One month previous:

The ringing of Leeteuk's phone woke him from his slumber.  Disoriented he rolled over and glanced at the clock on his night stand.  3:17, who could be calling at this hour?  He looked over at his cell, no, that wasn't it.  Ugh, it was his work phone.  Weather?  Natural disaster?  Wildlife emergency?  He had to prepare himself for anything being the head of the nature reservation.  He picked up the phone and answered with a groggy "Hello?"

"Doc... Doc, you gotta help out here!  It's awful..."  The man on the phone sounded drunken and panicked, some words slurred, others short and staccato.

Leeteuk's mind was cloudy with sleep and still not fully conscious, "What?  Where?"

"Out on Parang Lake... "  The man's speech got faster and louder as his panic increased, "Harpoons and a net... Screaming... They screamed Doc!  Did you know they could scream?  And so much blood!  Their blood was on the water!"

"Wait!  Slow down!"  Leeteuk couldn't let this drunken man's emotions play with his objectivity, "Explain to me what happened out there."

The man took a deep breath to try to compose his drunken thoughts.  "I have a charter business out on the lake.  People hire the boats out for cruising, fishing, whatever.  These guys called about taking my largest boat out for some night fishing.  In the deep part of the lake fish can't tell if it's night or day, you know?  Anyway, I thought they were some real sport fishermen.  I mean, they had their own equipment - knives, hooks, clubs, nets, lights, harpoons, some radar...  So I drove the boat out to where they said.  They set up their stuff and I really thought not much to what they were doing until I heard the screams.  I... I think they almost sounded... human.  I only glanced out and knew it was wrong, just wrong.  I put my boat on full forward and headed back to the dock.  Threw the money they had paid me up front right back at 'em as they left.  Won't take no blood money.  Been at the bar drinking since then, trying to wash away what I saw."

"But why call me?  Shouldn't you call the police?  Why not notify the rangers in the southern districts?"

"Doc", the man sighed, "I called you because you wrote that book."  *click*  Leeteuk was met with a ringtone and an aching knot in his stomach.  What on Earth am I about to deal with?

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Leeteuk strummed his fingers on the steering wheel, impatiently waiting for the reservation's ranger, Lee Sungmin.  He could see him puttering around the small cabin as lights were and off from one room to another.  What's taking him so long?  We have to get there and find out what happened.  Whatever is left, we have to make sure the public doesn't see it.

Sungmin emerged from the cabin with a large backpack, half-laced boots, and two large steaming cups.  He leaned into the truck and handed the cups to Leeteuk.  "Coffee", he smiled sleepily.  "Sorry it took so long, but I thought we'd need it since you said it would be a long ride."  He tossed the backpack behind him as he buckled himself into the passenger seat.  "You weren't so clear on the phone.  What's the emergency at 3:30 in the morning anyway, rescue or recovery?"

"Recovery", Leeteuk sighed as he reached under his seat.  He pulled out a book and handed it to Sungmin as he started the truck.  "But this isn't anything either of us have dealt with before.  If my hunch is correct, you'll need to read up before we get there."

Sungmin the overhead reading light and looked at the book's title Korea's Mythological Creatures - Facts Behind the Fiction by Park Jungsoo.   He wrinkled up his nose and turned to his boss, who he had thought (up until then) was a perfectly logical man.  "Are you serious hyung?  This isn't the time to joke!  I like my sleep!  My fuzzy pink bunny slippers will have their revenge if you are even pranking me."

The elder shook his head, explained the strange phone call he had received, and then noted, "You'd better concentrate on chapter seven."

Sungmin flipped the pages to the requested chapter.  "Merpeople?!?", the wide-eyed blond yelped a little too loudly.  "I think I really ought to have made some stronger coffee", he pouted as he started to read.

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Two hours later, the pair arrived at Parang Lake.  Dawn was a good hour away.  Hopefully no one had found what they were looking for.  Sungmin sat atop the truck, carefully scanning the area and pointing the searchlight at the lake.  "Looks like there could be something a quarter way around the lake."  He hopped back into Leeteuk's truck.

Leeteuk gasped at the sight then quickly cast his eyes downward.  This was a massacre, plan and simple.  "Sungmin, get your water gear on and come help me with the stretcher."  Never hearing his hyung's voice so full of defeat, he ran out by his side - only to be met with a horror like he had never seen before.

"Hyung, a family, how could they kill a family?", Sungmin choked the words out as the two rangers untangled three merpeople's bodies from fishing nets.  Through the beam of the searchlight, they could see the fatal injuries to the mother, father, and small merboy.  Just like the boat captain had said, the bodies sustained blunt force trauma from clubs, cuts from knives, gouges from hooks.  But it was the impaling from the harpoons that caused bile to rise in Sungmin's throat.  He coughed and covered his mouth to keep from retching.

"Hold on there Min, we don't have time for that now.  We have to clean up as much as possible so as not to raise suspicion with the public.  We'll get the bodies back to the reservation and do thorough research there."  As Leeteuk closed the back door of the truck he turned his head to the side.  "Did you hear that?!?", he whispered.  The younger shook his head.  "There, over there!"  A slight splashing sound.  Something was on the surface of the lake closer the the shore.  "Turn the searchlight two clicks south." 

Leeteuk ran over as the light was adjusted.  He looked down at the young merman who must had cut free of the fishing net.  His body lay half in/ half out of the water.  What a shame to escape the net, only to end up on the shore.  It must have been his tail that they had heard being hit by the waves of the lake.  He signalled and Min came forward with the stretcher for the fourth victim.

*cough*

"I told you Min, please, you can't go puking right now"

"Th-that wasn't me, hyung."

Both lit up with excitement as they lifted the merman onto the stretcher.  "He has a pulse!  It's faint, but there.  Quick, let's secure him in the back.  Cover him with some warm, damp towels.  Shin Donghee's clinic is only a few minutes away.  We can get IVs for blood and fluid.  Stay with him for when he regains consciousness."

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Donghae  was slowly awakening and knew something didn't feel right.  Yes, he was well aware of the injury to his tail.  But he was expecting to wake up in the water or on the shore.  Here was cold - a cold, metal cave - and it was moving.  He called out.  It was useless really, he knew his family was dead.  Little brother, father, mother, everyone - hunted down by humans.  And they had him now didn't they?  Yes, one emerged from the front of the cave.  Donghae bared his teeth and hissed at the human.  What confused him was that he sensed no malice from the approaching human, only worry and concern.  Why?

He tried to move and grimaced in pain.  Slipping out of consciousness he knew it wasn't the physical injury that hurt the most.  The worst pain was the loss of his family, being the last of his kind, being totally alone.

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Howdy fantabulous readers!

Oh, that was so sad!  Well...it has to get worse before it can get better, right?

Next:  We'll find out how Kyuhyun's confession goes (does it?), see a recovering Donghae getting used to the human world, and meet a clumsy Yesung ;)

<3 A big thank you to my subscribers who have helped me get off my keister! <3

Promise -the next chappy will NOT take this long!

Comments are like candy in a trick-or-treat bag!!!