Playing Koi (2) (Patreon)

For a second nothing happened—just a coolness on her toe, then her sock—then it hit.

Something yanked her forward. Suddenly she was falling, tumbling through the air from an impossible height.

Jemma screamed; her voice swept away from her in the rush of wind. Huge wooden walls blurred past her on one side, with only empty air on the other. I'm going too fast! I'm gonna die! The ground came rushing up to meet her, a polished green mirror reflecting the light of the sun.

Then she struck it and passed right through. She tumbled down what felt like at least twenty feet, slowing rapidly. Somehow, she never hit bottom, but came to a stop in open water.

She kicked out with both legs, struggling to find the bottom—or she tried, anyway. Her legs felt much larger than she remembered, a solid mass of muscle that refused to separate. All her struggling produced was a few furtive twitches from her new fins, barely moving her in the water.

Her fins.

Jemma had more experience with transformation than most. She was past the stage of disbelief, then denial. Many humans couldn't even last through a single one without losing their grip on reality.

That wouldn't happen to her. She looked slowly down, taking in the full gravity of her transformation. It's okay, I was expecting this. I knew I would turn into a fish.

A mermaid, to be precise. But shouldn't shrinking down into an aquarium make her feel small? This was the opposite—she felt huge, her tail trailing behind her through the water to make her at least... twelve feet as she saw distance. Her scales were almost entirely stark white, blending into bare skin. But occasional splotches of orange gave her slight accents.

It would be a little less awful if her breasts weren't just floating there in the water, along with the rest of her. None of her clothing had joined her here. No keys, no phone, nothing. What happened to them?

"You jumped in!" someone called—a girl, sounding a little out of breath. Jemma turned and found her four tiny fins responded automatically to her desire, rotating her in the water. Something rippled up her back at that same moment, albeit mostly along her tail—a single large fin, all the way to her shoulders.

Jemma floated about halfway up a vast space, maybe fifty feet high. The bottom was all little rocks, along with the stalks of huge lily pads and other freshwater plants, sheltering this pond from above. 

The speaker emerged from the shadowy gloom underneath. First, she was visible only for the yellow splotches on her black tail. Then she zipped up close and floated into the sunlight. "I told you to leave! You were supposed to get help!"

The fish finally reached her, or close. She wasn't willing to get within reach, instead floating what looked like about five feet away. No wonder, considering she was about half Jemma's size. Her tail was much thinner by comparison. If Jemma got a hold on her, she wouldn't be getting free. 

Jemma shrugged, wrapping one arm around her chest. She didn't bother with the lower body—if this fish didn't cover it, she wouldn't either. She wasn't freshly transformed anymore. "I'm the help," she muttered, trying to straighten her tail beneath her. It shifted to one side, then the other, moving with unseen currents in the water.

The yellow and black fish grew bolder as the seconds passed. She circled once around, her tail darting rapidly through the water. "You're bigger than most fish in here. But you're still a fish, not a person. No more phone, no more clothes, nothing." She stuck out her hand. "I'm Brady."

She took the offered hand, face still bright red. "Where did you get that... top?" she asked, her tiny fins flicking in agitation. But the less she thought about her position, the easier she held still in the water. 

For most people, this strange situation would be so incomprehensible that no rational action was possible. Not so much for her, though. Jemma knew magic, and she knew transformation. She was still living it. New body knows how it works, it's my human expectations that get in the way.

She'd learned the same thing with Kisten over and over again. Magic moved the mind as well as the body. "I'm Jemma."

Brady released her hand almost instantly. "Just so we're clear on this. You find a cursed fish tank filled with trapped people, it changes you into a fish, and you're worried about being naked?"

Jemma nodded once. "Currently. Besides, that's not quite right. I already knew the cursed aquarium was here. I followed someone, so I could get her out."

The fish groaned, zipping away from her through the water. "That's not how this works. Nobody ever leaves."

She reappeared beside her a few seconds later, holding something in both hands—a length of green leaves, just like the ones she was wearing. "This is the best we've got. Have to switch it out every few days. But you're big enough that you might care. Most don't."

Jemma took the offered plant, then wrapped it around herself. It wasn't so bad if she wrapped it around her neck, then curved it upward from the other side. Not as supportive as real clothing, but she was also floating through the water now."

Finally, she could let her arms free. "How long have you been here, Brady?"

The other fish froze, attention suddenly fixed on the floor in front of her. "I don't know. Decades, I think. You don't get older here, but time gets..." She drifted slowly downward, back to the shadows where she'd come from. "The ones born here are different, though. They grow up. That's how you can tell who belongs here."

"Uh..." Jemma still wasn't sure exactly how she was supposed to swim with her modified body. But she was perfectly capable of turning her head down and following Brady.

Part of her still recoiled in fear, suspended in the air what felt like forty feet over a rocky floor with nothing to catch her. But Jemma was swimming and didn't need anything to catch her. She didn't fall, only drifted steadily down. "Decades? Are you sure?"

The fish seemed to expect her to follow. Good thing her scales were so bright, because they gave Jemma something to watch as she traveled into the gloom. "Pretty sure. Weren't you watching me yesterday? I thought I saw you... but humans are so big, so slow."

There in the darkness of the pond was an opening, blended perfectly into the rocks on either side. Brady floated over it, just long enough for Jemma to follow her down.

The pipe was clearly designed for someone her size, not Jemma's. She could fit, but not with the room to turn around or change direction once she entered. Jemma caught the edge with both hands, holding herself above it. A stiff current pulled constantly down, threatening to drag her with it if she got too close. "Are you sure this is big enough for me?"

She nodded. "This side, sure. Might have a problem swimming up against the current. Don't have much choice if you lost a friend in here—nobody lives up there. It's too close to where humans can reach."

Her eyes struggled to focus, squinting down into the blackness. There was no light, no sign of an opening on the other side. Brady wouldn't bait me into getting stuck, would she?

The fish did seem upset with her—but probably not enough to try and get her killed.

She shrugged, then shoved herself forward. The sides remained exactly the same distance apart, so close they brushed her shoulders every few seconds. Her own body obscured most of the sunlight that might have trickled in through the tunnel, leaving her in total darkness.

"You know the aquarium only got put in a few weeks ago, right? My girlfriend and I used to come to the movies at this mall all the time. One minute it was ugly corporate art, then it was empty, then..."

Then apparently it grew a curse and started sucking humans into it. And her girlfriend noticed before she did, because Kisten actually cared about snatching a source of magic for herself. If Jemma didn't already know what she was looking for, she might have walked past it without ever noticing there were almost-human things living inside. Maybe she already had.

Talking distracted her from the oppressive darkness. But so long as she was still moving down and the pipes didn't get any smaller, she wouldn't get too claustrophobic. Even though her tail smacked into the walls more than once, a little more forcefully as the trip got longer.

The pipe was at once cheap PCB and an immovable, irresistible barrier. 

Then came relief. A distant flash of color appeared from far below, just a faint blue glow at first. It got wider and longer as she approached the end of the pipe, and her freedom. 

Then she was out, spinning awkwardly through the water with the same lack of coordination as before, only accelerated to great speed.

This was another tank, though it must be directly behind the escalator. Deep blue lights illuminated what was probably meant to simulate a deep-sea environment, with strange coral underneath, and graphics on the back of some frightening undersea predators. Good thing for her that there were no real anglerfish in a place like this—she wouldn’t even make for one bite from something so huge.

There were several other fish in the tank, though all of them scattered as Jemma appeared. They zipped off in either direction—some further into the dark, while others swam towards the light. 

Except two. Brady lingered near the pipe, without any apparent fear. The same couldn't be said for the little fish next to her, the guppy she had briefly dragged out a cave earlier.

Up close, the resemblance was even more obvious. Jemma smelled it as much as she saw it, an invisible signature of two family members. Maybe sisters, though from the age difference...

"This is my daughter," Brady continued, as though there had been no interruption. "So yeah, I'm sure about how long. At least..." She turned to one side. "How old are you, sweetie?"

"Eleven."

"Twelve years," Brady finished. "At least. Maybe more. It's harder to keep track the longer you're in here. Time is confusing. Not all the company is pleasant. Nicole, say hi to Jemma."

"Hi," Nicole whispered, flicking nervously to either side in front of her. "You're not going to eat me, are you?"

Jemma laughed nervously. "Does that happen down here? People actually..."

Mother and daughter shared a humorless look.

Jemma needed no more confirmation. "I'm not going to hurt anyone," she said flatly. "I'm here to rescue someone important to me. And maybe everyone else, if I can figure out how." She glanced to either side. Inside the tank, her perception of scale became stretched and confusing. Only the section of fake ocean meant to be the deep sea remained clear.

Was that an effect of the light, or something more magical?

"Rescue," Nicole repeated. Her words didn't sound disbelieving, just confused. "From where?"

Brady patted her on the shoulder, then released her grip on the girl's wrist. She darted away into the tank, though she didn't flee into a neighboring tank the way other fish did. She mostly just tried to get behind Jemma.

"They're all like that, by the way. The fish born in here—they have a hard time understanding things should be any different. Most of them would probably refuse if you tried to help them out."

She stared down at her hands, clenching both into fists. She didn't seem to notice Jemma's approach, not until she already had one hand on her wrist. "I'm trying to find a girl," she said. "I don't know what kind of fish she is; I don't know how long she's been in here. But I can't think about rescuing anyone until I do. Can you help me?"

Brady shrugged weakly. "Maybe, maybe not. You haven't told me anything about her yet. Your... girlfriend? What was her name?"

"Kisten," she answered, without hesitation. "But she probably didn't introduce herself that way. She's... mute. Can't talk, I mean. And she doesn't really like to wear much. But I guess that doesn't matter down here. She'd fit right in."

A dozen little fish clustered near the ground, gradually peeking out from the corals. They were all smaller than Jemma—most were even tinier than Brady. She wasn't big enough to eat a creature this size—though imagining someone as smart as a human being willing to try strained credulity.

But so far as their actual sizes went, it wouldn't be completely impossible.

"Girl who couldn't talk," Brady said. "Like a goldfish? Bright orange hair, freckles?"

Jemma surged forward, resting one hand on the fish's shoulders. The size difference between them made her feel a little like she was holding a child, though Nicole's proportions were entirely mature. "You have to tell me! Where is she?"

"Goldfish... all live in the same tank, at least when no one is using one." She gestured up the line of tanks, out of the escalator’s shadow and directly into public view. "All the way to the jewelry store."

Jemma nodded once, releasing the squirming fish. "Okay, but... what does 'using' them mean?"

Brady flicked her tail towards Nicole, swimming closer to Jemma as she whispered. "Exactly what you think it does. They grow fast, they're not big, and they can't even talk. None of them do. I'll admit, I haven't been carrying on with my research much since... Nicole. I was distracted with trying to survive and teaching her everything she would need for her life when we finally escaped."

Jemma nodded weakly. Horror contracted on her face, melting through disgust and over to grim determination. The mermaids around her had as much in common with the animals they looked like as with humans, then. And her girlfriend was stuck in the middle of it. What kind of strange bending and warping could time go through in a day? One day since Kisten went missing, maybe months stuck in this tank without support.

"Anything else I should know about?" she asked, dreading the answer she might get. "Anywhere I should avoid? Or... rules I shouldn't break?"

Bready looked away from her. "More rules than I can think of. However this place looks from the outside, in here it's a world. Mostly it's the biggest fish who decide. Lucky you Jemma, you're about as big as fish get. Only a few are as big as you. The bala sharks, the octopus... you don't want to meet any of them."

"Great. Maybe I'll see you again. Stay safe, Brady. Take good care of Nicole." There was no time left for deliberation—she had to move. 

Jemma hadn't risked her own life and freedom to a cursed fish tank only to find her girlfriend got eaten by a bigger fish.

She wasn't nearly as coordinated as she would've liked. Her tail moved wildly, and her path was more of an arc than a line at first. 

But the longer she swam, the more confident she became, and the fewer times she banged up against the glass.

She passed through one artificial environment, then another. The lights between each one disoriented and blinded her, but she didn't stop to look. Sometimes the fish swimming there fled in fear, other times they shouted at her, or chased for a short time. 

Jemma ignored them all. She kept near the top of the tank, where her large backfin occasionally broke the surface and the mood lighting shone down from above. There was no decoration up there, and thus very few fish. It wasn't the locals she needed to see, but the view into the mall.

Her eyes refused to focus very well through the mirrored surface. What she saw beyond was so huge that she could barely even comprehend it—there a restroom sign, there a group of teenagers gathered around their phones. If they were even looking at the tank, their attention never lingered on it for long. She was just another part of the background to them.

Maybe she would need to get someone's attention in time. If so, she would need to find a safer way than Brady's. Yelling didn't work, but there might be other ways to communicate through the glass. Assuming that anyone who could see through magic ever got close enough to look.

Kisten would know. Her girlfriend was sometimes insane, but she usually had a plan. Maybe the two of them working together could actually carry it out. 

More than once the tank forked away from her, with passages trailing into some of the stores. Some of these were too small for her to access, even smaller versions of the tube that took her down from the second-story pond. But none of those mattered to her, not until she finally found the section devoted to the mall's jewelry store. 

There was no mistaking the vibrant glass displays visible outside her world, with attractive people showing off their rings and other expensive things. She had very little personal experience with any of the items here—what money her and Kisten had always went towards new adventures.

She slowed as she approached the junction traveling into the store, but not out of concern for its size this time. The opening was plenty big enough for her, that wasn't the issue...

But from Brady's description, she expected some horror waiting outside. Other fish would be coming and going, dragging off silently screaming goldfish to whatever purposes they desired. Maybe some other group would have gathered here to capitalize on their suffering, controlling access for some fishy currency.

Instead, she found the area entirely deserted. Not a single fish floated nearby, and what fish she did see remained in the other tanks on either side. They seemed almost afraid. What else could they be, with the way they darted constantly back and forth, never remaining in the open water for long. They weren't looking at her.

As Jemma got closer, her fins lifted involuntarily, twitching towards the opening. A steady flow of water moved along the ground, jostling her unruly hair. She felt its touch strongest not with any limb but stirring inside her chest.

Energy passed through her; the gentle pressure of magic involved in some spell. She rarely felt anything like it in her daily life, yet it was utterly impossible to ignore. She couldn't have her whole life rewritten without the feeling sticking in her mind.

As she approached the entrance, the vague feeling of magic settled into a visual manifestation, dark water swirling and sparking across the entrance. It moved of its own accord, occasionally flashing with energy. They lanced past her harmlessly, leaving the water charged and energetic.

There were subtle currents in the spell, playing over her skin with slight variations in sensation. With practiced discipline, she could probably learn to read a spell this way, if only she knew what the different feelings meant.

Jemma never had the time to learn, no matter how many times Kisten insisted. Why should she bother, when her life was already perfect?

Whatever this magic was, it frightened the watching fish enough that they didn't want to get anywhere near it. There were no corpses littering the ground, so that was probably a good sign—but maybe the little eyes watching her from either side were ravenous opportunists. She'd make for quite a feast if she died to some strange new magic here.

"That wasn't there before," Brady said, trailing through the water behind her. Her daughter was nowhere to be seen, though that didn't mean she wasn't following too. "This is... so different."

"It's magic." She reached one hand towards it, then flicked her fin back at the last moment, drifting back. The last thing she needed was getting pulled into the hostile spell before she was ready for it. Not that she had much in the way of defenses, but she could at least be prepared.

"My girlfriend is in there," she whispered, eyes fixed on the shimmering barrier. "It doesn't matter what this is, I'm getting in."

Brady caught her arm, trying to tug her away from the barrier. With no ground underneath her, even a tiny fish could drag her slowly. "It's not safe! You should find somewhere to wait. That thing can't last forever—when it goes down, then you can go look. She can't be worth risking your life."

Jemma pried her arm free. "If that was true, I wouldn't be here. Don't follow me. You're probably less resistant to this than I am."

She backed away from the opening, bracing her tail against the glass wall. None of the humans passing outside even looked in her direction.

She was just decoration to these people, another part of the scenery. At least here, that might work to her advantage.

Jemma shot forward with all her might.