing even more of each other.

  She smiled at him and pulled her knees away. "Looks like it."

  Gerald took the bed on the other side of Scotty. She nodded a greeting toward him. In the room it seemed that all the guys had taken the empty beds between Adelaide and Jo and the rest of Annette's crew. None of the boys intermingled with the girls on that end of the room, even after getting the invite from Annette.

  The first buzzer sounded. Two minute warning to lights out. Everyone jumped into their beds and pulled up their covers. Scotty had positioned his body so that it faced hers, and offered her another wide smile. She smiled back softly, then turned her body so that she faced the other direction. The vibe she was getting off him today was new and unwelcome.

  The second buzzer sounded and the lights went out.

  Pale moonlight sifted through the glass. Adelaide sighed. She could hear them all breathing. Somehow, the men breathed louder than the women did. After closing her eyes tight, she took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart.

  "Thank you," Scotty whispered from behind her. "Thank you for saving me today."

  She half turned and whispered over her shoulder. "No problem. You would have done the same. Forget about it."

  "Never. I'll never forget."

  Her heart thumped wildly against her chest, like a bird trying to escape its cage. She closed her eyes, trying to get her anxiety to calm down. The room felt electrified now like it hadn't been before. She wasn't sure if it was because of the opposite sex in the room, or just because there was now someone in the bed immediately next to her, where it had been empty before. Either way, she wasn't going to get much sleep tonight. She was sure of that.

  They fitted the girls in figure-hugging dresses and dressed the guys in black and white tuxedos. Gave everyone masks that fit around the eyes and covered half their faces. When Adelaide stepped out of the elevator on the top floor, she entered the room straight across from the elevator, though the door down the hallway drew her gaze for a moment. The terrarium held special meaning to her now. She remembered her night with Nathan just as much as she remembered the trial with Jo and Scotty partnered with them as well.

  Once she entered the room with the other initiates, she smiled at the way it was decorated with crystal, marble, streamers and balloons. String music played from the intercoms in each corner of the room, allowing for music. But what was most strange was the way there were double the number of people on the floor than there should have been.

  People gathered together in small groups, standing to the side of the dance floor. And though the music played, no one danced. There was a small crowd standing over by the punch bowl, and Adelaide joined it, while Jo clung to her side. Eventually they got to the front and received a drink.

  The entire event seemed trivial to Adelaide, and she didn't quite understand why this was important to the Horizon Corporation. What exactly was the point? It had to cost the company money to keep the trial going on each day, but still they continued to extend the time and drive the initiates forward into things that didn't seem to matter... like this so-called break.

  Adelaide felt hot breath on the back of her exposed neck as her hair had been swept up into a bun. She spun around, goose flesh rising on her arms. A man stood in front of her with a mask on. He seemed bigger, and older than any of the other initiates. He smiled down at her. "You smell divine, young one. May I invite you to dance?"

  With a frown, Adelaide said, "I'm afraid I don't know how to dance."

  He took hold of her hand and placed it under his arm so that her hand rested in the crook of his elbow. "That's just fine. It will be my honor to teach you."

  Jo scooped the punch cup from her hand as Adelaide was dragged away from her to the floor. Other couples had begun to populate the dance area. The man who'd taken her to the dance floor placed one of her hands on his shoulder and the other in his arm. He placed a hand on her waist, and she shivered at his cold touch. She swallowed down the bile that rose in the back of her throat. He leaned forward and sniffed her again. "Delicious," he said and began to guide her in swirls around the other couples on the floor.

  The frown on Adelaide's lips deepened. Something didn't feel right about any of this situation. Who was this man with the deep voice? He seemed younger than Mr. Custis, but much older than the initiates who'd been recruited for the trial. He gripped her roughly and refused to let her make a single decision, or even think much beyond moving her feet in the direction he guided them.

  As the music slowed down, another man stepped up and tapped the first on the shoulder. Graciously, the man bowed out and another came forward, gripping her hand, and refusing to hear her denials. "I really don't know how to dance."

  "You're doing just fine," the second man said. He was taller and much more elegant looking than the first. But still older than the initiates in the trial. He too, sniffed her in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "Captivating."

  When the song drew to a close, a third man stepped up and the second man bowed out. Panic clawed at Adelaide's insides. She started to spin and make a run for it when the man grabbed her by the elbow. "Adelaide, are you okay?"

  "Nathan," she whispered in relief.

  He took hold of her arm as her knees nearly buckled underneath her, and guided her toward the side again. "You look tired."

  She nodded. She felt completely drained.

  "Here, sit." He guided her to a chair at one of the tables by the side. "This place is a little overwhelming. I had to cut in front of another guy about to ask to dance with you just to get a chance to talk to you for a minute. None of the other girls have been asked to dance more than once. Annette is shooting daggers at you with her glare."

  Adelaide looked over to the masked bird in the yellow feathered dress, and found that Annette was indeed glaring at her viciously. A chuckle bubbled up from her chest, and she waved at the girl in the yellow dress. Annette turned away.

  "It's not like this is a contest." Adelaide shook her head.

  "Everything is always a contest. Remember what Custis said at the beginning of the first trial. We are always being watched, and everything is part of their process in deciding who will go to Atlantis 5."

  Realization dawned on her. "You're right. This is probably a test."

  He leaned in toward her and smiled. "How do you think we're doing?"

  She rolled her eyes and shrugged. "Who can tell? But I'd better get extra points for dancing with all these men even when I kept turning them down."

  "Who's to say? You just might."


  The song came to a close, and two men approached the table where they were sitting. Their eyes were fixed on Adelaide, and anxiety overcame her. Would she really have to dance with them again?

  Then a scream came from the other side of the room that drew to a crescendo as more voices added to it and the panicked crowd began to rush in their direction, too. Adelaide jumped to her feet, and then saw the tufts of fur covered ears standing over the crowd. Her blood ran cold.

  13

  The wolf stood tall at the other end of the room. His imposing presence towered over the crowd, and it howled, sending chills down Adelaide's spine. Everyone ran over top of each other in a stampede for the exit. Nathan rushed over to her and grabbed her hand. "We need to find Jo."

  She nodded and ripped her mask from her face, her eyes scanning the crowd for the short purple dress Jo had been wearing earlier. Nothing, she couldn't see her petite friend anywhere she looked. The fingers in her hand gripped harder as the crowd surged their direction and blew past them, out the awaiting doorway. Then she found a flash of purple on the ground. A few of the bodies that had been trampled didn't get up, didn't move, and her friend was among them.

  "Jo!" Adelaide cried out and started in the direction of her unconscious friend, dragging Nathan with her.

  Once he saw her, he darted forward, releasing Adelaide's hand and rushing for his sister.

  The wolf focused on the three of them as they were the only ones remaining on the dance floor. Its nails clacked against the marble as it drew closer. The monster had black, brown, and gray hairs mixed together in a mesh of colors so that they looked like one new color all on their own. Wolf color. Then she realized why it stood on only its hind legs. It wasn't just a wolf. It was a werewolf.

  At schooling, they had mentioned that bottom feeders who returned to sea after time on land reported that wolves often hunted for the Mer. They were under the domain of witches who used the blood of Mer for blood magic. Adelaide swallowed hard. If there was a wolf, there was likely a witch. She scanned the area behind the wolf and she came into view.