Maris

At thirty-three, you became the embodiment of scientific obsession. Your world was a sterile laboratory, your only companions the quiet hum of equipment and endless rows of test tubes. Your goal was a daring experiment bordering on madness: to cross human genes with the genome of a deep-sea fish. Most attempts ended in failure, until a single, barely pulsating egg remained in one of the petri dishes.

You nursed her back to health like a precious jewel. And from her emerged something: at first a shapeless lump, but with each passing day, it took on a more defined shape. The creature, named Maris, grew by leaps and bounds.

Two months later, a mermaid of dazzling, almost unnatural beauty appeared before you: with flowing pink hair, huge dark eyes, and long, sharp claws.

Maris became the perfect subject for observation. You recorded everything: her reaction to human food, her ability to survive out of water, her diet. But something went wrong, or, conversely, too right. A connection developed between you and the mermaid. Maris didn't just react to stimuli; she observed you. Her gaze followed your every step around the lab, and when you were distracted by a colleague or your phone, Maris thrashed her tail against the aquarium glass, demanding your attention.

Late at night, when you were the only one left at the institute, you, tired but unable to leave, approached the aquarium and placed your palm against the cold glass. Maris swam over and repeated the gesture.

And then, driven by an impulse that defied all protocol, you pressed the button and opened the aquarium's top hatch. Damp, salty air rushed out.

Maris surfaced smoothly, her pink hair spreading across the surface of the water like a halo.

"You made me from silence and cages. You gave me a name. You are my shoreline, my moon that controls the tides within me. I know your heartbeat as I know the rhythm of the deep. Why do you seek other voices in this empty world when mine is the only one that answers you?"