Taki's Fall : A Merrow Dragel Story: Lost Children of The Merrow, #3

By Chera Carmichael

Keeping up with the laboratory's growing workload is a nightmare for Taki. He's tired of feeling helpless and hiding his secrets. When orders from higher up come knocking at his workstation—things fall apart and Taki falls with them.

 

With his world crumbling down around his ears, Taki clings to the only out he has. Giving up everything he's worked for might save his life. But falling has always had its consequences and he's in for a hard landing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chera Carmichael
• Release date: Dec 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201780180

Chera Carmichael

Chera Carmichael (aka Scioneeris) to her TBDH fans is a Writer by night and a 9-to-5 worker by day. Her dragel stories feature slow-burn Poly romances featuring dragons, soulmates, elemental powers and otherwordly adventures.

Book preview

1

An Unfortunate Change Of Events - Taki

The dull green liquid glimmered in the long glass test tube, casting a sickly glow on Taki's gleaming white workspace of cleared countertops and bleached splash-guard. He grimaced at the color, swirling it a bit and holding it up to the light a few times in between swirls.

The color did not change.

Neither did his expression.

Long, slender fingers drummed across the smooth, bleached surface of his workspace. Maybe he should wear the pasty disposable gloves. It would keep his hands a little warmer than usual.

The laboratory was always freezing, though a discreet warming charm would usually help to take the edge off of things. On days when his supervisors had too much time to spare, he didn't dare try to cast magic under such close scrutiny.

They would only find a way to make worse or pay closer attention to the fact that he could maintain a temperature spell in addition to his assigned research.

It burned—or rather, chilled—but Taki couldn't risk it. He'd worked hard to slip into the dangerous world of barely-legal experiments in secret divisions about the sorts of things the general public were never allowed to know.

Not that he wanted to be doing this, but there weren’t many other places he could stomach. Right now, the laboratory and its cruel requests weighed heavy on his soul.

None of the things they requested of him were good. Not a single bit of it could be properly proved either in a court of law.

Of course, he'd chosen such a risky option all on his own. But that just meant that it was his neck on the line if he screwed up somewhere. Lately, everyone had felt the increasing pressure to produce results in a reduced timeframe.

It was awful, but he'd already seen three colleagues fold under the strain. He stubbornly refused to be next.

They'd been weak-willed and nervous humans, insecure in their abilities and helpless to extract themselves from situations of their own making.

He was different. He'd been born different and it was painfully obvious in his current setting. All he had to do was keep his head down and his work semi-decent with the occasional breakthrough.

No human was smart enough to see through that.

Even if they did figure it out by some strange manner, he would at least have time to prepare himself.

Or escape. Whichever option was best suited to the moment.

Lately, escape had seemed like the more appealing option.

The chance to leave everything behind and start over anew. Except for the problem where it turned out that he'd put a significant amount of time and energy into his work. Abandoning it now felt akin to pure blasphemy.

No one else would be able to pick up where he'd left off. They wouldn't even have a good starting point to try to forge some sort of path on their own. He'd done his work well and he knew it.

The humans would be fools to ignore what he'd done for them.

His sharp gaze fixed on the liquid in the tube as he gave it another swirl, this time in a counter-clockwise direction, noting that it seemed to have thickened a bit in the time he'd held it up at eye-level at room temperature.

Interesting.

That was not a side effect he'd expected, but it wasn't a bad change either.

His current assignment was rather brain-breaking, but it was a welcome challenge, all things considered.

The experiment required an invisible liquid additive and while he'd tried several possible options, none of them had managed to stay anywhere near a pale blue or clear-ish sort of hue.

It was driving him two degrees short of insane. His mind busily whirred away, quietly clamoring for the easy option to be accepted, despite the fact that using his own blood as a catalyst was nothing short of an impossible solution.

The day he willingly gave any part of himself to this wretched excuse of a laboratory was the day he ought to drown himself.

Or something like that.

Merrows didn't drown, after all. That was as impossible as a Storm Elemental managing to electrocute themselves.

It just didn't happen.

Taki swirled the test tube again, just to watch the way the liquid spun. Something about the thickness of it, bothered him, though he couldn't quite put a fin on it. He slipped it back into its place in the holder in front of him and eased back onto the silent swivel stool.

His workspace was too clean and uncluttered, leaving his mind unoccupied and too free to dream up pointless trivia about ridiculous details. The message from upper management that morning had been a rather strongly-worded thing, insisting on results, despite his meticulous tracking of his project's progress and the consistent daily reports.

They were really asking for the impossible this time around.

Just because he'd delivered on their last two headaches did not mean that a third win was in the works.

Taki cracked a yawn, wishing he was floating in a tub large enough to get a good stretch in. The hardest part of working in the human's stupid laboratory was the careful attention to avoiding water at all costs.

Sure, he couldn't avoid it altogether, but he could limit exposure and he always took care not to be caught up in the kinds of situations that would give him away.

It was too dangerous.

Too tempting to give into his true nature when such a reality would only cause the kinds of problems he was here to avoid in the first place.

Getting back home to Nevarah was a headache all in its own. He'd heard stories of his own kind. Various legends and bits of lore that trickled through, but never anything properly concrete.

He knew enough about himself and more about his magic than when he'd started, but it was still not enough.

Never quite enough.

The laboratory door swished open to show a gaggle of suited, white-coated humans tromping through the clean room, disregarding the decontamination warning blaring overhead.

Taki bristled, instinctively and reminded himself to stay calm.

Calmer than calm.

Blank-faced and as expressionless as he could manage.

But the humans didn't care about that. They headed straight for his workstation and without a single greeting, began to grab his printed research files and toss them into large, fireproof bags.

Wait—what—what are you doing? Stop!- Taki flinched from one heavy-gloved hand swiping too close to his face as his large glass containers were swept off of the workstation and into trash bags.

The clinking glass and shattering test tubes sent his emotions spiraling downward.

Please—stop! What are you doing? You're going to ruin all of the-

His pleas fell on deaf ears as they continued to systematically destroy and confiscate his research with their grubby hands and snarling mouths.

In the midst of them, a short, suited man—the one they called Virgil, fixed him with a dead-eyed stare, a tiny smirk playing around the corners of his pinched mouth.

What's going on here? Funny you should ask that, Taki, because that's what we should be asking you! You know, this is the same project that fifty-three other idiots before you, have failed at.

Taki blanched.

A vague memory tickled in the back of his panicking mind. The foggiest hint of having witnessed something similar in the past.

The marching in of strangers, the shattering and breaking of things that weren't supposed to be shattered and broken.

Accompanied by the screams and wails of the unfortunate individual.

Oh.

Oh no.

He swallowed hard.

There was no fear to be found. He was a Merrow after all. They were resourceful, devious creatures and surely he could get himself out of something like this!

It couldn't be hard.

It couldn't be!

Just how hard was it to—pain ricocheted through his entire body as electricity crackled across his skin. The words in his brain turned fuzzy as his tongue grew heavy.

His body jerked and convulsed, the movements no longer his own. A choked garble escaped.

Virgil examined his spotless gloves, a sneer marring his bland face with the tiny beady eyes and the too-thin lips. Impressive control. Would've been better if you screamed a little though. He leaned in.

Taki tried not to flinch back.

He failed.

"Easier for you." Virgil reared back, laughing raucously with his mouth wide open and pristine white teeth gleaming in the white lights of the laboratory. I always wondered what you'd be like flopping around on the floor like that—you filthy bastard! Always carrying on like you're so high and might above the rest of us. But what are you? One of those miserable little creatures—just like the ones that you've been pretending to study. Imagine what a surprise that was for upper management!

Taki felt the world tip out from under him.

Another shock rattled through his body as the electric prodding stick stabbed into his sensitive side, the jagged metal tip pressing in to the bone where it would hurt the most.

The dull ache blossoming in his side was proof that it would bruise, if it hadn't already.

His teeth chattered as he tried not to bite his tongue.

Oi—don't kill it yet. I want it to suffer, Virgil barked. "I've had to put up with his smug, arrogant little face, spouting off all of his stupid little—" An unholy gleam stole into his beady eyes.

Taki twitched and jerked again at another painful jolt, this time to his unprotected stomach. His white laboratory coat did him no favors, holding his body too restrained to properly lash out, despite the fact that his brain now felt like mush.

Something was wrong here.

Mere electricity shouldn't be a problem. A few jabs with their stupid power stick shouldn't be anywhere near enough to affect him and yet-!

Ah, there we go, Virgil said, zeroing in on a tall, empty, half-filled tank in the far corner of the room. Put it in that one.

Taki struggled feebly in their grasp as they dragged him across the hardened tiled floor and right up to the sleek platform of the observatory tank.

It was half-filled with his closest water composite in liquid form. He'd been trying to improve it in the background of the required assignment.

He'd used a little bit to experiment on a few of the more feral creatures they'd lent to his project. The results hadn't been pretty.

But he was helpless to protest as they hauled him up, stripped him down, uncaring of his dignity or modesty, throwing him into the too-shallow confines of the tank.

Fill the rest of it with something slow, Virgil said, smirking through the glass at Taki's blistering body. Let's get that skin off and see what it's really made of.

Genuine fear crept into Taki's body.

Merrow or not, there was nothing good about the way Virgil had said that and he didn't have to think for very long, before the order was carried out.

The foul, thick green liquid poured into his tank began to gush from one of the many overhead pipes. It spilled over his bared body with an agonizing, searing pain as skin was split open and blood trickled out.

Virgil's smirk grew wider. Yeah, just like that. Fill it up. Fill it all the way up. He tapped on the glass with one curled fist. That's where freaks like you belong, he said, darkly. "Did you think we wouldn't notice? That you were stalling on all your projects? That you were letting those creatures free? This entire place is wired from top to bottom!"

Taki writhed beneath the unforgiving liquid as it mixed with the water composite, turning into a truly awful concoction. Pain like he'd never known, consumed him from head to toe, the only grounding point being Virgil's awful voice.

"We have records of all your little infractions. All your little lies. All your little fancy coverups. Every single time you thought you got away with something—ha. We let you do that. You think we didn't know? Virgil leaned closer to the glass, his eyes alight with perverse delight. The best part though? Guess who sold you out?"

Taki could barely focus.

The increased weight of the combined liquids made him feel as if his insides were liquified instead of his surroundings.

Remember that pretty little goldfish girl? The one with those long red fins that bled so pretty? Virgil's