MARINE PROTECTED RESERVE , COCOS ISLAND NATIONAL PARK, COSTA RICA

Sailing at full speed through the sea I go. My destination, the waters near Cocos Island, an island that was once a den of pirates and treasures. The first of them was the corsair Edward Davis who after attacking a Spanish fortress went to this island to hide part of his treasure. Captain Bennett Graham was the second, after attacking a Spanish fleet. And the most famous of all, the legend of the Treasure of Lima, when the Spaniards attacked the Inca population in Peru they took all the gold, silver, jewelry, relics and a statue of the Virgin Mary made of solid gold. In the ship Mary Dear where the riches travel, its captain William Thompson revealed against the Spaniards and arrived to this island to also hide his treasure, but the curse of the Inca gold reached them and a good part of his crew died, the rest was found by the Spaniards who also had no mercy on them. A supposed survivor of the crew, one John Keating, claimed to have recovered part of the treasure and on his deathbed shared the treasure map. It sounds like a legends, but it is proven that all of them really happened, Cocos Island in a true pirate treasure island. But despite the countless adventurers that the island's treasures have called, nothing has ever been found. It is now a National Park protected by Costa Rica to prevent the island from becoming the next Port Royal. And despite its long history, the island is best known for another story, for it is in this region where the Jurassic Park is also supposed to be located, the place where the children's fantasy of seeing dinosaurs reached the movie theaters.

[https://i.imgur.com/S9kUh4i.jpg]

And that's where I would go, this time bringing a story of fantasy and mermaids to add at the history of this curious island. I had never in my life thought of coming to this island myself, but here I was on my way. It was impossible to believe that a part of Atlantis still existed, let alone in a place so close to my home. Maybe all those pirate stories were related to the mermaids, probably they were the ones who brought the pirates in the first place. For the relics of the Inca empire are mostly unknown, maybe some of what was stolen had magical properties, something that was useful to them. It actually makes sense that they are around here, as being a protected area means that human activity is quite reduced, a good thing for those who don't want to be found.

It was around noon when the motorboat engine stopped for a moment to pause for lunch, as this was my last chance to do so until I surfaced again, and I didn't know when that would be. The food? two hamburger combos with fries, simple to carry and easy to eat. But despite my desire to enjoy it, I didn't feel comfortable, on the other side of the boat is the mermaid, her limbs have grown back, they didn't even leave a mark. She is watching me suspiciously, very aware of my movements, even though I am only eating, every time I move my hand away to take my drink, she moves her arms to cover her face. She is clearly afraid I will hurt her again. Remembering that she hadn't eaten anything and that when I cut off her mermaid tail she lost her second stomach, she must be starving. I gave her the other set of food, the one I was saving for the return trip. She looked at it, but didn't touch it, I'm sure she was thinking it was a trap of mine again to make her suffer. I decided to save myself any more trouble and ordered her to eat, the quickest and simplest way to get her to do it, whether she liked it or not.

"I will not tell you anything about my partners!"

"I will not betray them!"

"You can kill me if you want, it will be useless to you!" she said as she now ate hurriedly, seeming to like it now.

"!!!"

"What a brave girl!"

"Too bad that doesn't matter now, you know perfectly well that you can't hide anything from me now."

"But you can relax, if I wanted you dead I would have done it a long time ago."

"A dead mermaid is something I'd always love to see"

"You're of no use to me anymore really, I only brought you here to show you a couple of things you need to know"

"How dare you turn me into a slave!"

"Me, Levia the descendant of Leviathan!"

"Your actions will not go unpunished!"

"Leviathan!?"

"HA HA HA HA HA!"

"Your descendant of Leviathan!?"

"What a load of crap!"

"HA HA HA HA HA, Levia HAHAHA!"

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"I didn't know mermaids ate clowns!"

"You dare to mock the great Leviathan!"

"His punishment will fall upon you!"

"I killed Leviathan!"

"He died by my hands, impaled by the same big throne of ice that he himself built"

"With his death the Atlantis rivers were poisoned, killing the rest of the mermaids under his command"

"The remaining mermaids had to fight on land, where they were easily destroyed"

"God then served Leviathan's flesh for all in Heaven"

"He never had real offspring, like the rest of the True Dragons"

"Leviathan paid for his sovereignty a long time ago"

"You never noticed his absence?"

"Leviatan dead?"

"No way!"

"Father is still looking for a way to open his chamber"

"Why would he do it if it wasn't for Leviathan?"

"And if Leviathan is alive, why is he letting you live under the ocean?"

"Did he lose his territory in the sky?"

"Did he fall by mistake from Atlantis?"

"Why aren't the mermaids living in the sky right now?"

"It was because of the traitors and invaders!"

"If they had never appeared we would have inherited the earth and the sky too!"

"What do you know about the great war?" Said angrily the fish girl, oblivious to her own ignorant words.

Seeing that talking to her would get me nowhere, I restarted the engine and resumed the trip. It took a while but around two o'clock in the afternoon I finally arrived at the correct coordinates. According to the map it should be just above the mermaids cave. I checked my armor for the last time and put on the air mask, started the watch and the descent meter. I threw the mermaid into the sea and then me. It was my first time diving, so I didn't really know what I was doing, but the mask turned on the HUD, it was the same as an airplane, with this I could easily navigate under the sea.Without wasting time I ordered Levia that she was forbidden to move away from me and guide me to the cave.

A hammerhead shark show up and started swimming close to us. Levia did nothing as her mermaid tail alone is bigger than the shark, she knew he was coming for me. But unfortunately the shark was not an idiot, when he looked at my face he realized who I was and swam away scared.

The immersion was deeper and deeper, the sunlight disappeared more and more, until the darkness that I feared so much enveloped everything. It was a horrible sensation, I could only see the black infinity, only seeing how some numbers were moving to remind me that I was moving. Levia tried to swim in another direction, but her body did not follow her command.

*CRACK*

The gauge on my arm had burst, the water pressure had destroyed it. It was to measure the depth for the divers that I "borrowed" from a store, but we were way past its maximum depth. I was frightened to see it, because it meant that without my armor the same thing might have happened to me.

By surprise, a little light reappeared in the distance. A faint blue light broke through the despair of the deep darkness. I was attracted to it, but I had to be careful, for it was not hope that this light really meant, but the presence of my prey in this hunt. Levia stopped suddenly, still far from the light. The two of us descended to touch the seabed, far away from the cueca. I looked carefully trying to figure out what was really there, there were three other girls, they had golden tridents, but unlike the girl next to me they didn't look very human, they had vaguely the shape of one, but they were much more animal than human. They must have been mermaids of much lower rank.

I asked the now traitor against her will when the sirens closed the entrance. She tried to resist and told me that whenever there was suspicion of human activity nearby, they all went inside to hide until the danger of discovery passed. This information put a smile on my face, they themselves would save me the trouble of searching for them all.

I ordered my hostage to walk over and alert the guards that she saw a human research submarine, then wait near the entrance without telling anyone until I appeared. She when she finished listening swam against her will again and did exactly what I asked her to do. A huge bell rang out over the sea, a single bang was all the alarm, in a little less than two minutes a bunch of mermaids and strange fishes were getting inside the cave. When it seemed that they were all the guards turned off the lights, entered and closed the entrance with huge stone doors. I approached the place and inspected the doors, no doubt they were of Atlantean design. I could not contain my excitement to see how easy everything was turning out to be for the first time in a long time.

I opened the doors myself without any difficulty, the guards were close to Levia, so I could approach and kill them without much difficulty, only the older mermaids could regenerate from non-fatal wounds. My companion screamed in horror when she saw the blood floating around her. I wasted no time and sealed the entrance. Under my order the doors of this place would not be opened again except for those who had my blessing, sealing with this the fate of all who were here.