Day 16 Pink Banded Butterfly Fish
As one of the janitors of the facility you sometimes clean up the cells where they kept the creatures. You never paid them attention. You were more interested in going in, doing your job, and then going home at the end of the day just to cash in your paycheck at the end of the week. You didn't care what these scientists are doing and it wasn't any of your business so you just kept your nose where it belonged and just did what you were paid to do, which was to clean. But that made it hard to do when the mermaids started to be shoved into their tanks. They always made you clean up the tanks once they were drained out.
You thought you heard the scientists call most of them by numbers or nicknames such as butterfly or something along those lines but you never bothered to pay too much attention to it. You were only paid to clean around here and nothing else. Which included going into those tanks when the scientists took out their mermaids(usually after knocking them unconscious) and getting them cleaned up before they put the creatures back inside. On one such day it was business as usual. One of the scientists (Doctor Doum you think) brought out one of those creatures, the one that looked like a giant orca and you were tasked with cleaning out his tank before he came back. It wasn't too bad. At least this creature didn't leave water everywhere behind it like that swamp one did thing did. It was a quick job wheeling your cart over and beginning the familiar process of disinfecting, mopping, and then taking your spray bottle and cloth to start wiping at the giant reinforced window looking into the tank. Your bosses always stressed to you the importance of making sure these windows were clean at all times to allow the scientists and security clear view of the mermaids. Despite how BIG each cell was with some being the size of three whole houses, there was minimal clean up You had to do. They were mostly like giant enclosures at the zoo with each one catering to each specific mermaid or water creature. This one in particular having a few giant rocks and a giant mirror for the very vain metmaid they sedated earlier.
After a while it got pretty warm..Eh. You supposed you could spare to take off your mask and hazmat suit hood that was a part of the get up you were. It was a relief to take off the get up disguising your face and letting the air hit your face. With a sigh of relief you went back to sweeping a lot of shedded feathers along the floor. You were just wiping at the glass when you heard it for the first time.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A strange tapping sound. You paused before looking around the tank. No one was in here with you and it didn't seem like anything was loose or a draft was present... Shrugging you turned back to your work wiping off the big window from inside the cell before moving outside the tank to clean up the other side. The safe side to be honest. You were just wiping off the middle of the reinforced glass before you heard it again but much, MUCH louder than before.
TAP. TAP. TAP
You again paused as the sounds came from literally right behind you....You debated whether or not to turn around-
T A P. T A P. T A P.
The increasingly amount of strength used to force those taps increased in strength startling you. An intense gaze made you shiver. There's been a few incidents here. So there was a strict rule that any non science or security staff was told to do at all times. Under absolutely no circumstances were you to engage with the mermaids. Whatever you do...But-
Curiousity finally got the better of you as you looked out of the cell you were cleaning and blinked as you found out the source of the tapping. A young mermaid who couldn't have been older than fifteen or sixteen years old was staring at you from the other tank directly across the hall. Her big pink eyes stared at you with curiosity and her flowing hair was tied back in a side ponytail. But what caught your attention the beautiful tail she had. A pink shirt adorned her torso but from her waist down was a long pale pink fish tail with darker magenta stripes and a black circle near the end.
She gazed at you curiously and it was then that you recognized her. Ah. That was the young mermaid who was recovered after being washed up on the beach with one other. They didn't look to be in bad shape but your bosses wanted to keep them here for at least a month for supervision before releasing them back into the ocean. You thought one of the scientist nicknamed her 'Pink Bands' because of the pink stripes she adorned.
You both continued to stare at one another before you tilted your head sideways and she mimicked you. You tilted it the other way and she mimicked you again following your movements. ..To test it out you continued wiping the window clean. She blinked curiously before looking at her hand and then pressing it against the glass to start dragging her hand across it in similar motions to yours. The sight was so innocent it made you giggle, shaking your head you continued to work finishing up wiping the tank window down before gazing out the window one last time and waving to the young mermaid. She blinked before raising her hand back and waving a back as you left.