Two fifty-seven in the morning.
When a woman in a tight leather jacket was facing a bloody scene she had never seen before and panicked to the extreme, at the other end of the city, Rand was lying on his bed and sleeping.
The air was filled with the smell of lawns that had been baked by the heat of the sun, and the humidity was very high. The smart terminal of RAND's mobile phone had sent him a weather forecast, indicating that there would probably be a large thunderstorm this evening, accompanied by heavy rain.
The air-conditioning in the room was fully turned on, and Rand was curled up in the heavy quilt that did not match the weather, his eyeballs quivering rapidly under the closed eyelids.
He had a dream.
He dreamed that he fell into the sea. The sea water was extremely clear blue, the waves were rolled up by the gentle waves, and white flowers bloomed on the sea surface. The huge moon hung like a dead man's face in the dark purple sky. The silver phosphorescence trembled in the ripples of the sea water, and everything around was so cold. When it was extremely cold, Rand had that strange illusion, as if a cold flame was burning in the sea water.
He was sinking slowly, and the bubbles were like mercury beads, jumping out of his mouth and nose playfully. Straws of red ribbons spread out from his body...
Rand felt panic and despair. He fluttered his limbs, but unexpectedly found that his hand was as slender as a child.
As if it had never been sinking, gradually the light of the moon became fainter.
In his blurred vision, the last thing he saw was a shadow with a faint blue light coming from a distance.
There was nothing colder and wetter than the sea that caught him...
"tick..."
"tick..."
"tick..."
…
Rand suddenly opened his eyes.
He sat up panting, and found the temperature in the room so terribly cold that he could even vaguely see white air spreading out from his lips as he exhaled.
Rand had a splitting headache. He groaned vaguely against his forehead, then stood up slowly and glanced at the thermometer of the central air conditioner.
"Oh...what the hell..."
The set temperature has reached the minimum.
Rand cursed in a low voice.
He thinks he must have gotten the numbers wrong before going to sleep, so now he's freezing like a quail on summer nights and having to have a nightmare when it's too cold around him is to have this dream.
The cold water, the steady stream of blood flowing from him (they slowly turned into red ribbons in the water), and those cold hands.
It wasn't a comfortable dream, so Rand always loved heavy quilts, and hand-stitched patchwork was better.
At this moment, the sound of water droplets in his dream was still vaguely hovering in his ears, which made him feel very unbearable.
Did he forget to turn off the tap after getting the air conditioner setting wrong? Rand thought, and then he rubbed his hair in pain, forcibly restraining the desire to fall back on the bed and staggering to the kitchen to try to fix the damn dripping sound.
However, when he saw the scene in the living room clearly, he realized that he did not seem to have made a low-level mistake such as not turning off the tap.
The aquarium, which was too small for his pet monster, seemed to have come to an end—almost palm-wide cracks appeared in the walls of the aquarium, there were still some residual water marks on the four-corner table where the aquarium was placed, and the carpet was It's been a disaster.
And the cast-iron baking pan that gave Lander a great sense of security fell to the ground crookedly, followed by water droplets that fell from the edge of the table.
Of course, that's not the point, the point is—
A strange, squishy creature is crawling on the edge of the aquarium, just about to come out.
"Oh, no no no—"
With a scream, Rand rushed over and pressed it back into the empty aquarium, then roughly picked up the cast-iron grill and set it against the aquarium wall.
The little monster protested with a "chirp", it put its head on the crack, and reluctantly tried to continue to squeeze out.
It wasn't until this time that Rand recovered from that drowsy hazy state.
He couldn't believe such a tragedy happened in reality - his aquarium leaked at such a late midnight!
Rand couldn't help but look at the crack. Its edge was not smooth, and there were some white bits on the edge of the crack.
Rand really didn't want to believe it, but he had to admit that the crack looked as if it had been slashed from the inside out by the claws of something. Thinking of this, Rand's face was blue and he fixed his eyes on Munster. On the two new little claws (or fins?), at the tips of the pale blue spines, those little hook-like claws...
No matter how you look at it, it doesn't look like an organ that can do such a "big project".
Rand rubbed his hair again, trying to clear his mind. He thinks he must be crazy to think that this limp gadget can use its little toy-like claws to dig a hole in the acrylic aquarium—if Rand remembers correctly, The mechanical strength of acrylic is ten times that of glass? And the strength of glass is...
Oh no no no... Rand shuddered, realizing that he had once again fallen into that drowsy state of distraction, and he pulled himself together and decided to show the damn thing. the aquarium, but to solve the mess in front of you first.
First up is Munster. Rand looked at its streamlined body and the skin that looked a little slick because of its too dense scales, and thought that it should theoretically be an aquatic creature, or some kind of amphibian. All in all, water should be pretty important to him—even in the empty aquarium, Munster still looks alive with energy that drives Rand mad.
Its two tentacles protruded from the crack and dangled in the air.
Rand immediately felt the muscles in his cheek spasm involuntarily.
He looked around the kitchen behind him, trying to find a replacement for the aquarium, but it didn't seem easy to him soon after. Munster's size made it unlikely that he would continue to live in a salad bowl anyway.
In the end, Rand set his sights on the sink—if that's the case, he might just be able to squeeze the Munster in, and the cast-iron griddle could still function as a lid over the sink.
Thinking of this, Rand loosened the pan.
After taking a few deep breaths for mental construction, he held his breath and reached into the aquarium, trying to get Munster out.
Munster didn't feel as disgusting as Rand felt before. Its skin was moist, with a kind of icy cold and slippery unique to aquatic creatures, but under that slippery skin, its muscles were unusually strong and smooth. Tight. It felt like something like a cold, slippery solid rubber stick, which, of course, meant it was a lot heavier than Rand had guessed.
Rand unconsciously hugged Munster slightly to his chest as he took it out of the aquarium, and that's when the problem happened.
Munster instantly hooked the pajamas on Rand's chest with his two fat and short fins. Its strength was incredible, and its movements were more dexterous - a few seconds later, it had already fluttered along Rand's chest on its own. onto his shoulder, and then slipped down Rand's back.
"Oh, God!"
Rand yelped softly at the slight sting of its tiny little claws as it slid through the pajamas on his back. Then he turned quickly and tried to catch Munster, but Munster had already slid down the hallway towards Rand's open bedroom, supported by his strong pectoral fins.
"Stop, no, stop, that's not where you should be."
Rand followed in astonishment, all his hard work... the end result was that he ended up stroking Munster's slippery tail - and by this time Munster had slipped straight into his bed end.
…
Rand stood by his bed in despair, and for the first time began to curse Caroline for her good taste in furniture. The bed is really comfortable and spacious, and its four side panels covered in black calfskin give it an elegant look.
However, the small distance of less than thirty centimeters between the bottom of the bed and the ground put Rand in great trouble at this time.
He fell down and reluctantly tucked his arms and most of his shoulders under the bed in an attempt to catch the little bastard, but the latter had already slipped to the other side of the bed by this time.
And when Rand got up out of breath and moved to the other side of the bed, the little monster naturally crawled in the opposite direction.
Rand never imagined that one day he would experience total helplessness against a goddamn amphibian (or whatever).
Moreover, he was very tired, sleepy and tired. The air conditioner that was too cold before brought throbbing and painful temples.
Rand was about to collapse.
He lay there stupidly, face to the ground, looking at Munster in the narrow gap.
The guy was propping himself up on his pectoral fins, staring at Rand motionless, the tentacles on his head erect from tension.
"Hey, come out."
Rand spoke to it coldly, in frustration.
"Haw...haw..."
He wasn't expecting a response from an animal, but he was surprised to hear Munster's series of mutterings from under the bed.
"I said, come out! I don't care what the hell you are, but I won't let you stay under my bed, you know? Come out!"
Rand took a deep breath and spoke to it. Even he himself thought he was desperately stupid at this moment - for God's sake, what was he doing? Lying on the floor and talking to a little monster
"Haw? Haw... Haw..."
Munster continued to make a series of muffled sounds of unknown meaning.
It was almost as if someone had mixed potassium chlorate and toner in his head - Rand finally jumped out of control.
He tore all the sheets and bedding to the ground and lifted the mattress. Without the bed to hold him back, this time he finally caught Munster.
but…
Rand frowned at the "victory" in his hand.
Munster was still trying to break free from Rand's hands by wiggling his tail as before, but Rand could clearly realize that his strength was much smaller than when he just climbed out of the aquarium.
More interesting is its skin.
The slime was dry (and, of course, a large part of it was on Rand's carpet), and Munster felt loose and dry to the touch, and the fine scales even seemed a little brittle.
"Wait a moment… "
Rand narrowed his eyes, examining Munster.
"So, you… you're running out of water! Damn!"
After reacting, Rand jumped up.